Filed under: Uncategorized
Sometimes, I find it difficult to continue to write this blog. I feel myself beginning to shake, my cynicism turn to pessimism, and I wonder if I’ve blurred the line between satirical and bitchy. Whenever my favorite Ginger-kid gives me hell for not posting, I’ve witnessed different excuses bum-rush my lips. I say that I’ve been busy, or that I have not stories; except, that’s not true. A writer never runs out of stories. What is true is that, at times, I don’t trust myself to tell them the way they need telling.
Today, I want to share a family tradition with you. I grew up without religion, but not without spirit. Thanksgiving rolls around and while other families are saying the Lord’s Prayer, my family does it a little bit different. In my family, we share among the table the things we are most thankful for the previous year. It gets a little teary, and often puzzling, but the end result is the same: a cleanse has been done.
Things I am Thankful For
My dreams I have been given an opportunity not many people have had, I get to follow my childhood dream: to be a writer. Other people have to do horribly boring professions, like dentistry and accounting, and that great and all, but I get to write things… Yeah…
The Jeep It doesn’t always run well, and it doesn’t always run, but when it does we are saved hauling groceries home by hand in -30 Celsius. Also, Jeeps make you feel cool.
My friends We may not see each other as much as we should, but the support of some solid bitches has made my life pretty great. I’ve been meeting more and more women who really seem to have it together. Besides, you girls are hot… who doesn’t like hot chicks?
Canada Wow, I’m tempted to bullet list this point. I’m thankful to have been born in a peaceful country, with social programs and job opportunities. I’m thankful that I’m not starving/freezing/broker(er)/married to my cousin at the age of eight/sick/zombified. Yes, maybe our social programs could use a little work, but you know what? They’re a helluva lot better than Africa’s got it. So please stop whining over your triple-grande-soy-latte-thing-that-probably-has-caramel-in-it. I feel so bad for you, what with your opportunity, and peace, and medicine, and education, and gender-equality, and sexual-orientation equality, and all that.
My family Even though grade school days have long past, the pride my parents bring me is still as strong. Little boys and girls across the globe have repeated these words “My mom/dad are __________ (enter adjective here) than yours”. Yeah, well, mine are whatever that adjective is. I’m sure you may disagree with me on that point, as is your right, but if there was a standardized test mine would unstandardize that thing like no tomorrow. Ok, seriously though, I’m so lucky that I have both of my (adjectival) parents in my life, and that they’re healthy and frisky. Yeah, Mom, I called you “frisky”.
My husband My husband is a quiet, modest man. He loves to laugh and never has to practice patience; well, he’s pretty good. Without him, many of my opportunities would have been lost hopes and vacant dreams. I am very blessed by whatever spaghetti-monster made this world to have his love and support. I wish that everyone could know what it feels like to have a partner, a nemesis, and a lover all rolled into one.
So that’s my list today, what’s yours?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 1990, childhood, children, culture, funny, kids, life, love, nostalgia, nostalgic
I grew up, all the way, in the 1990’s. 1991 I was starting my first day of Grade One, and in 1999 I was entering my last year of Junior High School. More often then not, I feel bad for the kids we’ve got nowadays. Their cartoons are mostly animated with CG (“computer graphics” unless that term isn’t being used anymore and they’re just calling it “animation” now), and well, the rap is full of bitches and ho’s.
So with my 26th birthday looming only eight short weeks away, I’m sorta missing the good old days, and the good old 1990’s. Below are things I miss about the 90’s:
Fluorescent Clothing – It was cool and blinding all at once. Seriously, I had this windbreaker that looked as if it were designed by a schizophrenic with a passion for brightness. The only bonus of that was your parents didn’t make you wear those light-reflective strips when you rode your bike at night. There was no need…you are your own source of light.
Screamer is gonna kick some ass
Ghostbuster Toys from McDonald’s – Have you seen the crap they throw in Happy Meals nowadays? Let’s not fool ourselves, creativity and imagination is not exactly something we’ve instilled (on a regular basis to those good parents out there) in our children. So I’m a little shocked at the piece of crap toys that kids are (kind of) playing with. Now we got Ghostbuster shit, and da’shit it was! There was the horn thing you strapped to your handlebars, and rode around the neighbourhood at like 7 am while it screams WEE-YOOOOO WEE-YOOOOOO WEE-YOOOOO” until the day your dad “accidentally” busted it in the garage with his hammer.
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air – With shit-family shows like Full House and Family Matters on TV (by the way, didn’t Family Matters have some younger sister who all of a sudden just disappeared? hmm), The Fresh Prince was the coolest of the cool family shows (which weren’t many). Will Smith was so good at being so bad. And the rappin’ was bitchin’. Seriously though, how did Uncle Phil not suffer a massive coronary?
The Macarena – I was ten when this song came out, and may I ask everyone of you reading my nostalgic remembrances, when was the last time you did the Macarena? Do it, love it, line dance your way back to the 90’s.
Nintendo 64 – You really didn’t need any skills to play the N’64. We got Mario, Mortal Kombat and all that good shit. I always kicked my brother’s ass. Why, you may ask? Well, back in the 1990’s button-mashing was a surefire way to Sub-Zero the shit out of people.
EAT YO CANDY!
ADD – Everyone had ADD. And when I say everyone, I mean any eight-year-old boy who ran around, screaming and acting, well, like an eight-year-old boy. So pretty much everyone was on Ritalin at that time, which I gotta say, didn’t seem to have any real effect on these kids. We had three boys from Grade 2 to Grade 7 who *had* ADD. It was interesting watching them pitch their fits once or twice a year and throw desks and bite people and shit. Yeah, I miss real ADD; not this ADHD shit we’ve got now.
Fruit Snacks – My God we have a lot of fruit snacks back in the 1990’s (which, thinking back on it, probably contributed the the influx of ADD kids). Bright colours and FUN FUN FUN winked at you and if you didn’t just have Soda Licious you would DIE from snack-mortification. Which in turn was used to buy the souls of your classmates. Those kids would do anything for fruit snacks….
There’s like 1,000 things I could compare with the way we do things today, but I think that’s enough for now. The 1990’s knew how to rock it, and nerd it out all at once. Maybe I’m just feeling nostalgic cause the new Super Mario Bros. for the WII is kicking my ass. Let the button mashing commence!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: dark humour, death, humour, lawyers, New Year's Eve, NYE, office humour
Today is the last day of 2010, and I’m working reception at my law firm. Every time the phone rings, I jump with excitement. Who could this be? How thrilling! But, I think the phone has only rang a couple of dozen times, and all the banks and other firms are closing shortly, so the remainder of the day promises to be even quieter than the morning was. This is an actual conversation I had with a lawyer only moments ago:
Lawyer: Hey Tannis! How are you?
Tannis: Fine, fine. How are you doing today?
Lawyer: Good! Wow, it sure is quiet in here today.
Tannis: Yeah, it’s like a morgue, only quieter.
Confused, yet polite, look from Lawyer
Tannis: You know, with all the scratching and cries for help.
Lawyer: *Awkward laughter and hurrying away*
And THAT my friends, is how you make people very, very uncomfortable.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Wow, some people need to chill out. Yesterday’s post pissed some Envision Edmonton people off. Got hate mail, it was great. But I guess you can’t necessarily be a “chilled out” dude if your job is to scan the Internet, hunting for naysayers.
Whatever happened to humble defeat?
Ok, I may have missed some facts, but let’s not fool ourselves here. This is not the Times, or really anything of importance. This blog is the result of an over-abundance of thoughts in my brain. So yes, everyone is entitled to their opinions, including myself.
And the right to opinions is what democracy stands for, isn’t it? Therefore, my opinion is as valid as yours, regardless of if you agree with me or not. I haven’t smashed my TV up because of your commercials, have I?
Let’s summarize what we’ve learned recently:
1. I don’t care what you do with the airport.
2. Your persistence should be noble, but instead has turned to plain out annoying.
3. If I’m going to vote for your candidate, they have got to be able to offer me more than a vote on the airport. You know, something like roads, LRT expansion, more funding for education.
4. THIS IS NOT THE TIMES.
Filed under: Generalizations, Uncategorized | Tags: biggie smalls, drug abuse, humour, public transit, random violence, society
Edmonton Transit has a funny policy about violence. I suppose it makes sense if you think of it in a “greater good for the great number” sense, but still, it isn’t exactly one that inspires confidence. The policy is that if two (or more) people are involved in a physical fight, the driver kicks said aggressors off the bus and drives away, leaving them to battle. I learned about this after hearing of a story from a friend who witnessed one patron smashing another patron’s face into the sidewalk repeatedly over a dispute about whether or not Patron 1 hit Patron 2 in the face with her bag. Luckily for Patron 2, others rushed to her assistance and broke up the fight.
Scary? Yeah.
So needless to say I was a little apprehensive about antagonizing the aggressive cracked-out person on the bus today. I am innocently minding my own business (well texting J about the love-child of George Burns and the Magic School Bus Lady I was currently observing), when she starts to noisily, pull up a wad of phlegm from her throat. She then spits this grossness on the floor of the bus. Biggie Smalls (who is miraculously not dead, and residing in Edmonton, AND taking public transit) speaks up:
“You spit on my shoe,” he says.
Now, personally, I wouldn’t be messing with a 400lb black man who looks like he could crush me without breaking a sweat. But, crackheads aren’t exactly reasonable people, so this one starts shouting at him that “I didn’t spit on your f*cking shoe you f*cking (really bad word). Don’t make me f*ck you up”. Now I don’t think that she would be able to f*ck her john if she had too, that’s how messed up she was. Then again, never mess with someone who has nothing to lose. They are capable of anything.
Live and let live. It seems like a pretty simple motto and since Edmonton has become pretty stab-happy over the last few years, I normally don’t open my mouth to crazy people. Apparently yelling at Biggie isn’t good enough for her, since she decides to turn her attention to me.
“This white girl I’m gonna curb-stomp!” she announces to everyone, meaning me. Why? Maybe she’s related to the love-child. I really don’t know. Normally, I get off the bus a stop before the transit centre and walk the few blocks to school, but not today. After twenty minutes of threats to my personal well-being, I decide to disembark in the safety of others. (Yeah, I’m a pussy. Want to make something of it?) All I need is to get off the bus and have her start smashing my head into the sidewalk while the bus drives off and leaves me. This scenario is running through my head and all I can think of is my mom is going to be so pissed off if I look ugly in wedding pictures.
I guess she forgot about me and Biggie, two absolute strangers made allies by a crazy crackhead. As we disembark, Biggie gets behind me to block the crackhead from attacking me, for whatever delusional purpose. At which point he looks at me, all 400lbs on menacing strength and says “Don’t worry. I wont let her hit you”.
So Mr. Smalls, if you’re reading this, and I hope you are cause you’ve made it into my blog for being purely awesome: Thanks dude. My mom would thank you too.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I just discovered I’m probably a hipster… This makes me too sad to blog.
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My holiday starts on Friday, and Saturday which is the Ceremony of Death (read Small Town Lovin’) for J. After said date there are only a few people I want to see:
a) Mike
b) My brother-in-law Jordan
c) People who work at liquor stores, and
d) The Park Ranger who is going to rescue me from a bear mauling incident.
Please don’t try to break into my house, someone is watching it for me. Besides, I don’t own anything that would be worth your time to steal. Oh, and Travis, if you try and leave C at my house, I swear I will sell him on the black market to be made into stew. Try me.
The Baddest Badass in Hyperspace
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About six years ago I made a decision I’ve regretted for, well, the past six years. I missed Tool’s last concert in Edmonton and I have been kicking my own ass for it, especially since I NEVER thought they’d tour again. And I thought it was even less likely that of all the major cities in Canada to visit they’d choose Edmonton. I was wrong. Tool is coming back in July, and although I don’t have tickets, I have every intention of trying to buy some up until the time the actual show plays. Anyhow, to express my pure excitement over the coming of one of my favorite bands, here’s one of the less-creepy Tool videos about.
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Here’s another Ok Go video for you. Their music might not always be the best, but their videos make up for any inconsistencies. I hope you enjoy this as much as I do, simply cause it’s super cool.
The Lifespan of a Fly 