How much does one tip their monkey barber?

I was wondering to myself today why there are no monkey barbers. I mean some of them monkeys are pretty smart. You're trying to tell me a chimp couldn't be trained to cut hair? I'm sure it could be done. I mean, you'd have to pay to train them, but you have to do that with any hairstylist. Sure, training the monkeys would cost more, but after that initial expense, a monkey barber salon would pay for itself. Not like you have to pay them or anything. Plus people would be sure to tip them generously, which you could then keep for yourself...who wouldn't tip an adorable monkey barber? I guess you'd have to feed them too, but how much could a monkey possibly cost to feed? And they can just sleep right in the salon. Man, I'm such a genius...I can't believe no one has ever thought of this before. People will be lining up for miles to get a monkey haircut, after all what a novelty it would be. I'm going to be so rich.

Harriet: 1830-2006

I know I haven't posted anything in over a week; I've been pretty miserable lately in fact and really haven't felt like it. At any rate, the last post solicited enough response to keep things busy. Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with an update on how things are.

Anyways, I did just want to mention a very sad event, that is the passing of Harriet the Tortoise on Friday at the age of 176. I wrote about her a few months back and sadly we have to mourn her passing today. I'll raise a cup of Hibiscus (her favourite snack) tea to her memory and I hope you all will as well.






















Rest in peace, Harriet.

This might be the longest post ever

Laid up at home right now, my neck is in excruciating pain right now. I could get to sleep last night, that may have contributed. It hurts so bloody much, I can't even turn my head. Oh well, not like I'd have had any plans anyway.

So in my last post I made reference to a young lady that I was awaiting a call for. We had some very tentative plans for Wednesday night. Would anyone like to guess what happened? Nevermind, I'll fill you in. Be patient, I might go on a rant here.

Round the end of April, I went out with a friend of mine to this bar. I wrote about it here. So this girl that I met that night (one of my friend's friends) seemed pretty friendly with me. Nothing too overt, but she was nice and chatty, inquiring about talking to me in the future sometime. So we finally connect over the old MSN and get to chatting. We exchange phone numbers. So far, so good. On Monday, I give her a call just to say hi. She's at work so she couldn't really talk, but tells me that she'll give me a call later that night about maybe doing something on Wednesday night. Please note that she is the one who brought up 'hanging out' in the course of this brief conversation. I wait for a call all that night, it doesn't come. I do get a text message in the wee hours. She apologizes for not calling, says she'll call tomorrow and wishes me a good night. No worries, maybe she got busy or something. She doesn't call the next day. Or the next. Needless to say, she never called at all. No matter whether I look at things from a negative perspective or a positive one (which I did here) the end result is always the same: people love to treat me like shit.

Now let me get something straight here. This wasn't one of those "Yeah, maybe I'll call you sometime" things. I'm not an idiot, I know that means "I'll likely never call you". She's the one who suggested the getting together and she's the one who said "I will call you tomorrow". Yet she doesn't call. This is so bloody typical, this is how it always has been and I don't know if it's ever going to change. Quite frankly, I'm getting sick of it. I'm sick of people (almost exclusively women) treating me like a total piece of shit. If I say to someone "I will call you tomorrow", guess what? I'll call them tomorrow. It's that simple.

Now I know sometimes you don't want to talk to someone or whatever. In that case, being as tactful as possible, let them down. Don't give any false hope that you'll actually call. Give the "Yeah, I'll call you sometime" or whatever. If you want to be brutally honest and say that you're not interested, fine. That's hell of a lot better than lying to someone. But don't think that this only applies to relationship-type situations. It doesn't.

You see, there are two situations in which you need to get back to someone. Firstly, if you promise them that you will or secondly, if they're anything of a friend (indeed anyone short of someone you even remotely like) and they ask you to get back to them. If some weirdo you meet through a friend gets a hold of your email address and implores you to get back to him, of course you're not going to respond. But if a friend / acquaintance / family member / co-worker / whatever leaves you a voice message or sends you an email and says "Hey, get back to me", you do so. That is if you have any sense of decency.

Let me give you another example. There's a person that I had sort of lost contact, through no fault of my own. We weren't on speaking terms for a while, but began exchanging friendly emails not too long ago. A little while ago, I sent this person a nice birthday card in fact. They sent me a very brief 'thank you' email, with the apology that it was so short and that they'd write me when they had time. Several weeks pass and nothing. Okay, no worries. I'll send them one. So I write an email, talk about what I've been up to, what's going on in my life etc. Nothing earth shattering. At the end of it, I explicitly state "Well, let me know what's going on with you, how you've been, etc". I wait several weeks and get NO REPLY. So what do I do? I get mad. Normally, I wouldn't have but this person has done something like this to me before. I send an angry email. No need to get into the specifics of it, but it wasn't altogether pleasant. I certainly didn't use any foul language however and I actually was apologetic at the end of the email for being so angry, just stating that I was a bit hurt.

This time I get a response.

The recipient wasn't thrilled by the email, stating that they've been very busy of late and how angry they were at my email. Of course this leads me to feel very bad, I write a lengthy email apologizing for my childishness, begging forgiveness and all that. I legitimately felt bad. I felt as though I had made a mistake and got angry at someone when they didn't deserve it. My response to that was a thanks for 'semi-explaining myself' and letting me know that they still weren't happy with the situation. Haven't heard from this person since and I felt really bad about the whole thing. But not anymore.

You see, I've come to realize something. I was 100% right and they 100% wrong. There really is no excuse for not getting back to me, short of being hospitalized or incarcerated. None. Let me cover all other bases here.

1. "I've been busy". Unless you are the President of the United States, I don't buy this one. And I bet even he gets back to his friends when they call or write. Everyone has been busy at some point, with school or work or any number of concerns. But my God, it takes literally two minutes to call someone or email them, even if it's to say "Hey, I'm really busy with a lot of things right now". Not finding two minutes to call someone back? Not acceptable. I've been busy in the past and I've still found time to always respond to people, even if it's a late response. Better late than never. Which leads me to:

2. "I forgot". Similarly, not an excuse. We all forget things, Lord knows I do. But short of suffering from dementia, this doesn't fly. If I forget to get back to someone, what do I do? I get back to them when I do remember and apologize for forgetting. If your memory is so bad that it totally escapes your mind, maybe you need to get that checked out.

3. "I fell asleep and forgot to call". Happened to me plenty of times. See the previous two. Call when you wake up or the next day.

4. "I've suddenly decided I don't want anything to ever do with you anymore". Well, if you're a friend or acquaintance, I should hope you're a decent enough person to let the other person know that you've come to this realization. If they've asked you to respond, do so. It doesn't have to be a good response, but if you have any manners, you'll respond with something. In the case of the 'I'll call you tomorrow' the same thing applies. Promising you'll call someone and not doing so? Not cool at all. Have some fucking decency and at least be good enough to cancel any plans with a crappy excuse.

5. "I got sick or a family member died or something". I know this sounds harsh, but it is still not any excuse. I've been there. I've fallen ill, I've lost loved ones. If I promised to call someone, I'd let them know what happened. Sure it wouldn't be priority number one, but I wouldn't forget to talk to them. For me, I'm a pretty understanding person. If there's something wrong, please don't hesitate to let me know. I care, I truly do. Again, short of you being in the hospital or jail, there is no reason not to get back to someone.

I know I've rambled on about this for eons, but it's just something that's been bothering me for a long time. I'm having conversations on the stupid MSN and people leave in the middle of it. Maybe I shouldn't take that personally, but I can tell you for a fact that I would never do that. If I don't want to talk to someone, at least I'll make some excuse and say goodbye. Don't just up and leave in the middle of a conversation. I know it's only a stupid chat program, but it's still not very nice. A quick goodbye is all I ask. If you say that you're going to call me on (x) day, then you do so. If you say you have something planned for the weekend and you'll let me know about it, then you do, even if it is to cancel if you've changed your mind about inviting me. If it's a "we might do something this weekend", fine. But don't be definitive unless you're going to call. And if you're even remotely close to me and I ask you to get back to me, please do so. Even if it is to say that you hate me and never want to talk to me again. It won't make me happy, but it's a hell of a lot better than being ignored. I hate being ignored.

Concerning soccer, er I mean "football"

Is it just me or is soccer (AKA 'football') mind numbingly boring? I mean I'm trying to get into this World Cup thing and watch a few games when I can, but soccer is just so excruciatingly dull. They run around this huge field which seems to be several miles long and nothing ever seems to happen. On the rare instances that the ball actually does come near the goal, there is some excitement, but that only lasts a few seconds at best. If it were up to me, I'd shrink the field by maybe a third and maybe have 8 guys instead of 11. Maybe then some shit would actually happen. But then again, what do I know? I'm just a typical North American who doesn't really 'get it' I suppose. People wonder at how I like baseball so much, seeing as it's somewhat slow moving, but at least shit happens. Oh well. This being said, I am officially pulling for England. Both of my parents are actually of Ukrainian heritage, so I suppose I should be rooting for the Ukraine, but I've always gone for England, seeing as I'm a big Anglophile, so it's not really right to switch sides now.

On another note, is it just me or are all these damned flags on cars during the World Cup sort of silly? I know the reasoning behind it is to show where one's allegiance lies, but can't you just wear a cap or t-shirt to show support for your team? I love the Blue Jays, but I don't have a flag on my car. If I want to let people know I'm a fan, I'll wear a jersey. If the whole flag thing is a display of nationalism, well I guess that's another matter. But if one has a flag of their favourite country during the tournament, why not have a Canadian flag right next to it? How about showing your love for the great country with the high standard of living that you reside in? You know, the one with free health care, great education, free speech, low crime rate and all sorts of other great stuff? I'm not going to say something like "If you like Brazil or wherever so much, go live there" because I know that's not fair to say and beside the point. But if you want to show some national pride, what about the great country you're living in right now? I think I'll design my own flag and fly it on my car, just to mess with people (and show just how absurd the whole thing really is).

So anyways, my weekend was a huge bust, all I did was go to some Christian youth thing on Sunday night that I was invited to by a classmate. I don't know why I went, I suppose I had nothing else to do. I thought I’d maybe meet some people, but that wasn't really the case. It was more of a (terrible) concert than a social gathering. I really only went hoping to meet girls. I know, that's not really nice of me. I spent the whole service / concert checking out the hot singer in the band, but I never got a chance to talk to her. If it were more of a mixer or whatever, I'd consider going again, but please, no more awful Jesus-rock. I just want to meet people (girls specifically), not listen to Christian music. I'm a horrid man, I know.

So that was my lousy weekend. Also my television broke on Saturday. I have to get a new one. Yes, we have other sets in the house, but I don't really like leaving my room if I can help it. On the plus, my mom might be able to get my one for free (!!) which would be nice. Also nice is that I'm going to see legendary soul-pop duo Hall & Oates in August! Yes, they're coming to the Hummingbird Centre downtown. I decided to grab a couple of tickets, even if I don't have anyone to go with just yet. I'm sure I'll find someone before then (I hope). At this moment, I'm actually waiting to hear back from a young lady that I have some tentative plans with tomorrow...fingers crossed, I do hope she calls me back. I wasn't going to say anything for fear I might jinx things, but whatever. She seemed genuinely interested in doing something with me; I just hope all goes well. Man, I hate waiting for a call. Not that I'm dreading the call itself, I can never be sure that I'm going to get it. Please, please, please call....I can't stand the waiting. Truly, the waiting is the hardest part.

Television CAN take my mind off my miserable life

Fudge, I'm still pretty mad and such, but I have cooled down a little bit. This past weekend wasn't really that bad, I suppose. Friday night I went out to see X-Men: The Last Stand with Marty Boy (it was alright, but certainly the least of the three) and on Saturday had dinner and saw The Da Vinci Code with my friend / co-worker Ursula (I've not read the book, but I think the film is almost laughable, predictable and overlong, though Ian McKellan almost saves it). At any rate doing stuff, even if it wasn't anything spectacular, took my mind off my miserable life. Again, I know it's not that bad, but I just feel so lonely sometimes. I really do need a girlfriend. Sigh.

While talking with Marty Boy, the conversation somehow got on the topic of television theme songs. So that got me to thinking on what the best of all-time are. This list is the best I could do off the top of my head, but I think it's pretty good. Here's my top ten, in order. I had about six or seven others that were strongly considered, but didn't quite make it. M*A*S*H didn't make it because it was from the movie first. Other than that, debate and discuss, let me know if you think I forgot anything.

10. Monday Night Football- Are you ready for some football? I sure am, Hank Williams Jr. is and if you're not then you're not welcome at my house on Monday nights.

9. "Those Were The Days" from All In The Family- Yes, neither Carroll O’Connor nor Maureen Stapleton could sing, but the song is so warm and fuzzy that I don't care.

8. The Amazing Spider-Man- A song so cool that it was covered by The Ramones! They even played it when I saw them in concert. Good times.

7. The Andy Griffith Show- Man, that cute little kid in the opening turned into the hack who brought us Willow and How The Grinch Stole Christmas.

6. The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson- I think I wrote about how much I loved this song back on the old blog. I still do! P.S. My mom thinks Craig Ferguson is hot. For real!

5. Mission: Impossible- The song is of course a total classic, but to tell you the truth, I don't think I've ever seen a single episode of the show!

4. Cheers- I really love this song, it's just so comforting. Plus, the guy who sings it sounds sort of like Woody, but it isn't him. I checked.

3. Sesame Street- Ah, I've known the words to this song since I was probably three or four. It might be the first song that I ever learned!

2. The Rockford Files- Mike Post was the king of the instrumental TV theme, with great themes like Magnum P.I. and Quantum Leap. But this is his best.

1. "Woke Up This Morning" from The Sopranos- I think I may have written about this one before too. Anyways, for me nothing beats Tony Soprano cruising down the New Jersey turnpike with a cigar in his mouth, ready to kick some serious ass.

Lovely Duckies!

I was working on another post to follow up to my last one, but I'm only about half way through it. I'm lazy, so instead I'll just post this picture of my two little friends who come to visit in my backyard several times a day to eat the birdseed we have scattered about. I'll throw them bread every once in a while too, if they let me come close. They always come together, out from the little forest behind my house where they make their home. Every single time, she eats first while he stands on guard, just keeping an eye out. Then when she's ready to waddle back, he quickly has a few bites and makes sure to accompany her back to the safety of their nest. It's really very sweet and it must be love. Anyway, here's a picture of my little ducky friends.

Just so f*cking frustrated

Fuck...I mean, fuck I'm just so fucking angry today. Why is my life so fucking empty? I know that things could be a whole lot worse, I have food and clothing and shelter and all that shit, yes. I have my health. But I seriously have nothing to do. I am so bored and so sick of the fact that I have no life and no one to hang out with. Why does everyone else I know seem to have plenty of friends and things to do all the time? Everyone else has a group of friends they hang out with, go out and do things with. I used to have that to an extent, but not anymore. I might go out here and there with various individuals, but that's about it. I don't know how to meet people. Anyone who says it's easy is lying. If I didn't contact people and ask them to go out (those few individuals) I wouldn't ever leave the house. No one ever thinks to give me a call or drop me a line. I think of others, but no one ever seems to think of me. I'm just getting so sick of being ignored by the world.

Understand that I'm not trying to project this anger out in the real world. This is my place to vent. Certainly no one wants to be with someone who is all angry and negative. I'm trying to be as nice and positive as I can with people. I'm a decent fellow; I try and treat people as I would like to be treated myself. I don't think that people are treating me poorly or anything like that. I just hate the fact that no one seems to think of me or wants to be around me. I guess I'm just sick of being ignored, whatever that means. I feel so invisible. I hate the fact that everyone else has friends and things to do and I'm always stuck with nothing to do and nowhere to go.

Sorry if this is rambling and incoherent, but I'm just in a pissed off mood today. I feel so lonesome and instead of making me depressed, it's making me angry. Maybe sexual frustration has something to do with it, I don't know. Maybe I need to get laid. And I really don't want to have to settle like I did before. I'm a nice person, polite, articulate and intelligent, not that bad looking. I love animals and my mother, my personal hygiene is very good, I wear nice clothing and expensive colognes and for what? I could stop showering and start wearing track pants and still get the same effect, which is to say none. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I really am completely objectionable. Maybe it's my image. Maybe I should abandon who I am and just become someone else. People don't seem to like the real me, maybe I should stop being myself and become a complete asshole. Maybe there's no point to treating people well. It doesn't seem to be getting me anywhere.

Fuck, I'm just so god damned pissed off right now. I find it next to impossible to be happy for anyone who has something to do tonight, someone to be with or somewhere to go. I just wish I had a life is all.