>>> Text-Heavy
By staff writer E.E. Southerby
Volume 29 – April 27, 2003
Now Playing: “Peacekeeper” by Fleetwood Mac
I have a sneaking suspicion that this week's issue is the best ever. Don't take it from me, though, I'm pretty drunk. Here's what happened:
-I got a new job this week, that I'm really quite excited about. It's with a masonry company. Masonry, as anyone with online access to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary will surely know, means “something constructed of materials used by masons”. Wait, that's not very useful at all. Let's just say I'm moving bricks, and that's pretty much it. It's really, really hard work and I hate it just about as much as I've ever hated anything at all ever. Seems I'd do better working for the people at Merriam-Webster.
-I'm not sure at what point I decided that my life now “sucks the big one”, as they say. It could have been when I was 3 stories up, on teetering scaffolding, completely unprotected, moving 80lbs worth of bricks, perilously close to ending my life. It could have been moments later, when the foreman (who was eating a sandwich at the time) yelled at me to “hurry the fuck up”. Alright, I'm pretty sure it was somewhere around then.
-One annoying thing about moving bricks, besides the chronic back pain and the near-certain asphyxiation from inhaling brick dust, is the way this sort of work ruins clothes. Seriously, it's only been a couple of days and already my jeans look like those worn by people who are always getting escorted out of shopping malls because they're poor. A lot of people make fun of me because I'm working at a construction site while they get to sit in an air-conditioned office “talking” on MSN Instant Messenger and playing Snood all day. Oh yeah? Well, at least I don't have to wear a suit. The dress code at my work is so lax it really doesn't even require me to wear clothes at all, although, given the maturity level of some of the people I work with, it's probably a good idea to at least cover my genital region.
-So this is how far my $12,000 per year pseudo-Ivy League education in Fine Arts (theatre/writing) has gotten me? A shitty job moving bricks for ass dollars an hour and a web site where I can complain about it?
-There's a restaurant in Ottawa that has All-You-Can-Eat Wings (about 25 without vomiting) on Senators game nights. This is actually a pretty good idea, but as you can imagine it's quite popular. I wasn't able to hear the game at all, but I did hear a lot of “is this seat taken?” (Answer: “Yes! I'm sitting in it! Go away!”) Yeah, I'll be going back there real soon.
-Quote of the Moment: In order to get the All-You-Can-Eat Wings (about 25 without vomiting, trust me on this one) you have to wear a bracelet like the ones you get at carnivals to prove you've paid for the bumper cars. According to the man in the seat beside us (his seat was also taken, by the way, by him) “They look like Medic-Alert bracelets. They should say *In case of emergency, give me wings*” Now there's an aspiring comedian. Idiot.
-When I'm not eating all the wings I can (again, about 25 without vomiting), I do watch a lot of hockey. Now, I've never really gotten into hockey before, so I have just one question: Why don't they just start the game in overtime, since that's where every game seems to end up anyway? There was one game that went into the 5th overtime period. Do you have any idea how long it takes to get through 5 overtime periods? At that point, they don't need a time keeper, they need some sort of calendar. You'd think after a game that long nobody would care who won, they'd just be like “well, thank God that's over.” And then the two teams have to play SIX MORE GAMES. There's going to be a year, mark my words, where they'll have to postpone the start of the NHL season because the playoffs from the previous season are still going on.
-Subway ads are getting more insipid. I'm just saying, if my Sandwich Artist smiled that wide while preparing my food and kept repeating “Whatever you say, sir!” like they do in the commercials, I'm pretty sure I'd head for the nearest exit. They're trying to make it look like Subway employees are in some kind of suicide cult, or something. Bring back Jared! He was just annoying, at least he wasn't creepy.
-There are people with whom I go to school with in Victoria, but who live here in Ottawa with me. At school, I talk to them at least once a day, usually more. Back home, they don't even Instant Message me. I haven't heard from them since school ended, and doubt I will the entire summer, until next September when we'll surely become best friends again. And I'm sure, when I ask them why they didn't Instant Message me all summer, they'll say something crazy and irrational like “We wanted to, but you were always at the construction site while we were sitting in our air-conditioned offices Instant Messaging each other and playing Snood.”