Skippy takes a beating...

I know it’s been a while since I have written on this thing. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t want people to think that I have no life and just blog all day, or if it’s because nothing has really inspired me in the last few weeks. Whatever, I’ll just get on with it.

Today’s topic is kind of a rehash of the last instalment. Only it’s in another country, far away from North America, but it does demonstrate that ignorance and cruelty have no boundaries.

So down in Australia some morons decide that they need to demonstrate their dominance over the local wildlife. I am suspecting that they did put some thought into this and before actually engaging any of nature’s beasts, in this case a kangaroo, they took the time to learn some fighting disciplines and techniques so not to go in unprepared.

Now normally I would support this. I completely enjoy watching people square off against wild animals. Roy of Sigfried and Roy had his time with that white tiger, Steve Irwin and the sting ray, one of my personal favourites was of some dumb chick jumping the barrier at a zoo to get closer to a polar bear for a picture. All ended in either death or sever mauling! Most have the animal at a disadvantage (save the Steve Irwin incident but that’s going to happen when you let your guard down) but the end result is basically the same. Don’t screw around with Mother Nature.

Here’s the Rub…

These losers decided to increase their chances of winning by finding a lame, smaller animal that would have avoided conflict. They found a kangaroo that had been previously struck by a vehicle then proceeded to videotape the beating of this defenceless animal, severely injuring it further and possibly leaving it to die. The fate of the animal is not known unfortunately.

Now all of Australia is hunting these bastards down trying to bring them to justice. I am not familiar with Australian law in these matters but I hope to God that it is nothing like the laws we have here in BC. If they are then all they will get is a stern lecture, a lollipop, and be forced to promise that they will never do that again before we send them off to therapy to assist them in getting through all the trauma the whole justice system just put them through. Don’t worry though our taxes will cover it all.

Personally I think that, if and when they do catch these pricks, they should have a rematch with another kangaroo that is a little more on it’s game. Same health level would be nice. Let them go at it for 3 rounds no holds barred and only one can walk out. That would be a video worth watching.

Later

Why We Need Public Beatings...

I saw an article in a paper the other day that ticked me off. Some jerk tossed a 3 month old kitten into on of those kitchen grease dumpster that restaurants use. They look like mini garbage dumpsters but have a smaller opening for the grease that’s covered by a grate. They smell like hell and, I’m sure, are full of a lot of other unhealthy crap other then the grease. No one knows how long the kitten was in there for or why some douche bag would do this.

There are some many other ways to get rid of unwanted pets these days that it is really unnecessary to be this cruel. There’s newspapers, the internet, SPCA (although I am not really fond of them) and various animal services out there that would have taken less effort then it took to life the grate off the grease bin to stuff the kitten in. It would have been more humane to have left it in the middle of a field. But no, this jerk needed to inflict a little pain and suffering before hand. Christ it’s not even something that you would brag about, “Hey Dude! I just messed up a kitten…real bad!”

Now the police have asked the public for help in hopes that they catch this moron.

Here’s the rub…

Let’s say they do get this idiot. Then what? We waste money on prosecuting the cretin, they get a slap on the wrist, pay a fine, and the best part, they‘re prohibited from owning any animals for a year or two. Who is going to monitor this scumbag to make sure they don’t pick up another animal to torture?

How about instead of paying a fine they are forced to work at one of these animal protection agencies? I think a couple of years of picking up their crap would be great for them. Add that to making this bottom feeder endure the same trauma that they inflicted on to the animal and I think we have a lead onto some adequate punishment. I know of several people that would love to toss this waste of flesh into a grease trap for a few days. Hell I’ll take time of work to make sure he stays in there.

BTW the kitten survived and is recuperating. The vet said it is going to survive and there have been several inquires from people that would like to adopt.

Later.

The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

I like fights. To be more specific I like watching the Mixed Martial Arts fights that have become so popular recently. I’ve a fan for some years now having watched the second UFC back in the early 90’s. Back then though it was a very different game. No weight classes or rounds, and no one was really training the way they do now. It was basically a brawler free for all with no holds barred, mixed with a few disciplines like Karate, Boxing, Judo, and Wrestling. This was all the created by the Gracie family to give them a chance to see which fighting style would be the best. I think it was really a chance for them to showcase Gracie Jiu-Jitsu which is a Brazilian style of the marital art.

Anyways I watched a few of the Pay Per Views then lost interest shortly after. It lacked the character and entertainment value that it has today. Today’s MMA matches are generally run under unified rules that include weight divisions, rules, time limits and rounds. A few years ago the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) jumped aboard the reality show bandwagon and created a show called “The Ultimate Fighter” ever since the inaugural season I’ve gotten hooked again.

The fighters these days are athletes. They train in multiple disciplines trying to be multidimensional when it comes to competing in the ring. The fighters of old have been systematically eradicated from the sport by the more developed and complete fighter of today. This is demonstrated perfectly by the Matt Hughes V. Royce Gracie bout a few years back. Royce Gracie decided that he would re-enter the Octagon and taken on the then Welterweight Champion Matt Hughes for a catch weight non title bout.

I believe Royce wanted this fight to get his family name back into the now booming MMA market. I also feel that he believed he was unbeatable, having been the first UFC champ back in the day. Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is still highly regarded and one of the most popular styles of the art today. Matt Hughes on the other hand, has a wrestling background and worked with one of the best MMA camps in the business Militich Fighting Systems in Iowa. I believe Matt initially took the match for the challenge and for the prestige of fighting one of the most dominant of the Gracie family fighters.

As the fight day drew closer it seemed that Royce’s lips got looser and his trash talk flowed like a river. He would explain in great detail how this (the UFC) was the house that he built, how hard and intense he was training, how Matt Hughes doesn’t have the skills to beat him, and how he was going to submit him, pick him up and send him home. Royce Gracie had a plan and nothing was going to change that or the outcome.

Now Here’s the Rub…

Matt Hughes only had one response to all this talk. He said and I quote…

“Everyone has a plan…until they get punched in the face.”

Needless to say Royce was so severely dominated by Hughes that it sent a shock wave through the Gracie’s family. It was Royce who was sent packing with his head hung low and tail between his legs. Hughes proved by applying a tight arm bar, that almost ripped Royce’s should apart, then sitting on him and pounding his head to near mush that being a one dimensional fighter is not going to cut it in MMA today.

Where did his plan go? From what I saw he didn’t get a chance to execute it. I don’t think it was due to a punch to the face but because of a flurry or whacks to the noggin. Another great example of this is the Anderson Silva - James Irvin bout bout. I am sure that they planned, trained, and prepared for this bout extensively. Unfortunately one of them had a better idea.

Can you spot when he stopped following his plan?

Later.

Dumb Asses + Cops =Entertainment

I love watching those trashy cop shows. Not the night time dramas like Law & Order or any of the continually multiplying CSI shows, but the reality type ones with the crappy camera work and the cheesy narrative. On Spike TV. they play Disorderly Conduct early in the morning , man there is nothing better then getting up to watch some jackass get taken down by half the law enforcement in the area. I find that the best footage normally comes out of Florida and most of the other southern states.

The other night I was watching one of these shows and some naked chick whacked out on crystal meth stole a cop car and led a half dozen cops on a wild chase that finished off in what looked like and construction site. When the cops pulled into the site and found the empty cop car they began their search of the area. Now finding a naked meth head on a construction site isn’t really a difficult task so it only took a few seconds before they found her. The really funny part (not that it hasn’t been hilarious so far) was when all the cops were running to help take her down. Out of nowhere comes this fat tub of goo cop that looks like a Michelin Man wrapped in black trailing behind. This lard ass couldn’t even run he was doing what I would call a quick waddle. Priceless!

Now these shows have been on for years and with the all the different types of recording equipment and surveillance I don’t see them going away anytime soon. The world is full of morons and enough crack to keep us in crazy cop chase and take down footage until the end of time.

My personal favourite is always the take down! I guess this stems from an incident that my best friend and I witnessed some years ago. We were coming home from the bar one night and in the middle of the road we were on was a cruiser with the lights blaring. The driver side door was wide open and on the ground was some cretin lying on his stomach, the cop kneeling on his back with his gun drawn and pointed at this dude’s head.

Now here’s the Rub…

Not only is it a known fact here in Canada that the RCMP (not the city police thought) only pull there weapon as a last resort, which in most cases is if their life is in danger, but they are trained to go for the killing shot. So here lays this piece of trash, cop kneeling on his back, gun to his head, and for some ungodly reason he is still struggling. Much like 99.9% of the mucus spawn that are on the TV shows. The old adage that “they aren’t going to take me without a fight” should really be rethought by these Dinks. Or at least they should apply it to a time when they have better odds.

Getting pulled over by two cops when you’re smashed and giving them a chance to call and have back up arrive before you decided to go down swinging is not a great plan. Nor is the jump from the car and run after you’ve run it into a street sign of tree. You’re going to have at least 6 cops on you already with the chances that 3 of them are going to be in shape and one has a dog. Add that to the helicopter that is following you and you are officially screwed, done, and hooped!

Truly all I can say is keep it up. I love it! It is a great way for me to start my day. I highly doubt that these people are going to learn from their mistakes. Most likely they will find someone else to blame and there will be the people that will cry for them. As long as I still get to see their heads and bodies hit the pavement hard all is good.

Later!

Full Moon Noon

Across the street from where I work there is this old crappy house that a guy we call the No-Ass Man lives in with is Charles Manson look-a-like roommate. Creepy I know. The reason we call him the No Ass man is that he wears these jeans and basically they make him look like he has no ass.

My manager has had to deal with him a few times and once when he came into speak with her I forgot his real name, so I told her the No Ass man was here and she knew right away who I was talking about. Since then the name has stuck.

But here’s the Rub…

Now that the weather has gotten better No Ass Man has been doing some work on the outside of his house. Mainly in the front which faces both one of the busiest streets in the city and my place of employment. Now every time he stretches up, bends over, or kneels down he proves to all of us that the name “No Ass Man” is the wrong moniker.

This guy is also defying physics! He wears a belt but they keep falling below his butt. The first few times were pretty funny but now it’s just getting stupid. Can he not feel the breeze? WTF? I cannot look up from my desk with out catching a glimpse and it ruins my appetite for the day (which isn’t a bad thing as I could stand to loose a few lbs) and I am sure it’s causing irreparable physiological damage. I put this one on my list of idiots who by clothes just because they come in their size. Another bad choice but that’s a topic for another day.

Later!

Being Seagull.

I was kickin’ around at my buddy’s beach house on the weekend. We sat around and drank beer, ate bbq, and bullshitted the weekend away. I got up really early one morning and went for a walk on the beach and ended up sitting on the rock jetty watching the seagulls and waves. I made the choice to sit on the rocks because of the seagulls that were up there. I wanted to find out what is so interesting to them up there and after reading Jonathon Livingston Seagull I had it in my head that seagulls have a decent life.

Now here's the Rub.

When it comes’ right down to it being a seagull sucks! The rocks were uncomfortable and hard, the poles in the water they stand on move around a lot, and the food! Not only do they get to eat the crap end of seafood but they have to work really hard to get at it. I wonder how they can tell if it’s OK to eat or not? I guess when your willing to eat the face off a dead seal (which I saw happening while I was there) you’re really not fussy and your stomach is made of iron. Their feet are pretty ugly too. Not that mine is a whole lot better but as a human we do have access to shoes of all colours and styles.

The only thing that I can say they have going for them is the flying. Now flying around on your own power would be pretty cool but in this case I would rather have a good bed, comfy chair, and great food. Yeah being a seagull or any type of beach bird sucks in my books. Superman, now he had it pretty good. He could fly, had decent feet, and could eat anything he wanted as long as it wasn’t laced with kryptonite. Although he did have to wear the dumb costume and cape I’m sure that it was difficult to clean.

Later!

You never know...

As I mentioned in the last blog, I worked on a cruise ship, before that I was in childcare and before that I was in retail customer service. Working on the cruise ship was a direct combination of both. On the ship we had to sell our product, the activities, to the children and the parents. The parents were always the harder sell.

The children generally loved what was going on and if they didn’t they had the option to find something they did like. As long as it wasn’t destroying the ship or killing another child we were fine with it. They were on vacation not at school so we figured they earned a little down time.

Now I am not saying that our programs were for every child, but even on a 3 day cruise that had about 1000 children between the ages of 3 to 18, there was something that they found interesting and fun. We ran from 8am to 1 am through out the cruise. Some of the kids would spend all day in care and that was by their own choice, some would be there all day and that was their parent’s choice. Some of the children were better off in our care then in their parents.

Anyways back to the selling part. To ensure that every child would be properly taken care of and, of course, for safety reasons we would divide them up into age groups and allocate different areas of the ship for the age groups. We staggered lunch and dining times as well as the activities to make sure the groups didn’t clash. For the most part it worked really well. Of course we had some challenges along they way, but one way or another, the job got done and the children were happy. We were trained childcare specialists, Early Childhood Educators, grade school Teachers, recreational leaders, people with college and university certifications and degrees. People who made a conscious choice to work with children as a profession, and to make sure that they do it properly they invested time and money into learning how.

Now here’s the Rub…


They parents of these kids, some working class Joe’s and some professionals, that figured if they have enough brains to figure out how to fuck then they obviously know how to deal with children. We these idiots would pay obscene amounts of money to come on this cruise and come Hell or high water their children were going to enjoy it or die trying. We are talking families of all sizes, some with 1 child and some with 5. All sizes, ages and mental capacities. Along with that came the various demands…

“I want my 3 year old to be with his brother in 10-12’s”

“My 13 month old daughter has to be with her sister in the 5-7’s”

“My gifted 4 year old can only be with 8-9’s”

The last one was my favourite. Just because your child figured out how to wipe his/her own ass before you did does not make the gifted. And for the love of God when we are telling a child about a program don’t tell them that they are going to hate it before they even try it. Right there you just blew the trip for them, thanks for the negativity jerk. We understand that you know your children really well; we realize that you have known them their whole life! But we have seen and cared for hundreds of thousands of children, not as parents but as caregivers. Your kids know what is going to work on you. They also feed of f your trust and attitude. If you tell them something is bad or wrong they trust that you know what you’re talking about and will avoid it like the plague. There goes their chance to experience it for themselves. Good job! That’s some great skills you got there ace. Maybe you should go lead a moral workshop for suicide candidates.

I realized very early in my childcare career that it was harder dealing with upset customers (parents) then in any other field. For example if you worked in the car repair business and your customer pissed you off you could just sabotage the car. I have seen people do some horrendous things to get back at the ones that piss them off. In Childcare it is against our nature to take it out on the child. I mean yeah we could teach them songs that drive the parent’s nuts or tell them a corny joke so they repeat it over and over again on the ride home. But in the end it is the child that ends up paying for it.

On the cruise ship though we were able to find that outlet, the guests would fail to realize what a close, tight knit group the crew were. It was good to have friends in housekeeping, dining, bar and lounge staff. So every once in while when little Billy or Little Susie’s parents decided to take strip of me because their gifted child pissed themselves, after the had been left in our care for over 8 hours, and they were going to make sure that I would be fired and left to die in some God forsaken port. I would wait until they finished their braying; casually walk over to the facilities computer to research the room number, dining rotation, spa appointments, and shore excursions of the offending parent. Maybe just maybe they might notice the glass in their room had been washed in the toilet they use. Or that the many desserts they received, because they were the servers’ favourite table and he really liked them, have actually been sneezed on and handled by urine soaked utensils. Or that their spa appointment was not accidentally double booked and had to be cancelled. Or that the shore excursion they were on the waiting list for did have an opening but because they were such tremendous assholes nobody wanted them around.

Be careful how you treat people. We are not as disconnected as you might think.

Later!

Accepting Responsibility

This is my first time blogging. Not something that I ever thought I would be doing. But as much as you try to swim against the norm it eventually spins your ass around and the next thing you know your one amongst the other sheep. Just look at the “I’ll never sell out hippies” of the 60’s. A good portion of them bought into the “ME” attitude of the 80’s then went out and bought sushi and espresso makers. Don’t get me wrong I like sushi and espresso! Wallstreet is one of my favourite movies and I never really saw Gordon Gecko as a bad guy. What I am getting at here is that eventually we all give in to mainstream vices now and then, some just more then others but that’s a conversation for another time.

I used to work for a cruise line and if you have ever gone cruising you know that the food on these ships is pretty good. Adding in the fact that it is generally all you can eat and served round the clock it is can create a perfect setting for gluttony. Full on cramming burgers into your gob, ordering three desserts at a time, and gunning back gallons of highly caffeinated (or alcohol laced) beverages. My ship sailed out of Port. Canaveral doing 3 and 4 day cruises into the Caribbean where cheap booze and deep fried foods were as abundant as extreme heat and humidity.

We would get very large people on board on a regular basis. I mean really, really large individuals that were bound and determined to get their money’s worth out of the cruise. At first I was scared of these people but then I met the ones that were determined to get there money’s worth AND more. What’s the difference? A simple example would be this...
A moneys worth person frequents the all you can drink soda fountain, take a glass fill it up, take a sip, then top up his/her drink before going to graze at the mid-noon buffet.
A moneys worth and more person waddles up to the soda fountain with their 5 gallon Thermos brand container, full it to the brim (no ice) then cruises over to the buffet piling peel and eat shrimp on one tray and halves of cheese cakes on another. After shovelling this in they wash it down with the aforementioned bucket of soda then hop on their re-enforced handi-scooter and motor off to dinner.

Now here’s the rub…

These scooter riding eating terrors are going to be demanding and I can get by that now. What I can’t get past is the fact that they complain about too many stairs on the ship or that the elevators are too small for them and their scooters. They continually whine about how they were not able to get off the ship because the gang plank is on too much of and angle or bitch that it’s too hot out, we’re in the Caribbean jackass what were you thinking about when you booked the trip? These oversized tubes of goo so thoroughly believe that their over abundance of fat is the cause of some incurable disease. They need to give their flabby, saggy jowls a slap.

Cancer, HIV, leukemia, these are incurable diseases. Put the gravy soaked chicken fried steak sandwich down and pick up a gym pass. Maybe come to the realization that combing all your favourite foods together is not really the best idea. Using artificial means to move your body mass, again a bad idea, get up and walk. Christopher Reeves is looking down on you wishing he had the physical presence and intact motor skills to kick your huge ass.

“It’s glandular” or “I can’t stop” or my favourite is “I was just made this way’. I don’t expect that we all are going to be bone racks. I have not bought into the ideal that corporate heathens are forcing skinny body types as the norm. I carry some extra weight myself. You wanna know why? Because I love eating food! All makes and all types! It’s my fault! I do not exercise any self discipline when a plate of hot wings and jugs of beer are placed in front of me. In fact when my body is telling me to stop I have blatantly ignored it, but having said that, when I am working out and my body is telling me to stop because I ignored it at the hot wing table I again ignore it and push on. It balances everything out and I will never have to complain about not fitting into a regular size elevator or pay for an extra seat on a plane. Now I know that utilizing this type of self control is hard. I know that motivating yourself to get some real exercise is hard to. So drink some cement and harden the fuck up. Its better then having to whine about using a service elevator because you don’t fit in a normal one.

Later!