anyone thirsty?

in happier days i enjoyed drinking lots of pop. at least that's what the neighbors thought. the fridge is full very special pop. (the last pop i ever made)



of course i shared the pop with some of my best friends.



i loved making beer at the u-brew. i considered it a stroke of genius putting the beer in pop bottles so people thought i was drinking pop. it was a marriage made in heaven. i like dark beer and dark beer is right at home in a coke bottle.

when i quit drinking it wasn't supposed to last this long.

too feckin hot

anyone trying to tell me global warming is a myth can go piss up a rope!

the fast food princess made this in nov 2006. it makes me feel a little cooler just looking at it.



i'm too feckin lazy to do anything in this heat so i'm sitting with a wet rag around my neck going through old photos.

since i'm too lazy to come up with any original bullshit these days maybe i'll just piss around with old photos.

i love all you overheated sons of bitches.

stick around

a little music to feed turtles by.



i love all you turtle feeding sons of bitches.

gold

after almost 2 months i finally got an email from sonny. he popped into mayo for supplies and was able to send me a quick note. this is his 4th summer in the northern mining racket, in the previous 3 years he had internet access in the camp. no such luck this year.

in previous years he was in camps that were drilling for base metals. with the financial meltdown earlier this year the price of base metals plummeted so drilling dried up for those boring base metals. this year he's in a gold camp and it appears a few of the holes have had excellent results. i'm guessing that he's working out of a base camp and has to helicopter in to the drilling sites. i hate helicopters.



on a selfish note, i wish he'd hurry up and come home. i've decided it's time to get a new tv and i need him to hook it up for me. i can plug the tv in but that feckin sound system totally baffles me. when the aliens are blasting space ships out of the sky i need to rattle a few windows.

let me set the record straight

i keep hearing all the right wing opponents of government health care say that the canadian health care system sucks. that there are huge waiting lists and people are dying for lack of care.

they're full of shit.

there are some long waiting lists for elective surgery like knee and hip replacement. but for life threatening stuff like cancer surgery things move real fast and the care is excellent. the main problem is a shortage of doctors and surgical nurses but from what i can tell this is a world wide problem and there are lots of countries competing for these people.

as in any system there are problems. all it takes is one malcontent deadbeat not getting perfect service and the some reporter will jump on the story and make out like the world is going to hell in a hand basket.

the canadian system was set up when life was easy and medicine was cheap. people weren't getting organ transplants or paying a fortune for some designer pharmaceuticals. i doubt if us smug canadians could implement a health care system in today's enviroment.

do you think the opponents of government health care really have the best interests of ordinary citizens at heart?

better than the moon

i was looking for ralph kramden giving alice the old "to the moon alice!" but couldn't find a good clip.

i found something else that might even be better.

i'm a classy sort of a guy so i appreciated the artistic merit of this clip. if you have any doubts as to your sense of class, watch at your own peril.



so it goes.

here i sit...

here i sit
broken hearted
paid a dime
and only farted.


i forgot to mourn the passing of an old friend this year. june 10 was the anniversary of the passing of a faithful companion. this is the first year it slipped my mind. i blame in those feckin filipino roofers. normally i'd blame the lovely mrs myshkin but it was the filipino roofers that drove me nuts and gave my ladder to some chinaman to pee on.



in the past i'd build a little shrine and put her picture in the middle. i'd light some incense and maybe smoke something and say a few words such as, "fuck off, don't bug me. can't you see i'm in mourning." you can probably guess to whom those remarks would be directed.

and i wish people would quit insulting turtles.

a three hour tour, a three hour tour

i now know how gilligan felt.

i had the pleasure of attending a wedding yesterday. it was more than i bargained for.

i'm not really fond of weddings at the best of times but this was over the top.

11:00 am arrive at the church

11:30 wedding ceremony (catholic, lots of glory given to the lord)

12:15 take photos ad infinitum on church steps. there were people from several continents and every geographical group and family group and group of friends had photos taken. then mix and match photos to be taken. it was roasting hot in the sun and i was wearing a suit and uncomfortable shoes. woe was feckin me.

14:00 dim sum

16:00 tea ceremony

18:00 reception begins.

everyone eats like a pig, literally! the first course was a whole fecking pig and it never seemed to end. there were 10 courses. i had the biggest bowl of shark fin soup i've ever seen. (sorry rocky)

tons of food i didn't like. i ate very little of most dishes. the servers looked a little ticked with me for not eating the stuff and gave me the crappy part of the fish, crustacean or sea plant. i didn't care because didn't eat most of it. the problem was when cake was served at the end. i got a totally shitty piece of cake.
i told the waiter that i didn't mind a crappy plate of seafood but i wanted a good piece of cake. he smiled, but the prick didn't bring me a new piece of cake. guess what i spent the rest of the evening carping about.

23:30 the end. i had a real headache by the time it was over. tons of noise and stuff i wasn't interested in, not to mention having my picture taken about 1000 feckin times.

24:00 arrive home. shower and sit outside with ruby. fire up a relaxing pipeful and thank fuck it was over.

me and the fast food princess did our family duty for the lovely mrs myshkin, she owes me one after this.

so i got than going for me too.

better than frankincense and myrrh

i've given the baby jesus his best gift yet. it's very powerful and once he learns how to use it his powers should increase immeasurably.



if you can't figure out what i've given the baby jesus, here's a beauty of a clue.



i'm pretty sure there's a primo spot waiting for me in heaven thanks to this latest gift.

i've got so much stuff going for me right now i can't remember it all.

jesus be happy

i promised jesus that him and his posse could stay out of the box all year and i'm not about to break a promise to the baby jesus.

it turns out the little bugger has been having the time of his life. when i left for work this morning the lady was fat, sassy and full of air. i don't know what happened while i was gone but as the title says, jesus be happy.



i made jesus happy!

so i got that going for me too, which is nice.

the ladder

previously on dexter.......

i've been in a snit over getting jerked around over my missing ladder. some chinese guy was all pissed about the roofers taking his ladder so i let them take mine and give it to the chinese guy in exchange for a new ladder the following week. 2 weeks passed and still no ladder. so i gave the owner a 4:00 pm friday deadline.

4:00 came and went with no ladder. i was pissed. at 4:30 i sent him an email with a small recap of events asking where was my feckin ladder. i have a lot of legal training from watching judge judy and an email acknowledging the debt can be a key in winning the case. no shit, i was inspired by judge judy.

at 5:30 i heard some noise, a ladder being banged around. i ran out to see what was going on. two roofers had brought the ladder and put it under the sundeck. i went to inspect my new prize and was shocked to see that it was my old ladder. they explained to me that they had found the chinese guy's ladder so they retrieved my ladder from him and we were all supposed to live happily ever after. except i was pissed. two weeks of a run around and suddenly they came up with my old ladder.

after inspecting the ladder i approached the roofers and said, "hey, that chinaman peed on my ladder!"

just kidding, i wish i would have been clever enough to say that but i had to settle for "what a feckin pile of bullshit! 2 feckin weeks and when i finally get mad you miraculously come up with my ladder!" i was angry! the roofers smiled and left. as soon as they left i used the ladder to inspect my eaves. as i suspected the feckers hadn't removed all the debris. if the debris made its way to my storm sewers there could be problems so i was doubly pissed.

i called the owner and got his voice mail. i left an angry disjointed message about cleaning my feckin gutters before the next rain and how pissed i was about the ladder.

i havent' heard back from him. as soon as i get home from work tomorrow i'm going to check the eaves. if they haven't been cleaned i'm gonna watch some judge judy and figure out my legal options.

on a different note, i found something really interesting on the bike ride this morning that will be my next post. you'll never guess what i found in a million years. here's a clue, the lovely mrs myshkin was totally disgusted when i showed her.

that feckin roof

the roof saga is almost over.

all in all i'm happy with the job. theses guys were substantially cheaper than the competition and i think they probably did a better job than the other guys would have done. of course i had to keep an eye on them and insist on a few things.

2 weeks ago they needed a ladder. apparently they took another customer's ladder and he was going nuts. they dropped by casa myshkin to see if they had left the ladder. it wasn't here and they faced the prospect of driving all the way across town to look for the ladder. the irate customer was adamant that he wanted his ladder back, not a new one. since it was friday evening and these guys had worked all week i felt sorry for them and said they could take my ladder and bring me a new one the following week. the other guy liked my ladder and agreed to the deal.

it's been 2 weeks now and i haven't got my new ladder. a friend warned me not to pay until i got the ladder but i said these were honorable guys and i'd get my ladder. we bet $5.00 on whether or not i'd get the ladder.i have politely reminded the owner a few times that he owes me a ladder. so far nada.

this morning i called and said i want my ladder by 4:00 this afternoon. he gave me a few excuses and i said 4:00. he made a few other comments and i said 4:00. again he tried talking to me, i said 4:00 and hung up.

the question is whether or not i get my ladder by 4:00. 4:05 is not good enough, i want the fecking ladder by 4:00.

happy birthday canada, not.

me and canada aren't seeing eye to eye lately. i've been caught in the cross hairs of the cra, canada revenue agency. it's been going on for almost 3 years.

on monday i got 2 letters from these guys demanding money. my mother was with me when i opened the letters. i used tony soprano's favorite 2 words; motherfucker and cocksucker. my 85 year old mother hates swearing and usually gives me a dirty look when i use profanity. since cra was involved she gave my a free pass to curse until i turned purple. i didn't bother to read the letters, i just read the last line that told me how much money they wanted from me.

don't get me wrong, i don't mind paying my fair share. i just hate the process, it's like a chinese water torture. give a figure and i'll pay it but quit the nickel and diming bullshit.

this is why i like mike huckabee. he proposed doing away with income tax and imposing a consumption tax. consumption taxes, or vat's (value added taxes) are becoming more popular these days. in canada we have the gst, (goods and services tax). this tax was imposed to replace excise taxes and has been lowered from 7% to 5% by the current government, a regressive step in my opinion.

i think huckabee's proposal should have been one of the central issues of the 2008 election but in our age of bullshit, personalities and skeletons in closets became key issues.

we earn our wages and the government witholds some income tax. often they take too much and taxpayers get a refund or depending on investment income they might not withhold enough tax and you get a bill rather than a refund. if you can't pay your bill to the tax people you're fucked. i also hate the practice of filing taxes, it's like writing a university exam except the stakes are higher. you fill out your tax return and some feckin arsehole tax collector grades it. make a mistake and your fucked. so what do we have? a whole industry of accountants and lawyers that take a pretty big slice of the pie interpreting tax laws that are a moving target. a flat tax with no bullshit deductions would put a lot of leeches out of work.

if we must have an income tax, why not a flat tax. the tax people withhold a certain percent and the rest is yours. you can go out and spend it however you want. but no, in the name of wealth re-distribution and political expediency these buggers let us have some money then they tinker with the rates. paying your taxes is like hitting a moving target. the assholes in charge constantly change the rules.

even though i like al franken i suspect he may be one of those guys that likes social tinkering and increasing wealth re-distribution but doggonit i'll always like him.

if you read this whole diatribe, thank you. if you didn't, don't feel bad, i probably wouldn't have read it either.

oh yeah, happy birthday canada. you might be a pain in the arse but your a smaller pain in the arse than most of the fiefdoms on the planet.