the anniversary

tomorrow marks 8 years without a drink. i've mentioned this before but for the millions who haven't heard it before, here's the story. i stopped drinking on december 1 for one very good reason. i wanted to get in good shape and be ready for all the christmas parties and all the alcohol that goes along with xmas parties. but the best laid plans occasionally go astray. one thing led to another and i missed all the xmas fun. fuck me, i was tricked into sobriety. so here's my advice to any young reader who may drink a little too much from time to time. if some fucknut tells you to take a rest from drinking to get in good shape for future drinking, don't do it! it's a fucking trick and you may end up like me, a boring old teatotaler.

my mentally ill friend is falling back into despair and lunacy again. maybe it's the upcoming xmas season or the change in the weather but he's drowning in self pity and won't seek any professional medical help. notice i use the word "professional". he is getting amateur help, me. the state would classify me as an amateur but eliot and countless satisfied customers would dispute the amateur label. his problems are as plain as the nose on his face but like any mentally ill person he's living on that river in egypt, de nile. he's stuffed to the gills with the 3 poisons of the mind; greed, hatred and delusion. have you ever tried to tell a man that he has these three wonderful character flaws? at the rosewater foundation, confidentiality is paramount so i won't divulge any further details. and until i've achieved a little success with him or release another patient, i can't take on any new cases. it wouldn't be fair to give a patient less than the gold standard of care the foundation has spent decades establishing.

remember, the more power you have over someone, the greater your duty to use that power benevolently. if someone asked me to describe eliot in one word, it would be benevolent. eliot has been mentoring me in the benevolence racket for years. it is a long journey but as eliot often says, the longer the view, the wiser the intentions.

in case anyone has forgotten my mission statement: the first thing you see when visiting me, ENJOY THE MOMENT

the last thing you see, I LOVE YOU SONS OF BITCHES.

and don't forget, i love you sons of bitches.

rampant discrimination

is there any thing more verboten than racial profiling, hate crimes or good old discrimination these days? apparently this does not apply to pit bulls. last week in sunny vancouver an innocent PIT BULL WAS MURDERED. the interesting thing about this incident was the public reaction. initial media reports heralded the murderer as a hero, defending his little yapper from a blood thirsty pit bull. after the initial hysteria died down and the facts came out the pit bull was not quite the villain she had been portrayed as being. the 72 year old man who did the dirty deed now looks like a bloodthirsty lunatic, but the pit bull is still dead.

the pit bull was being walked by a young lady and was on a leash when the old man's little yapper approached off leash. judge judy wouldn't need any additional information before screaming, put your little yapper on a leash!!! the question i have to ask myself is, would the bloodthirsty old lunatic have attacked the pit bull with his knife if it was being walked by an adult male? or was he just crazy old fucking coward trying to be hero who would shit himself if an adult male stepped in? and of course i have to ask myself, what would i have done if the roo was stabbed by an old man. i suspect the old man would have been kicked in the head pretty fucking hard while he was murdering the innocent beast.

this actually happens to me quite frequently when walking the roo. i don't mean some nut trying to stab her but some fucking idiot letting his/her little yapper run free and get too close to ruby. a while back i almost came to blows with 2 men who were obviously in love and would not put their little yapper on a leash when it kept running at and barking at ruby who of course responded in kind but was on a leash so your's truly had to control a powerful dog. once again, my excellent command of f-bombs proved very useful and the two lovers were peeved. so it goes.

for poor old pandora.

i love you sons of bitches.

dog eaters

here's the condensed reader's digest version of the cracker factory dog eating controversy. when korea was hosting the world cup back in 2002 i came across an article on korean restaurants being told to remove dog from their menus whilst the world cup was being played so as not to offend the non dog eating visitors for the world cup. i clipped the article and posted it on one of the cracker factory bulletin boards. the next morning i noticed that someone had written a scathing attack on "the racist" who had the temerity to question korean culture and through sheer ignorance insult a noble and proud nation. i was both amused and angered at the response to the article i had anonymously posted. on the other hand, the person attacking me had done so in his own handwriting so it was a simple task to identify my critic.

once i had identified the offender, i approached his supervisor and after a little quid pro quo, he agreed to fire the offending young man after a few months. the optics would not have been good if we had dealt the miserable wretch the nine of hearts immediately after the incident. after the culprit was disposed of, the incident raised it's ugly head at the next budget meeting. the usual practice at our budget meetings is for the all us 2 bit managers to give a brief synopsis of events and come up with some lame excuse as to why we were over budget. it was my turn to speak, but just before i began, one of my buddies doing his best father dougal mcguire impression (father ted) said, "tell me leo, are you still a racist?". i started laughing along with several others but the big boss was not amused. even the hint of racism at the cracker factory puts senior management into full panic mode. so it goes, there went my chance at the big time! those dog eating motherfuckers ruined my career!

but i have no regrets, because.....

i love you sons of bitches.

two fucking pancakes

last week the front tire on the iron maiden was flatter than a pancake, you know the story. today the rear tire became flatter than a pancake at a far greater distance from home. i had a long walk and bus ride home. tomorrow i'll have to make the repairs and install the other new tire i purchased last week. yeah, i know i should have replaced both tires at the same time but my time was better spent on something else last week.

i started reading WHY NATIONS FAIL a few days ago and kept saying to myself, "i've heard all this before". then i realized, it's a punched up version of the thimscool manisfesto. it's going to be a tough read. not because of difficult subject matter but because i'm probably going to disagree with a lot the stuff being said. who knows, maybe next week i'll be able to tell you why nations fail. at this moment i'm pinning the blame on low income housing where the dumb fuck deadbeats break their empty wiskey bottles on the pathways and rather than clean up their mess, they complain that someone else isn't cleaning up their mess. so it goes.

ANYONE WANT TO GO HALFS ON A ROB FORD BOBBLE HEAD?

flat tires, failing nations; who give a shit. let's dance!

i love you sons of bitches

flat as a pancake

in the past i often said, somebody up there likes me. the way things are going with my bike tires i'm pretty sure that whoever is up there has decided to move along and find a more deserving person to like.

yes, i had another flat tire whilst riding the iron maiden. i had ridden to the grocery store and had two bags of crap when i got that dreadful feeling, something that was supposed to be hard, was quickly becoming flaccid. oh well, it happens to the best of us but it's happening to me a little too often. i had to walk several miles home with the 2 bags of groceries hanging from the handlebars. it was a long painful walk.

when i took the wheel off and inspected the tube i discovered that the puncture was real close to the seam. you can't repair a tube that has a puncture on the seam but what the hell, i gave it a try. it didn't work. woe was me.

fuck it, the experiment with slick road tires is over and i declare it to be an abysmal failure. the improved ride was certainly not worth the extra flats i was getting with those flimsy slicks so it was off to the bike shop and i picked up some knobby tires with kevlar flatguard. the clerk told me they would be less likely to puncture than the road tires. has a clerk ever lied to a customer??? behold the new beauties:

this morning i hopped on the iron maiden and rode to the library to pick up the cd's i was on my way to pick up when that flaccid feeling overtook me. i heard these guys on cbc radio and quite like them.

i love you sons of bitches/

poetic justice?

have i ever mentioned that i don't like cops?

i don't say that as much as i did in the past but the sentiment still rings true so when i read 4 COPS INJURED WHILE EATING AT FAT BURGER!!, i smiled. it's almost too comical to be true. 4 pigs at the fat burger trough, hit by renegade car. if this happened in toronto with rob ford driving, it would have been the event of the century. but this is one thing they can't blame on the fair rob ford.

does anyone have a sony dream machine? if not, do not buy one under any circumstances. i bought one a few years ago because the clock on my dvd recorder had smallish numbers that i couldn't read from across the room. it was hate a first sight with the so called dream machine. just plug in it? shit no, i had to enter the time zone and date and some other shit before it would work. after that is was supposed to be a fabulous machine but it wasn't. somehow the son of a bitch was 3 minutes fast and no matter what i did, i couldn't get the correct time. every time i reset the prick, i reverted back to being 3 minutes fast. this past weekend our time reverted back to standard time from daylight savings time and the clock was supposed make the adjustment itself. in the past it had done this, but not this time so i had to change the time manually. again, it was a fucking pain in the neck but i figured out how to change the time. BUT, every time i made the change, the son of bitch jumped ahead to daylight savings time. finally i figured out what to do, there was a DST button on the side to manually go back and forth from daylight savings time but there was nothing in the instructions to say this.

am i an idiot? maybe, but apparently i'm not the only one. i was talking to a friend with a sony dream machine and told her of my adventures. how did she reply?

WELCOME TO THE CLUB, MINE'S 18 MINUTES FAST AND I'VE LEARNED TO LIVE WITH IT!

one thing in the piece of shit's favor, it's a tough son of a bitch. at one point i called it a fucking piece of shit and threw it on the floor but the son of bitch took it like a man. it still worked.

rob ford on bikes

i love you sons of bitches