I wear thin leather gloves during these times of temperatures between 0C and -10C. They’re standard issue OPP gloves and while they are pretty darned strong, they’re so thin I can pick up subway tokens when I wear them.

Despite their functionality, when I first put them on, they are too cool to operate my iPod. I discovered this yesterday while leaving the office. I could have rubbed my fingers together to heat them up, thereby making the Play sensor kick in, but no. I had to go do things the special way.

I tounged the Play button.

…it worked.

I now officially “love” Apple products.

I’ve decided that since all I ever do on this blog is complain like a American in Europe, I am going to make an effort to email companies when someone working for them does something good for me. And, to do it at least once a month. A “pay it forward email” as it were. Here’s my first:

Info@henrys.ca

Hello there!

I have an old Sony DSC-P1 digital camera that had a couple small screws gone missing over the years. Last week, the poor thing was one screw away from losing its back casing. I went to your service desk last Saturday and was looked after by a very helpful, black haired young woman (I didn’t see her name tag) with a saftey pin through her ear. She made my day. I just wanted to let you know that she’s exceptional!

Thanks again!

I don’t expect anything back. I just want to drop happy bombs.

While discussing our brought-in lunches with a couple of coworkers today, I notice the logo on the side of my small yogurt cup. That’s… odd. It’s a torso with…boobies? I know that 90% of yogurt eaters are women but I thought it was kind of sexist, sort of. I think. At least the presence of the underside of breasts was saphoric. Maybe.

I point this out to the woman of our group and she says, “Oh you know, yogurt is good for maintaining … you know… hormones … during…”

“Good lord! I’m eating girl yogurt!!”

Two managers are in my cube, loudly discussing images for a brochure (or brox as we type it in the biz) while the poor print designer cringes underneath their complaints.

“I am utterly sick of looking at over-water cabins in Tahiti,” one belts out to no one in particular, “And look at this one,” she says pulling a print out from the pile. “Look at that. That is so gay.”

Pause.

My glazed over eyes look up from my monitor. I’m a bit shocked and angered that she said this because we’ve been working side by side for nearly two years. She sees my face. Visions of calling HR dance in my head.
“Not that there’s anything wro-” she tries to get out that old old old Seinfeld joke.

“That’s ok, you ugly breeder,” I respond loudly.

We lock eyes. We start to laugh.

I think she’s laughing because ‘we understood each other’. I’m laughing because I got away with calling her ugly.

Just my fancy way of announcing my monthly updates on the other blogs you should be reading (again, some are on my blacklist, sorry for the non-link):

BrotherDown (brotherdown.blogspot.com) has a difficult time with “YellowStone” Never charade drunk.

“…the experience of nearly a generation of gay men being wiped out from HIV is just as far removed from you as the holocaust.” Lordy AcidReflux’s blog (lifeandtimespoz.blogspot.com/2006/01/got-hard-on-and-no-where-to-go.html) is funny yet not. Yet is. (whispers) Should I be laughing…?

Jim B hasn’t updated his blog since November. It’s understandable. He’s renovating. Maybe some traffic to his site will inspire him to post some pictures of the damage.

Dawn was worried about the floods. Hopefully Arnold will keep her safe.

Salvage made a funny at our American friend’s expense.

Ever realized something from your youth wasn’t what it seemed? Not Well Planned got a wake up call.

Photojunkie links to a sick-making wicked cool picture. Shimmy!

Blamb gives us another self indulgent smarmy cartoon (I am, of course, just kidding). This one made me want to call Airmiles and demand my toaster.

A well hung conversation over at Where the Hell Was I:
Her: What color would you think would work?
Me: Gee, I dunno. Magenta?
Her: Um… well, I think magenta might, ah, clash. With, sort of, everything.
Me: Oh. Okay. How about black, then?
Her: Black? On the walls? All the walls?
Me: Well, black doesn’t clash, right?

That Woman wakes up without a hangover Jan 01. Good for him.

Nothing I type here can prepare you for SloppyJoe’s clip of the month. Just go.
Star Wars Stripper part 1

Star Wars Stripper part 2

I wake up to CP24 cross broadcasting CityTV’s Breakfast TV. Liza is coo-ing and oo-ing over a puppy. Oh and some bombs went off in London.

I switch over to CBC to see an arial shot of Aldgate station as EMTs try to erect a tent. A Canadian is voicing over from a scratchy British phone line explaining that she heard the explosion and described it as “not your typical English explosion” Whaaa? I think she meant that the rumble was not the usual rumble of traffic or underground train. They say that the cellphone network has collapsed due to the weight of calls.

For shits and giggles, I turn over to CNN. Nothing but technical problems as a reporter fixes his hair while he has nothing to say and the camera lingers on him a bit too long. Meanwhile The voice over describes the bombings as “horrific” and “deadly” and offers nothing in the way of facts, just fear.

I go back to the CBC. They mention Kings Cross Station being one of the points of the bombings and I am back in London, Xmas 1987. My friends and I are wandering around Regent Street trying to decide if we are going to stick around to watch Prince Edward switch on the pretty Xmas lights along the high street or go to Kings Cross rail station and see two of our friends off early back to Leeds. We opt for the former and enjoy the evening. We were so far back that we couldn’t see the Prince but the lights were beautiful.

We drop the friends off at the closest tube station and say our goodbyes. When we get home we hear on the news that several people had died that night at Kings Cross when one of the super long wooden escalator caught fire. People were uncontrollably delivered into the fire by the escalator. Our friends were diverted to another station and it took them hours to get home.

London is a tough city. Londoners are tougher. They’re going to be fine. But I feel a sense of dread now that they’re on the same fear-selling precipice the US went over after 9-11.

Oh look! A puppy!

Via Furface, who I am sure is a reformed Catholic boy and had this site touch him in many ways. Incredible mail art mixed with mea culpa.

If any of you want to confess something without the hassle of sending sail mail, just click on the comment button below and post as “Annie Monomus”

Anyone catch the picture of Tony Blair on vacation with no shirt?

Hubba hubba!

I tried googling it but came up with nothing. A little help?

UPDATE: Thanks Hephaestion! Look upon Mr Blair’s Bearishness!

This morning I am killing time at my local Starbucks (dont want to get into work too early) when I overhear two women commenting on the poor gentleman who set himself on fire at Queens Park:

“Why didn’t they take him down like the guy at Union Station?”

“Yeah! I mean that was efficient!”

They continue on in this vein like they both were the Seargent in charge while this whole thing was going down. Not once did they mention the fact that the police couldn’t see into the van and confirm if it was full of explosives (hence their reluctance to storm the van). I look over and the women in question are skinny, baby-making trophy wives that inhabit Lawrence and Yonge.

My Gameboy was promptly turned on.

Later the same day, I was waiting at the counter of my local McDees and two granola grandmas come up behind me and start into their fussing. Both have white hair, hippy-dippy clothes and have glazed eyes like they’ve never been in a McDonalds before. After much conversation about what kind of food they liked, one of them asks “You don�t have Harvest Burgers, do you?”

Well. First of all I hate it when people phrase questions like that. Its negative – like you know the answer and you should not be asking yet you do anyway. I know I do it sometimes but I still hate it. She asks again. Blank stare from the counter drone. Then when she got no reply she asked again!

The clerk behind the counter laughs. The Granola Grandma laughs. The clerk stops laughing and apologizes. Then, after a pause where both people stare at each other in another awkward silence, Granola Granny asks AGAIN!

I went ballistic: “This is McDonalds! No they don’t!”

The Granola Granny looks at me and says “No? They don’t?” Still phrasing her response in a question.

“You’re not an idiot, aren’t you?” But I dont say it. The clerk and I say “NO.” At the same time.

Later, they sat behind me (I was half way through my burger by the time the decided to order salads, decide where to sit and discovered the hard way that forks were in the bag)…and proceeded to ruin all of the movie Constantine for me!

What the hell are Granola grannies doing at Constantine? At least she saved me $9.95.

I don’t think I am becoming misogynistic, just misanthropic.