Category Archives: I’m going to tell you what to do

Garage Sale Update

Distractions, I'm going to tell you what to do, political, Queer stuff, Toronto, You Magnificent Bastard Leave a reply

Last weekend was our (I guess now) annual PWA yard sale fundraiser held during the massive Cabbagetown Festival.

Saturday was a washout with all the rain. I’d like to officially apologize to TJ, Jordan and Doug for cancelling their costumed appearance but I think I saved you guys a good soaking. It was a good thing I didn’t reschedule for Sunday because it was “neuken mentale” as the Dutch say.

Loosely Translated: fucking mental. Seriously.

The crowds were out at 8.30am when we walked over to Postbear’s house to start setting up. As we started to pull things out of his basement, there was a line up forming. We opened at 10am, sharp and literally the three of us, postbear, SharkBoy and I, were swarmed with all manner of shoppers. And it didn’t let up at all.

Needless to say I could not have put on my TD armour at all. Though I did get a couple people asking me where the Stormtrooper was this year! So definitely next year!

The Bad: The guy who stiffed me $0.40 on a $3 glassware purchase AFTER we haggled for 10 min about the price. Yes, I punctuated my argument with “IT’S GOING TO CHARITY!” A

The Really Bad: We had quite a few things stolen right from under our noses. The yard is big, there was a super amount of stuff from one end to the other and maybe some of the “missing” stuff might have been legitimately bought and we forgot about the purchase but all three of us conferred at the end of the day on certain transactions and discovered that some things walked away without being paid for. I don’t know why people think it’s cool to steal, but apparently there are horrid people in the world. I hope they enjoy stealing from a registered charity.

The Good: We must have had 40-50 boxes of stuff. At the end of the day (it was getting onto dusk when we finally packed up the remnants), I would say there were 10 good sized boxes left – we’re talking those 16 gallon Rubbermaid thingers. So nearly all sold!

The Gooder: All three of us, during the madness of sales, had at least one person come up to us and stuff money into our hands for NO REASON AT ALL. Remember when I said I was bitter? This kind of kills that vibe. We were so busy we couldn’t set up a donation tub, and we probably couldn’t have kept our eye on it anyway. So it was great to see people organically giving money. Thank you random strangers!

The Goodest: We raised over $1400. There is still a couple outstanding sales, post-sales, that might push us over the $1500 limit but there we are. Think about that for a moment. Imagine moving/selling that much stuff through an afternoon of crazy.

Postbear has given the money to PWA to be distributed to a few needy channels within the foundation, like their foodbank.

Already postbear is talking up next year. Ideas are churning. Volunteers are being organized. Things are happening…

I have to single out Andrew (postbear) for all his hard work in organizing this amazing day. He worked really hard and long on making sure the yard was level, the stuff was donated and delivered on time and hauled his “never out of bed before 2pm” ass up and moving at 8am. Thanks for a great day!

That I Can Do, Too!

Hobbies, I'm going to tell you what to do, Personal Bits, political, Queer stuff, Toronto 2 Replies

I took postbear’s words to heart and thought I should start out small – I’ve decided to walk (march?) in the Scotiabank AIDS Walk, this Sept 25th. I don’t think, however, I will be selling off space on my suit, unless I’m offered some ridiculous sum of money. Hint Hint PrideFM?

Within a few hours of tweeting my decision, long time internet friend (and one embarrassingly drunk pick up attempt night at the Eagle) “Bark” aka Steve K dropped $50 into my sponsor jar!

I’m off to a great start!

Here are the details:

My Sponsor Page: My goal is low – this is my first time doing anything like this, but secretly I’d love to crest $2000. Expect some aggressive tweets and boring blog posts. Why not donate now to shut me up early!? Plenty of payment options!

If you want to make a PayPal donation, my account is “deadrobot” At “rocketmail” dot com. Every little bit helps!

The Event: Starts around 11am and I’ll most likely get there early because who doesn’t want to get a photo with a Sandtrooper?

I’ll keep you posted on how I’m doing.

Wish me luck!

Shattered Pride

I'm going to tell you what to do, Toronto, You Stupid Dick 4 Replies

Poor Pride Toronto.

It seems everyone is out to get you.

There’s that whole Middle East problem that somehow has become a sword for any yokel who dislikes a few hundred thousand people getting together to celebrate diversity. Hey JDL and QuAIA – Thanks for bringing your fight to the mix and stop me if I’m wrong, but a festival about sexual freedoms is not a place for airing out your Forever War, even if you tack on the word “Queer” to your cause. Pride is now officially like a high school house party for theatre fags where the chess club shows up and insists on taking the B52s off the stereo and putting on Nana Mouskouri. ZZZ.

Meanwhile, at city hall…I imagine the mayor and his right winged goonsquad are melodramatically twirling their mustaches, thinking up ways to defund you. Like setting public opinion upon you by ramping up buzzwords like “hate speech”, painting you as being dis-organized, therefore not deserving the dollars. Seriously Pride Toronto, watch these guys. They’ve shown in the past they’d be happier if you didn’t exists at all, let alone being forced to give you money.

And at the Sun (snicker) newspaper, some hack awful reporter (who has her nose quite far up the mayor’s ass) is going behind your back telling religious leaders to lean on city council reps to de-fund you due to hateful messages in your parade.

Remember when you had to deal with naked people? Good times…

So what do you do?

I’m going to tell you what to do and you can do what you like:

Cancel Pride.

Hear me out: I’ve always thought the best advice for dealing with children who are throwing fits is to calmly stop, let them run their course, then punch them in the face.

Okay now I’m dead serious about this. Please cancel Pride for one year and let the city wonder where the couple hundred million dollars in tourist money went. Let these petulant whiners wonder how the city came up a few hundred million dollars short in the budget because of all the product placement, transactions and advertisements suddenly stopped flowing from business to business. Let the businesses who lose out without Pride deal with the mayor and the right-winged reporters and religious goons. Money has a funny way of shutting people up.