The following should not be read by pregnant women, mostly because they’ll kill me

So I’m going to risk offending a lot of people by comparing two things that don’t seem to have a lot, if anything in common. But wait, there’s more, I intend to prove your thinking to be incorrect and rub the fact that I’m smarter than you in your face. Bwa ha ha ha. More importantly I do in fact realize that I’ll have to hide from women who are showing, and those that are grossly and disproportionately overweight just in case.

Today’s lesson: buying a car is like having a kid.

My regards go out to Jay today, who got, well, the poo covered end of a pointy stick shoved up in front of his face. It isn’t fun, but it will be. Now I’ll go through the phases and explain, hopefully to your’s and more importantly, Jay’s amusement.

1. Planning:

Not all people plan to have a kid, or buy a car. It’s something that just happens. In a moment of weakness, or due to an accident (he he, did anyone else catch my double entendre?) people decide to do these things. People need to do both, and generally spend much time contemplating to do either, but there comes a time in your life when you need one, kid and/or car. In the case of a kid, you are likely to watch those ‘cycles’ and spend a lot of time, er, well, you all know, and if you don’t I’m not going to be the one to explain it to you, there are sock puppets for that kind of thing. In the case of cars, research is usually done, you scope out prospects, and make sure you can financially do it (also like having a kid). After much soul searching, the decision is made and we pass onto phase two…

2. The wait:

In the case of kids, it’s usually around nine months, and depending on the car you want, it can take just as long. If you think that your wait is bad, consider something like a Dodge Viper where people wait upwards of one year, or better yet, the Bentley. With only about twenty made a year and so many rap stars trying to prove themselves, you can imagine how long it takes. Yes, it’s painful… but just wait until step…

3. Delivery:

Mmm. Any woman you ask is likely to tell you that they love their kid and whatever they went through is worth their child. I hope to not experience any pain if I ever do decide to curse the world with my offspring. I’ll wait until some process is invented to grow the child in a beaker, or if not beaker option is available, I’ll settle for mucho drugs. Whatever you have, I’ll take, even the ones that are just candy with the words TYLENOL written in pen on them. In either case, it is painful and long. Women can spend hours in labour, and I can guarantee it will take at least that long to get all of the details and wheelin/dealing settled. Yes, it hurts, but it’s looking much better from here on, trust me…

4. The firsts:

You’ll see it for the first time and know that it’s yours. You get to take it home, and hopefully you’re ready enough that you got it a room to sleep in, and a few other supplies to get you started. You’ll smile when you look at it, you’ll show it off, but most importantly, you’ll be proud of it because it’s yours. There’ll be it’s first bath, the first time out, the first time you adjust the mirrors and the seat and program the presets on your stereo, er, or it’s first steps/words as applicable. And guess what? All that pain will be forgotten. For those of you with cars and/or kids, I bet that if you think back, you can remember what a terrible experience it was. It was long and painful, but after taking that first spin with your girlfriend/boyfriend at your side, or having the kid grab your finger with all of its, the pain pales in comparison. It’s the magic that makes people have kids and buy cars because if we did remember how much this sucked, we wouldn’t do either and the human race would die out, alone and in their homes.

I know that it’s not fun to go through the process, and yes, it is easier and faster to buy a gun instead of getting a car, but one sniff of that new car smell, or the first time you see rain bead up on the side of your car in the rear view mirror, the total freedom and independence, or being able to cart around friends in the ‘partymobile’ will make it all worth it. I promise.

Let's give it up for the Carnies

I think that's how you spell Carnies, carnys, carneys, eh, you get the idea. I know my spell check will yell at me no matter how I spell it. Carneys, that looks right, okay...

LET'S HEAR IT FOR CARNEYS

Whether you make fun of their personal hygiene, appearance, or intelligence, you really have to take a step back and admire the people who so eagerly bring character to carnivals, they (quite literally) put the carni in carnival. Carni is really wrong. Whatever.

These talented folks are who we entrust our lives with on life threatening rides after only hours of training. I mean if I handed car keys to a twelve year old and expected them to cab me downtown after a day, I'm guessing it wouldn't go over so well. In fact I don't trust some people with years of experience, let alone hours. Oh, and don't give me that "rides aren't life threatening, and Carly, you're kinda a drama queen", because they are. I was on this stupid thing two years ago and it sort of swung off its central axis and it took half an hour to realign so that we wouldn't all get our heads chopped off by a big metal post. Personally I can imagine at least three and a half better ways to die, thus being decapitated by a spinning ride is not in my plans.

Next come the games and contests. Think about all the money you've spent over the years because deep down you thought you could knock over the cans. It looks easy, hit cans with a ball, that's it. Instead try this at home: stack up cans in the garage, keep throwing balls at the beer-a-mid until it falls over, proceed to your nearest Walmart and buy a really big stuffed toy for less then half the price of what it would cost you to win the pity prize, repeat until satisfied. There. But no, instead we ALL get conned in, year after year, foolishly believing it to be easy, possible, and not what-so-ever crooked. This is my same idea about casinos. Gah. But as you can see with their siren song over the crappy 'treble-only' tin can speakers, they draw you in time and time again.

Oh, and it gets better. Say that instead of spending your life savings, or attempting to win an early death on one of the rides, you decide to stroll around the grounds and grab a snack, yes, that too is controlled by the carneys. I'm pretty sure that not one of them has had any training in safe food preparation, and also the food to begin with isn't too safe unless you're privileged enough to carry around your own defibrillator, but you're going to eat it anyway. Yum. I could try to find the nutrition value of you're average corndog, but I'd sooner explain it all in four words: deep fried chocolate bar.

So far I've covered most of what people value most, life, health, money, (and friends/relationships if you bring someone else to this death-trap with you) and shown you how Carneys control it all. But what else do people value that the Carney can ruin? Dignity? Offspring? Or future possibilities of these occurring? Yes, but more importantly our cars, trucks, and fatty-mobiles (SUVS and Minivans). They are also in charge of parking, and as I watched a coworker start his car with a screwdriver today, I realized that I'm terrified as to where they have me park. Not only will Emmy be subjected to door dings and other parking challenged individuals, but also the Silver awesomeness will be susceptible to break-ins and kids with sticky hands. AUGH!

In short, I'm visiting ye olde Edmonton carnival tomorrow, and no, you can't have my stereo when I die.

What about the other ten months a year?

I don’t get summer blockbusters, or horses, but this time, more specifically summertime movies, and as usual I’m going to complain about why I think that the whole idea of summertime movies is dumb.

Think about what you would do, if you could, on a nice summertime day. You’re not going to want to be inside when it’s warm and sunny outside. In this great land where temperatures seem to fall to near absolute zero, the more time I can spend outside or at least cruising with the windows down is great. I’d rather not spend my hard earned ‘school money’ going to movie after movie, yet I do.

What about the other ten months a year that everything is covered with snow? Alright, so maybe it’s just nine, but it’s miserable. Those are the days that I would be willing to hop into a nice warm movie theater and spend the next two hours without my brain. Speaking of which, the summer is when I’m able to stop thinking. Without school or any kind of challenging work, I really don’t need a kung fu movie catalyst to turn off my frontal lobe, I can do that quite well on my own thank you very much. At least if the over-budget special effects movies came out during the school year, I can chalk it up to being a break from studying and not feel too bad when I start to drool and shove the greasy popcorn equivalent of eight big macs into my mouth.

No, instead Hollywood saturates the public with crappy movie after crappy movie, depending on star power and special effects to make people come, or the welcome escape from reality shows and reruns. Reality shows – why did that happen? Scripts are your friend.

But back to me yelling about the loads of movies. It’s actually decreased my imaginative capabilities to the point that I don’t know how else to spend my day. I mean, it’s late, I’m kinda tired, but I may as well go to a show, besides there’s that really great new one out…. NO! WHAUGH! If the hamlet I’m unfortunately associated with had any wildlife, I’d suggest visiting a park, having a makeshift game of sand tag, or once again attempt to feed geese pixie sticks, because in two months, the geese will be gone, (if Sherwood Park doesn’t kill them all before then), and it’ll be cold, very cold out.
My advice? Go out, work on your tan and not that eerie shade of green you’ve become after spending day after day under fluorescent lights, and enjoy the weather, you can always rent the movie later.

Oh, I'm so very alone 2005

Whaugh!

For the first time in Carly history, my Dad has left me alone with the house. It's wacky crazy. Of course comes the enivitable talk about what to do when he dies, that's always fun. Apparently Gail at the bank knows all. I wish I knew all. I think I do, but I suppose that statement alone kinda drops the wombat on that idea.

He had to leave to help with funeral arrangements for his aunt in Saskatchewan and although my brother does 'live at home' he really just sleeps here, and even that isn't a given. I think he came home last night, but I'm not too sure, and I wouldn't bet on it. Meanwhile I've learned a few things:

1. I have far too much energy. I don't know where it comes from. At Budget, I can go from 7am to 6pm without a break, even lunch, and no problem. I'll even go out to party afterwards without any negative effects. I can't understand it and I feel that if I try to, the magic might leave me. Being bored and having A WHOLE DAY OFF (!!!) I went second hand shopping and managed to furnish most of our basement. Oh, if anyone has a bed they don't need, please give me a shout. Dad did not leave me a credit card, and I don't think he'll let me get one, (we had the talk) so my furnishing budget it limited, but if anyone wants to come over and enjoy an awesome game of Duck Hunt on my 80's TV from the Brick, you are welcome to.

2. Movies aren't as funny alone. I tried to watch Shaun of the Dead last night, only to discover that it's not as funny without others, provided the 'others' also find British humour funny.

3. Houses make creepy sounds.

4. The speakers in the family room are quite literally loud enough to knock the pictures off the walls, and I now have a mess to clean up.

5. My family was nuts when they decided to pick colours for our house. Peach is NOT good.

Hey, that was short, and it was self-centered. Rad.

Well I hope you are all enjoying your respective summers, I mean you must be if you are all too busy to update your blogs. I'm just going to huddle in a corner until work, see y'all later.

More is less

Sitting in a car the other day (I know, big surprise, something I wouldn't do at all) and I realized something. The radio is crap. Not just because of the car, but the stations.

My lil' old towne of Edmonton used to have a handful of stations. You never used all of the presets on your stereo quite simply because there wasn't enough stations out there to program in. This was a simplier time. But then somewhere along the way all of the radio stations changed. Some that had played old stuff now played new, and the new stuff got sold and went out of business for a while, and no one listened to the University station, still.

Most recently there was a radio statio, um, baby boom. Three new stations popped up, and made things worse. Stations used to have the happy buffer zone between them, both in the form of Hertz as well as genres. Now... nothing. It's more of an audio smear that exists on the dial, and it's going to need a whole lot of wet naps before anything gets better.

At first, I must admit, I was drawn to the glow of the dial. There was so much selection, radio contests, and a way to avoid commercials all together through a frantic changing of the station. There were all new 'countdowns' and radio personalities. More stations than you can shake a plantshop full of sticks at presented a plethora of choice and a false sense of identity. You could leave the house with only a handful of cds or one mp3 cd and still not grow tired of what your eardrums would be exposed to... then it happened.

As I was saying, I was in a car. I began by listening to the new 'top 40' station only to hear the song 'Oh' on for the millionth time (on a side note, the top 40 stations are required to play any song in the top five at least 90 times per week. That's more than 10 times a day!) and decided to flip over to the old 'top 40' station when, lo and behold, the same song, albeit playing slightly later, was on that station. Stuck by dissapointment I tried the new 'rock' station and heard a Smashing Pumpkins song from before they became crap. Liking the song, I listened for a while, but curiosity got the best of me and I flipped to the old 'rock' station. You guessed it, well unless you are an idiot and still haven't caught on where I'm going with my story, it too was playing the exact same song.

It was great, my four stations became two, and the two also share music played on at least another four stations. Ahh, the smear of music is complete.

My message to djs and radio announcers out there:

WHAT THE CRAP?!?! Yes, what the crap indeed. First off, no one wants to hear how you spent your weekend or partake in any demeaning contests to win crappy prizes. Call my house, don't make me say how great you are, and give me money. You can play all of the commercials that you want, but just, please, SHUT UP!!! I don't listen to talk radio, I listen for music, so I would greatly appreciate you keeping those comments that seem like a good idea to you in your head. You really aren't that funny. The radio 'gags' are so obviously prerecordered, you may as well tape the Late Show and try to pass it off as your own material. Oh, and cut out those stupid phone in questions. Unless you are giving me money to call, I could care less what the person in the car next to me thinks about the sugar-free slurpees at 7-11 enough to have them swerve into me with their car because they are too busy talking on their stupid phone.

Thank you.

And if anyone is going to point out the fact that I think that I'm funny, but really I'm not, and I talk and talk and you could care less, don't visit the site. Instead visit something remotely entertaining and complain about the prevalence of sugar-free drinks in society. Oh, wait... you're the ninth caller... come over to my place right now so I can smack you with a dead wombat in a sweat sock... I mean, give you your prize.

I want to be a skank when I grow up

Okay. I know. I did it again. I went on and on about myself and how I'm terribly miserable when I should be fully aware taht you don't really care. Nor should you. I read other blogs and can not imagine anything more boring than those that simply exist to vent one's own worries and concerns about their own self-being. The only person that should be concerned with this is the author themselves and while it may occasionally provide some sub-standard level of entertainment roughly equivalent to 'the Simple Life' it is something that I try to avoid. In order to better society and entertain you, the valued (try saying that five times fast and keeping a straight face) reader, I shall now point out what's wrong with society.

To provide you with the appropriate background: I'm in my store right now. Yes, while I know it may not be MY store, I like to think it is. I'm alone, like usual, but really do. appreciate the odd visit from a friend (hint hint), but right now, I'm alone. After becoming quite sick of the lunch hour oldies on the radio I've thrown in my Nora Jones cd. All in all, this is a pretty regular day. Nothing fancy, not too busy, but that's where I'm at right now. That out of the way, I'm going to go on to the bulk of the blog... that kinda sounds funny - bulk of blog bulk of blog, okay, so the greasy hamburger meat once you gett past the bun, unless you're on the West Beach Diet or Atkins, then this is more of the pink inside of the meat. Mmmm.

Two girls walked into the store earlier and determinately marched to the back of the store to check out, ahem, the stuff I like to avoid. Both were quite slim, in short skirts, heels and tank-tops, and both looked as if they had spent a few hours on makeup/hair/general girlie type things. Their brand name clothes probably cost more then my entire wardrobe, and the only time I could justify spending that much time getting ready would be if I landed a spot on the Bachelor. I'd capture his heart, have him give me all the roses and then shove the final one down his throat on live television and go on to rant how the show is everything wrong with society. It would probably land them their highest ratings ever and allow them to broadcast indefinitely, but I still would take some satisfaction from a well-worded monologue.

So the two of them go rooting around in the back, and I, of course, make it quite obvious that I'm attempting to use the powers of my mind to force their heeds to spontaneously collapse under the weight of the thick blond locks, but unfortunately to little avail.

Most times I have no quarrels with the visitors to the corner of unmentionables, but in the case, I'm guessing that neither had yet reached puberty. Yep. These well manicured, cell phone toting, gossiping girls were only about fourteen and looked like they could have easily been found roaming Jasper Ave. Wow. I wonder if they realize that looking like that doesn't actually attract boys that are the same age, as they still are under the belief that girls have cooties, but instead they manage to capture the wandering eye of men old enough to be their fathers. That's just great, what girl wouldn't want to be surveyed by old perverts?

I'd like to extend congratulations to the parents who were too busy looking after their own concerns instead of raising their children, and instead enlisted nannies TV and Bankcard to do it for them. I'm sure that all those hours listening to some of the music MTV describing 'licking the lollipop' or Britney Spear's Nudie-tard had nothing to do with their mal-adjustment and advanced 'maturation' that they've metamorphosed through.
This, of course, brings me to the subject of the media's role in everything, which I think I'll pull a 'Days of our Lives' with and leave you wanting more - to be concluded in my next episode... or is it? Yes... but is it really over? More after the commercial break.

Warning: the people you are jerks to today may have your credit card...

GAH!!! So I was having a great day at work, um, well let me rephrase that - I was having an alright day at work. I really do love the job, but sometimes the coworkers... But all in all, good times. Things were going smoothly and quickly when (now comes the part of the story where the villian is introduced, albeit at the time this is unbeknownst to the hero of the story).

One of my coworkers came in the back and asked where the book for the CSmart was. He wanted that manual dealie that comes with the car. Keep in mind that the piece of crap car by Mercedes has no glove compartment, and is uber-popular, so it's usually stolen in these vehicles. Also keep in mind that to replace said book, it costs about $300.00 (thanks, 'Cedes). Apparently the couple who rented Maxwell the Second wished to purchase one in time and wanted more info about him. No problem, in fact I rented one and figured that I could help them answer any questions that they might have if I couldn't find the book. I mean I took the lil guy to Cowtown, who better to describe the true power of it's crappiness then me?

I happily skipped around front as was confronted by an elderlyish (? well they were late fifties I think) couple digging through the recesses of this car in search of the book. For those of you who have by some bizarre fashion managed to avoid all knowledge of this car - in a nutshell, it has no recesses. In fact, it may fit inside a nutshell. It is, very very small. I open up the passenger door to meet the woman digging under the seat. Here is thrilling rendition of the following events...

Me: Um, if we don't find the book, I'd be happy to answer any questions you have -
Woman: No, I want the book!
Me: Well, you see it's common that some things get stolen from cars, like the cigarette lighters, valve caps, and a lot of the books, so there's a pretty good chance -
Woman: If I'm going to rent this car, I need the book!
Me: I can answer anything-
Woman: You look like a smart young lady, FIND A WAY TO GET ONE!
Me: We don't have any books, um, on site, only in the other cars -
Woman: Then maybe you should get one?
Me: This is the only car not being rented, yet.
Woman: THEN GET ONE FROM THE DEALERSHIP!
Me: It's a half an hour drive. And it costs -
Woman: THAT'S NOT MY PROBLEM, IT'S YOURS!
Me: If you are planning on buying one, maybe the dealership would have some books on the car-
Woman: I work for a very large firm that rents from you people for entire weeks, and I can assure you -
Me: Let me go check the back...

At this point I jumped into a Neon and made it do things that the engineers never designed it to do. Unfortunately aside from some tippy SUVs there was nothing with a hand brake, and I really needed one. But I was still really angry, I mean REALLY angry that this woman had demeaned me, yelled at me, and treated me like I was two. I considered hitting her with said Neon, but decided against it.

Oh, and for future reference, even with the automatic in its 'low' gear setting, the thing will shift for you despite you trying despretly to red line the little guy. On another note, I was able to leave a patch through a complex series of drifting in reverse and then giving her pig in drive, and then perfected a dry reverse 180. (Note: this was not on Budget property).

But after the hour I was gone, and realized no one noticed, I was still upset, verge of tears upset. I went inside to tell my coworkers about the cow, and plead that they find 'damage' to charge her for on the car's return, but they were apathetic, as usual. This was about when I found her contract.

I certainly found myself to be 'the smart one' as a contract contains many valuable tidbits, such as name, address, phone number, and get this - an imprint of her credit card number, four digit validation number, and expiry date. Yup. Just knowing that I have access somehow made me feel much better as thoughts drifted through my mind of going to her house, borrowing Max with the spare set of keys we keep, and leave her to sort out insurance issues. Sigh. She's a jerk, I know I can accept this, and someday she'll die, hopefully before me, yet after what El Nino and I were able to pull in an abandoned lot - I'm not so sure.