Timeout is Bull***

Hey, y'all.

One of the best things about weathering a long-term relationship is that, if you stick to your guns, eventually your friends and family will stop asking when you plan to breed.

I swear, people have this creepy, weird fetish whereby they want to see every couple they know knock out kids with the frequency of those basketball-team-sized families on TLC who apparently don't know what a condom is.

I really didn't like kids much when I was younger.  I didn't have any brothers or sisters so my brief exposure to children was usually limited to traumatic visits from friends and relatives with young hooligans in tow.  These sugar-crazed larvae typically exhibited no behavioral boundaries whatsoever and were usually chaperoned by parents that obviously had these brats either as an afterthought or caved in to the aforementioned peer pressure.

The worst thing I could ever hear was my Mom yelling:

"David!   When you come downstairs bring some of your toys for _______ to play with!  One of those transforming robots, maybe!"

'F#@$% that,' I'd think.  'The most that destructive little savage is gettin' out of me is one of these  crappy Go-Bots.'

So, I kinda grew up thinking that most kids were spoiled, anarchic, bratty, hyperactive little dwarfs with a free pass to act insane just because they so happened to be young.

And frankly, my opinion hasn't changed very much.  Every once in awhile I'll get parental stirrings (Duly noted here http://emblogificationcapturedevice.blogspot.com/2010/08/christmas-came-early-this-year-part-ii.html, signed Captain Convenience) when I meet a good kid or watch a sappy McDonald's commercial like this gender-inclusive, emotionally manipulative, culturally-toadying piece of pap:



But just as soon as I see a kid flip out in a mall, drop down and start pounding their miniscule hands and feet on the floor in rage while the parent sweetly intones "Now come on, sweetness, don't be like that", then I'm reminded to call my doctor to try and book a procedure.

And it's a shame, because I think I'd make a terrific Dad.  No-one can to look in my room, filled with toys, comics and board games and say that I wouldn't be able to relate to a kid.  But a few things have prevented me from taking the plunge thus far.

The first has been my previously documented tenuous-at-best "career".  How the hell can you plan to have a young un' when you can't even visualize getting through another day at work?  Plus, I really don't think it's fair to come home to your kid every night feeling bitter and miserable.  That child needs mom and dad to be at their karmic best every single day.

Also, though it pains me to say this, we live in a very superficial and materialistic world.  I've seen first hand what happens to kids that go to school in ratty clothes and anything but top-of-the-line sneakers.  So if I couldn't afford anything but the very best for my l'il nibbler, frankly, I wouldn't burden my hypothetical him or her with the uncontrolled circumstances of their birth.

I would also insist that one parent be home at all times, which big business and government has made sure is as uncommon nowadays as pay phones and poodle skirts.  In the 50's, a body could work at a gas station and make enough scratch to support a stay-at-home spouse, a coupla rug-rats and a modest home.  Now, thanks to the twin terrors of inflation and debt, both parents are forced to work and kids are being raised by strangers and, sometimes even worse, their friends.

And that's part of the reason why I think youth violence and swarmings are becoming more and more common place.  People are entering into this life-altering stage of parenthood but they aren't altering their lives at all.  They make the decision to spawn with the same gravity they reserve to selecting either coleslaw or macaroni salad with their sandwich combo.  Without thinking reality through, they soon find themselves trying to guide these little lives in absentia.  When they actually see their kids for a few meager hours at night, many parents are just too tired, too worn down or too guilty to be tough disciplinarians.  So they capitulate to their every whim.

How can kids see their folks providing boundaries and structure if they can just walk all over them?

I asked my own mom about this last week, not expecting the tirade which followed:

"Jesus Christ, I see these friggin' people with kids nowadays and it makes me sick!  Asking a youngster what they want for dinner!  Ridiculous!  Maybe if they were paying for it!"

I struggled to interrupt her mid-rant.

"Okay, but what about me?  Surely I must have pitched a fit once and awhile..."

She paused for a moment of recollection.

"No, you really weren't like that.  But, I do remember one time you wanted a piece of a chocolate Easter Bunny when you first got up one morning and I told you that you couldn't have any until after you'd a proper breakfast.  Well, you didn't like that too much.  You started to whinge, fell down and started banging your heels into the floor."     

I winced, feeling embarrassed even thirty-eight years after the fact.

"Wow, what did you do?"

"What do you think I did?"  Mom replied.  "I pulled you up, gave you a good crack on the ass and put you in your seat.  It didn't take long for you to stop crying and eat your breakfast."

Yikes!  I wonder if it was too late for me to report this to child protective services, as some young commiserating schemers are want to do nowadays.  Sensing my surprise, Mom filled in the brief silence.

"Now, I never, ever hurt you.  The few times you got a whack like that it was more of a surprise than any thing else, but I'll tell you, it worked."

"Okay, so what's you're opinion on this new-agey 'time out' stuff..."

"Timeout!?  Why, that's the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard of.  Timeout.  What, so you can put the youngster back into their room where they already want to be?  Bullshit I call it."

Ah, Mom, sugar and spice.

And that's the thing.  Nothing makes me sicker than mealy-mouthed parents who tip-toe around their brood like that episode of The Twilight Zone where the freaky kid has god-like powers to do whatever he wants.

I really don't believe in corporal punishment, but I do believe that kids should possess a healthy modicum of fear and respect for their parents.  I loved my folks to death and always knew they felt the same about me, but I never crossed them because the thoughts of it alone scared the friggin' poop outta me.

Even if it's not implicit, little ones will eventually equate boundaries, discipline and consequences as a symptom of care.  What says love more than a parent that shows they give a shit about their kids by setting clear limits, punishing bad behavior and, most importantly, re-enforcing, recognizing and rewarding those times when they often do right by you? 

So, it's likely that even if I reconcile all these things and eventually produce my very own mini-me, I fear that the way things are now, the state would end up taking them away from me just because the neighbor saw me rap the kid on the knuckles with a wooden spoon.  

EPIC:   A classic and strangely prophetic...


EPIC TOO: EPICTRIC BOOGALOO

Harvey Danger once sang:
I've been around the world and found
that only stupid people are breeding.
The cretins cloning and feeding
and I don't even own a T.V.

But I don't agree.  I know a lot of awesome parents that give me hope.  Please, for the love of God, keep out-breeding the stupid people! 


Harvey Danger - Flagpole Sitta
Uploaded by FabCure. - Explore more music videos.

EPIC III - THE REVENGE:   A refreshing moment of honestly from The Kids...


FAIL: I've been there, kid.  Keep your chins up!

Dreams Die Hard

Greetings, Gregarious Gawkers of the Garbled!

Well, for the past few weeks I've been taking advantage of the Career and Transition Services offered by  one of the major community colleges here in Halifax.  In the first meeting with my Career Development Specialist (I'm not making that up, it says so right on her card!) we went over all the pie-in-the-sky results that fell out of my Career Matchmaker results (Conveniently covered here: http://emblogificationcapturedevice.blogspot.com/2010/09/tell-me-something-i-dont-know-please-im.html, Yer Ever-Lovin' Host).

We did this by using an Employment Prospects database which is supposed to house accurate labor market information about every possible career path.  If you want to have a boo, I've enlinkified if for you right here:  http://www.labourmarketinformation.ca/standard.aspx?ppid=57&lcode=eng&prov=&gaid=&occ=&search_key=1&pre_sel_criteria=0.

Just for fun, we looked at a few careers that I actually have a vested interest in (like Film Crew) and I was pleasantly surprised to see that it held the "Growing" status when we looked at Employment Prospects.

"Hold on for a second," my CDS said.  "You really need to look at the number of people in the province that are currently employed in that same sector to get a feel for the job market.  Then you need to check out how many opening's they estimate there'll be over the next few years."

I leaned forward into her computer screen as she conjured up the information.

"Hmmmm, it doesn't look very good," she said.  "According to this, in 2008, four-hundred and twenty eight people were employed in that industry.  They estimate that only sixteen openings will appear over the next five years."

Sixteen?  In half a freakin' decade?  Cripes...

I expressed despair that the results I was most interested in would all be ruled out by this devil database.  She tut-tutted my concern.

"Let's not take anything off the table just yet.  Your level of interest is still a very important factor.  I'm going to give you some homework.  Research all of your results by running them through this database.  Hopefully you'll find something that will strike an acceptable balance between your desire to find a practical career and something with a creative bent."

I did one better then that.  I also went through every one of the programs and courses offered by the college as well.

I started by eliminating everything that I had no interest in.  This instantly ruled out any the following career nightmare scenarios:

•  A plane goes down in a fiery ball of ruin just because I had a bad day and didn't tighten a lugnut.
• A set of stairs in an apartment complex collapses because I didn't "carry the two."
• Counseling people that are strung out on Oxycontin and have a live mail carrier buried somewhere in their backyard and time is running out.  
• Examining fluids produced by the human body.
• Cleaning up fluids produced by the human body.  Let's just say that anything bedpannish is right out. 
• Grooming another human's body.
• Embalming a dead human's body.
• Sticking my hand into another human being's mouth (or any other orifice for that matter). 
• Something that would threaten to turn me into a suit-and-tie-wearing douchebag. 
• Anything involving fashion, hair, makeup or interior design.  Look, it's not like I'm not confident in my masculinity, I just have all the taste of a low-fat rice cake.
• Anything involving tiny insane people (i.e. kids).
• Careers involving copious amounts of electricity.
• Office administration.  Frankly, the embalming route is more attractive to me than this.    

So, with these things duly excised, here's what I was left with.  Below you'll see the program/course name, the employment prospects, my interest level ("5" being "Yes, baby, YES!"/"I'll have what he's having!" and "1" being "Sure, whatever.  Let's boogaloo 'til we puke.") and finally a brief description (since I had no  f#@$%^&amp clue what half of these meant myself):

American Sign Language/English Interpretation 
Prospects: FAIR                    Interest Level:  3
This would be for translators, terminologists and interpreters.  One minor stumbling block (as I'm fond of saying): "I'm bilingual...I can't speak either language!"  Also my current repertoire for sign language is limited to obscene gestures.

Architectural Engineering Technician               
Prospects: GOOD                  Interest Level: 2
This would involve all aspects of building design, construction and inspection.  Frankly, it's a bit too close for comfort to my second objection in the bullet list above.

Baking/Pastry Art             
Prospects: FAIR                     Interest Level: 1
My significant other asked me to bake a special birthday cake for her this year.  I told her: "Look, you don't want me to do that unless you never wanna see another birthday."

Cooking/Culinary Arts          
Prospects: GOOD                   Interest Level: 3
When my kitchen is clean and I have all the ingredients I need I actually love to cook.  I'm very good at it.  Just don't ask me how many oven mitts, cutting boards or plastic spatulas I've sent to an early grave, m'okay?


Computer Electronics Technician
Prospects: FAIR                      Interest Level: 3
I'd be working with hardware, software, electronic widgets, and networks, to repair and maintain computer electronics.  Trouble is, to me, computers are like cars.  I turn the key, the f#@$%^ starts and I'm off to the races.  Could be a cotton candy machine under the hood for all I know (or care).

Computer Service Technician
Prospects: GOOD                   Interest Level: 1
This course is designed to develop your technical and customer service skills so that you become the company's "go-to" guy.  Translation: "I appreciate your call to our technical support line today but if you seriously thought your computer's disc drive was a beverage holder I'm afraid I'm going to have to laugh in your face and hang up on you now, okay?  HAW!" *CLICK*

Digital Animation
Prospects: FAIR                    Interest Level: 5
Work in a real studio environment to develop your aptitude for the art of visual storytelling by honing your  creative and technical skills required for a job in animation.  Now we're cookin' with gas!  I'd really be down with the clown on this one.

Drafting (Architectural or Mechanical Flavors)
Prospects: FAIR                    Interest Level: 3
Prepare working drawings for buildings or mechanical devices using Computer Assisted Drafting.  Which begs the question: what's the point of drawing something if you have zero interest in what you draw?  Hmmmm?  Hmmmmm??!

Environmental Engineering Technology - Water
Prospects: GOOD                 Interest Level: 4
I'd become an engineering technologist by protecting, preserving, developing and directing the usage of this life-giving resource.  After graduation I could become an eco-crusader and change my name to "Hydron" or "Captain Moistpants".  Er, on second thought, "Hydron" will do.  Bonus points: my astrological sign is a Water sign.  OMG!

Health Information Management                 
Prospects:  FAIR                  Interest Level: 3
Use computers and empirical data to improve health care delivery from a managerial and financial standpoint.  Hey, looks like I can do my best to improve society and maintain a healthy distance from you germy bastards after all!

Geographic Sciences - Cartography Concentration
Prospects: FAIR                    Interest Level: 3
With this I'd design and compose maps that are both aesthetically pleasing and practical.  My first step: making a map that you can actually fold back into it's original shape.

Graphic & Print Production           
Prospects: FAIR to LIMITED          Interest Level: 2 or 5
Learn all aspects of the printing industry through on-site experience in print shops and similar work environments.  My level of interest is "5" if I could apply this to either my own (or someone else's) visual/graphic art, but "2" if all it does is qualify me to work at "Kinko's".

Horticulture (Landscape or Operations) 
Prospects: FAIR or LIMITED         Interest Level: 3
Landscaping, park maintenance, greenhouse operation or, live to dream, golf course attendant.  That's right, you too can be Carl Spackler from Caddyshack!

Human Resource Management                     
Prospects: GOOD                  Interest Level: 2
I'd be involved with recruitment, staff training, wage inquiries, performance appraisals, dispute moderation and also get to shit-can folks when my greedy company decides to ship all the job to Southeast Asia under the guise of remaining "globally competitive".

Information Technology - Database Management
Prospects: GOOD                 Interest Level: 3
Create, maintain, and manage the databases that protect and organize information for organizations.  This is so dull there isn't even a joke here.  "Nothing to see here folks, move along!  Go home and watch Hawaii Five-0 or something."

Information Technology - Programming          
Prospects: GOOD                 Interest Level: 1
Programmer, Programmer Analyst, or Quality Control Specialist.  "Hey, kids, wanna slowly go blind while staring at pages of indecipherable code looking for a needle in an electronic haystack?"  Frankly, I'd rather scrape my own genitals off with a salad fork...


Information Technology - Networking             
Prospects: GOOD                Interest Level: 3
Become proficient at managing major network operating systems and consolidating protocol.  I.E. excitement anti-matter.

Information Technology - Web Development   
Prospects: FAIR                   Interest Level: 4 
Become a Web Developer, Web Application Developer, or Website Designer.  Does anyone else find it ironic that the higher my interest, the lower the prospects are?  Why the f#@$% am I hardwired like this?!?


Library & Information Technology           
Prospects: FAIR                   Interest Level: 4
Technicians help certified librarians dispense the many services offered by libraries. They can also direct the efforts of staff, student interns, fellow techs and may also be responsible for a section of a library (or the entire library if it's "wee").  Hey, who wouldn't want to support an organization that provides free public access to books, CD's and (especially) DVD's?   It's holy work, I tells ya... 

Medical Lab Technician                  
Prospects:  FAIR to GOOD(insists my CDS!) Interest Level: 2
Do lab tests and investigations to diagnose, treat, and prevent disease.  See # 4 in bullet point list above. 
 
Medical Transcription                     
Prospects: FAIR                                         Interest Level: 3
Become proficient in medical language and provide accurate healthcare documentation.  Hey, if I ain't there to accurately interpret your Doctor's terrible handwriting on that prescription bottle you could end up growing (extra) bosoms!  Hmmm, why do I suspect that for many of you dudes out there this wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing?

Music Arts                                     
Prospects: LIMITED                                  Interest Level: 5
Get ready for an independent career in music by developing your business and self-promotion skills as well as your own, unique musical sound!   Y'know I've always wanted to be in a band.  I even have a name picked out for this eventuality:  Chainsaw Enema.  No?  Okay, how 'bout The Flaming Eureathras?   No?  Um, okay...   

Music Business                              
Prospects: LIMITED                                  Interest Level: 1
Learn the business skills needed to become an artist manager, agent, or publisher in the dynamic world of live and recorded music.  Watch the first 45 seconds of this video and you'll see why I rated this a "1".  Oh, and then watch the rest of the video, 'cuz it's good for ya.



Occupational Health & Safety          
Prospects: FAIR                               Interest Level:  3
Graduates are at the vanguard leading and developing safe and healthy workplace environments.  Not sure if I wanna be the corporate version of a Hall Monitor, though.

Paralegal                                                 
Prospects: FAIR                               Interest Level: 2            
This program would help me learn the process and procedures of a law firm and establish a comprehension of legal theory.  In my opinion there's only one thing worse than being a lawyer: being a lawyer's butt-monkey.


Photography                                            
Prospects: LIMITED                        Interest Level: 4
Balance creativity, composition, lighting and technical know-how to produce professional-level photos.  I would actually like to do this, so that's why the prospects are "LIMITED"  Grrrrrrrrrrrr....  

Power Engineering                                   
Prospects:  GOOD                           Interest Level: 3
This would prepare me to safely and efficiently maintain and operate power, refrigeration, natural gas, and air compressor plants.  Now if the prospects of Your Humble Narrator appointed to some level of responsibility at one of these facilities scares you half as much as it scares You Humble Narrator then I think it's safe to say that we're all on the same page on this one...

Public Relations                          
Prospects: FAIR   Interest  Level:  4 for Communications, otherwise 2
Develop your tools of communication to help companies map out objectives, implement strategic plans, and measure results.  Could also be interpreted as: Develop your bullshit skills to help companies get away with corporate crime.  I'm just sayin', is all.

Radio and Television Arts       
Prospects:  FAIR to LIMITED                         Interest Level:  5
Forge the knowledge and skills required to work behind the scenes or on-air in the realm of radio and television.  In a relevant point, two of my heroes are Ron Burgandy and Dr. Johnny Fever.  'Nuff said.

Recording Arts                                        
Prospects: FAIR                               Interest Level: 4
Learn the creative and technical aptitude to work in music recording/production by employing state of the art equipment.  Y'know, I've always dreamed about legitimizing my penchant for screaming "MORE COWBELL!" randomly in public.

Screen Arts                                             
Prospects:  FAIR                               Interest Level: 5+
Write a script, build and dress sets, lens and edit a film, co-ordinate a production.  No word of a lie, I truly believe that this program was the reason I was put on this earth.

Well, when I showed my Case Worker these results, she immediately eliminated all but nine options:

• Architectural Engineering Technician
• Environmental Engineering Technician - Water
• Health Information Management 
• Human Resource Management
• Information Technology
• Library and Information Technology
• Medical Lab Technician/Transcription
• Occupational Health and Safety
• Power Engineering

Now, trust me, she didn't weed out the other options to be mean.  She did it based on my request for  recommendations that will give me quantifiable skills, some level of sponsorship, and a chance at a sustainable career.

I just makes me sad that certain obvious options are staring me in the face and I have to turn my back on them.  Again.  I could claim ignorance when first I missed out on these opportunities when I was fresh out of High School, but what will be my excuse now if I don't follow my heart, Triumph-style?  Statistics?  Fear?  Reality?

I've been staring at this far too long.  It's like proof-reading a term paper a million times and being afraid to turn it in because you're convinced that you made some sort of fatal error.            

"I...I can't make a decision based on what's left," I told my case worker.  "There's no easy answer.  It's almost like I need to consult a psychic or something to take my indecision out of it."

But then I realized: I don't need a soothsayer or a seer.  My last entry proved that I have at least a small handful of readers, all in possession of more collective wisdom than I could ever hope for.

I have two possible avenues as I see it:

1. Pick a program that offers a chance for me to develop biddable skills, which hopefully will, in turn, translate into a long-term and fairly secure career at the expense of personal interest.  
2. Select a course that I'm hella-passionate about but will likely receive no funding for and represents a career that's tenuous at best.  

This is the only time I'll ever ask you to do something for me, I promise!

So, I put the question before you now, Charitable Readers.  Of the two options above, which avenue would you pursue if you were in my shoes?  I desperately need your advise, please! 

C'mon, it'll be fun, like those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books you used to read as a kid, except this time you'll be playing ducks and drakes with the life of a real, live human being!  C'mon, that's kinda cool, isn't it?  

Leave your comments below or shoot me an email at dlgcp@hotmail.com.  Don't just vote, let me know what you really think!  I'll share any feedback I get right here, other than messages like "YOU ARE TEH SUCK", since I'm already well aware of that.

Seriously.  I need your help here. 

I anxiously await the imminent tsunami of wisdom!     

EPIC:   Speaking of wisdom...




FAIL:
http://moneywatch.bnet.com/saving-money/blog/college-solution/the-best-and-worst-college-degrees-by-salary/577/

Thanks For Visiting, SeaMonkey!

Good evening, Ladies and Germs.

When I first started "You Can't Get There Here" I honestly had no clue if anybody would ever read it.

As such, I didn't even bother to put a hit counter on this mofo until almost two months into it.  In order to scam one for free (and not knowing any better), I nicked one from some fly-by-night outfit that would generate code for me if I included an ad for this sketchy stomach relief cure-all that even Abe Simpson wouldn't be caught dead using.

Regardless, at face value, it looked as if it would meet my humble needs so I did a quick C&P and jammed that magical gibberish into one of the blog's many gadget slots.

Wow, that sounded inadvertently dirty, didn't it?  

Now take note that every time you get one of these page load counter thingies, you can set the initial number to whatever you want.  At the time I figured a conservative visitor estimate would be about 172, which was the number of profile views I had at the time. I knew it was a low ball figure, but I'd rather undercut it than be accused of posting up some artificially inflated number.

Soon I was amazed as the visit count hit five hundred on June 27'th and one-thousand on July 22'nd.  Then, in the first week of September when I was closing in on another landmark, disaster struck.  My hit counter exploded, taking it's precious numerical testimony along with it.

Normally you can just log into the site where you got the initial code from and retrieve an internal record of the count.  But I'd chosen poorly with my initial provider and just like a pack of electronic carnival hucksters, they'd long since packed up and moved on to the next virtual town of rubes.

So, after some cursory research this time, I got set up with another one through Pax.com.  On September 20'th I was delighted to hit two-thousand page loads.  After my first crisis I meant to keep a daily log of my hit count just in case history was tempted to repeat itself, but Pax's "little counter that could" seemed pretty reliable.  So, like 80% of the most important things I seem to do in my life, I let it slide.     

Content that the problem was past, I went on merrily a-bloggin', wringing my hands in anticipation of hitting three-thousand visitors.  Then, last night, at around the twenty-eight hundred count:  it happened again.  My page load count vanished off the face of the earth.  Just like Shelley Long. 

I went to www.pax.com to try and see if they kept a count but the site wouldn't come up.  Frantically I checked the message boards through Blogger for guidance and came upon an interesting discovery.

When I said I'd underestimated my visitor count, I wasn't kidding!  .

I discovered through the hitherto previously ignored (but shamefully obvious)  "Stats" tab on my blogger dashboard a veritable cornucopia of interesting trivia.  Here's a sample (as of November 3'rd):

Pageviews today...35
Pageviews yesterday...67
Pageviews last month...1,276
Pageviews all time history...3,859 

'3859?' I thought to myself.  'Holy shiznit!  You gotta be kidding me!'

I tempered my initial reaction to this, knowing full well that this number (nearly a thousand hits higher then my initial estimate) also included my own page loads.  In other words, it included all those times I went to my blog to compose a new post, edit something after it went up or just check the hit counter.  I quickly noticed the "Don't Track Your Own Pageviews" option and turned it off without further ado.

Which left me stuck.  How could I reset the hit counter without selling myself short or self-aggrandizing the number?  The answer came to me when I noticed this:

Pageviews by Countries

Canada 1,569
United States 1,073
Denmark 225
South Korea 179
United Kingdom 136
Netherlands 65
Australia 59
France 54
Brazil 47
Germany  44 

Wow, I've always wanted to say this: "I'm big in Denmark!"

* Ahem *...sorry. 

Just for poops n' chuckles I added all of this up (last night mind you so it may be different now) and got 3428.  I subtracted this from the All-Time Pageviews history number (3832) and reasoned that the difference of 404 represented how times I'd contributed to my own hit tally by doing administrative-type stuff.  This was actually a bit higher than I'd originally surmised, since I'd estimated an average of three "internal" visits per page on one-hundred posts, which would have given me around 300 superfluous results.

Look, I know I promised before that there would be no math, but I find all of this stuff kinda cool.

Here are some other interesting pieces of trivia:

Pageviews by Browsers

Internet Explorer                     1,904 (49%)
Firefox  (Yaaay!!!)                   1,087 (28%)
Chrome                                      459 (12%)
Safari                                           250 (6%)
Java                                               35 (<1%)
Jakarta Commons-HttpClient         30 (<1%)
Mobile                                           27 (<1%)
Opera                                            14 (<1%)
BAVM                                           8  (<1%)
SeaMonkey                                    7  (<1%)
     
Is anyone else out there thinking..."SeaMonkey?  Really?"   Seriously, show of hands, please. 

Okay, check this out:


Pageviews by Operating Systems

Windows                       3,359 (88%)
Macintosh                         286  (7%)
iPhone                                 51 (1%)
Other Unix                          50 (1%)
BlackBerry                         19  (1%)
iPod                                   19  (1%)
iPad                                    4 (<1%)
Linux                                   1 (<1%)
Nintendo DSi                      1 (<1%)
PLAYSTATION 3             1 (<1%)

Alright, my keen analytical mind has discerned three noteworthy things here:

1. RIM better watch out RE: the undeniable, compelling sexiness of the iPhone.  It's like the Greek Siren of technological gadgets!
2. If all the "I'm a PC" people fought all the "I'm a Mac" people, it would be a slaughter.
3. It's pretty sad when the poor bastards with a DSi and PS3 are so hard up for entertainment value that they'd rather read my barely-coherent ramblings then say, oh, I dunno, play a game!   Notice that I've got no online hits from 360 users, since we actually have some decent games other than Barbie's Horse Adventures.  

Finally, here are the entries that seem to have garned the most attention from readers thus far:


"If you yell 'PLAY FREEBIRD!' one more time, I'm gonna punch you in the neck!" - Part I
Jul 27, 2010, 1 comment   475 Pageviews
The kick-off to my live-music concert series, featuring the infamous "Banger's Uniform".
       
Lowered Expectations: Part I
Apr 9, 2010   71 Pageviews
My first story of many about some of the worst jobs I've had over the years.
  
Resurrections are big this time of year, aren't they?
Apr 5, 2010, 4 comments  63 Pageviews
My first post ever...Awwwwwww!   

"Yeah, I got yer 'Softer Side' Right HERE, pal!" - Part IV - Exploitation
Jul 22, 2010  50 Pageviews
Things start to go sour at Sears.  Well, aren't you all the Negative Nellies? 
   
"Yeah, I got yer 'Softer Side' Right HERE, pal!" - Part IV - Exaltation
Sep 6, 2010   49 Pageviews
My initial triumphs as a supervisor at Sears...Yay, me!
   
"Yeah, I got yer 'Softer Side' Right HERE, pal!" - Part I - Mirage
Jul 13, 2010  48 Pageviews
Documenting my first few "blissful" years on the 'Softer Side', yo.   
 
"Yeah, I got yer 'Softer Side' Right HERE, pal!" - Part V- Tribulations
Sep 4, 2010  48 Pageviews
Some personality types which tested my patience as a manager.  Attention law enforcement: this entry contains pertinent clues as to where most of the bodies are buried. 
  
"Born To Be Alive" - Part I
Oct 18, 2010  47 Pageviews
Fun (and deadly danger!) on the set of "Roller Town". 
        
Wheelman - Part IV - "Tour Guide"
Oct 6, 2010   44 Pageviews
My "comedy of errors"-style trip to Peggy's Cove while driving for the Atlantic Film Festival.
   
Who Watches The Watchmen?
Jul 6, 2010, 1 comment  39 Pageviews
The impact of the military industrial complex on our society.  "Holy, one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other, Batman!"


This leads me to a few conclusions:  

• My beloved Kind Readers love to hear me go all 60 Minutes on shitty jobs.  
• A disproportionate amount of them have likely torn up their Sears charge cards.
• They read my first post and decided: "Yep, well, that's enough for me!"
• They like reading about me humiliating myself while on roller skates.
• They like reading about me humiliating myself while driving.
• They're susceptible to conspiracy theories. 
• They have a fetish for mullets. 

Bless each and every one of you for following me thus far!  Thanks to anyone who's taken the time to visit and read.  I promise that if you keep showing up so will I.

And now that I have irrefutable proof that I've snared at least a few people with nothing better to do, I must impose upon you a tremendous favor.

This blog has been and always will be completely free but for the first time ever I'm going to have to ask you for payment.  And, in my humble opinion,  the payment I'm proposing will be in the most valuable currency I can possibly imagine:  


Your advice. 
 
For the meaning behind this (and many other) cryptic comments, check back in a few days for the next episode of "You Can't Get There From Here" entitled "Dreams Die Hard"!   

EPIC: More interesting stats:
http://justcoolpics.blogspot.com/2010/02/funny-statistics.html

FAIL:  Hey, I found Denise Crosby at least!  Do I get some kind of reward?  What if I bring in Micheal Dorn as a bonus?
http://www.monkeyspit.net/sites/missing/

Mission Statement

Hello, Loyal Literary Loiterers.

Well, here we are, at the 100'th post of You Can't Get There From Here!  Seems like just yesterday I voluntarily walked away from my last job for the sake of my own sanity.  I'm not sure what I've accomplished since then but if ever there was an appropriate time to take stock in what I've done thus far (and what I intend to do for the next 100 posts), this seems like just as good a time as any.

First off: a word about the title.  Originally I wanted to call my blog You Can't Get There From Here, mainly because if it was ever turned into a book (and subsequently a movie, natch!) I'd already have a title.  Even better yet, I'd have a theme song!  Don't believe me?  Well, here it is:



If you've read any of my previous 100 posts, then you already know that I'm a huge music nut who believes that life needs a solid soundtrack.  In this little ditty, R.E.M. perfectly encapsulates a sensation that a lot of us must deal with in our adult lives: the terrible sensation that if we stay our current course we'll never get to where we've always dreamed of going.  As a result, the song advocates some pretty decisive action:

When the world is a monster
Bad to swallow you whole
Kick the clay that holds the teeth in
Throw your trolls out the door

Much to my chagrin I couldn't use this name for my blog since some clown (who's likely only done about six posts by now) had already laid claim to it.  What the hell was I going to call this thing?

At the time I was thinking about picking up a video capture device since I have tons of VHS tapes rotting in the storage closet.  In fact, they still are.  It's my goal one day to digitize those suckers and upload some of the more cherry clips to YouTube.  I've got some rare home movies, footage of major events that occurred in Halifax up to fifteen years ago, snippets of hard-to-find television bits, live performances from bands and also some video I personally shot at a sci-fi convention where I met Brian Thompson, who portrayed the alien bounty hunter from The X-Files and Dave Prowse, the actor that played Darth Vader in Star Wars.    

So I guess the "Capture Device" part was already stuck in my brain at the time.  The "emblogification" bit is an entirely "Whedonesque" construct.  For those sad souls who don't know what I'm talking about when I use that adjective, here's a bit of background info... 

If I had any evidence whatsoever in the late 90's that television didn't completely suck it was Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and it's equally awesome spin-off Angel.  The show's creator, Joss Whedon, was a prolific and in-demand script doctor, and when Buffy launched, he used it as a sounding board for his unbridled creativity and single-handedly changed the way an entire generation spoke.  Phrases like "My Bad", "Bored Now" and "Morbid Much?" are all in our lexicon because of Whedon's amazing ability to manipulate language for comedic effect.

"Emblogification" is merely the word "blog" filtered through the mouths of Buffy's Scooby Gang.  

So, what was the purpose of the blog?  Well, "Mission Statements" are pretty popular in the business world nowadays, so before I go any further I'd like to set one down for the 'ole ECD.

•  To prove to people that the job market sucked hardcore when I graduated from university in the mid-Nineties.  
• To hopefully prove that the current job market doesn't suck.
• To chronicle the bias our society seems to have against creative careers and talented people, despite how obviously important their works are to us collectively.   
• To blow the lid off the sort of things that our neutered media doesn't want people to know about, lest they take to the street wielding pitchforks and torches like villagers from a Universal-era Frankenstein movie. 
• To show that I posses an abject hatred for the greed of big business not because I'm some sort of crusader but because I've been consistently and thoroughly abused by corporate pinheads.
• To see what happens when I flirt with career paths that I've always been told are impractical.
• To trumpet the cause of those things that make life worth living: listening to good music, seeing live bands, taking in a decent movie, playing a social board game, being outdoors, spinning an engaging video game, hanging out with friends and family, reading a good book and watching some stimulating television.
• To see if it's possible to get a second chance at career happiness at my advanced stage in life.
• To put myself on a writing schedule to exhibit my ability to work consistently and with deadlines.  Even half-assed, self-imposed ones.  
• To try and prove that I can string a sentence together.  I know, I know, the jury's still out on that one...
• To hopefully show that if you put a lot of good karma out into the world in the form of volunteering and promotion you'll eventually be rewarded by someone with the power to do so.  
• To chronicle my do-over as I try and avoid the hated career pitfalls I experienced back when I was eighteen.
• To show that life is too short to do a job day in and day out that you hate.  
• To prove that unemployed people don't just sit around all day watching daytime T.V., eating corn chips and masturbating. 

Hey, no cheap cracks!

So, with my Mission Statement now set out before me, I'm curious to see what the circumstances will be like when, and if, I ever pen my 200'th entry.

Will I finally be happy in my career or right back where I started?

Please, Gentle Readers, no wagering... 

EPIC:


ADDITIONALLY EPIC:  A great moment for those who are already fans of the show...


FAIL:  In the spirit of truth in advertising, I think all Mission Statements need to incorporate the word "masturbation" somehow...
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/jobs/23mgmt.html?_r=1

Obligatory Halloween Post

Greetings, Boils and Ghouls!

Well, 'tis the season when you can't help but ruminate on all things scary and I thought I'd look back on the things that have given me a serious case of the wiggins over the years.

The first time I remember being terrified of something was when I was about six or seven years old.  It happened after a trip to the Bill Lynch traveling fair.  Now, I know that carnivals can be scary just due to the genetic casualties who run and repair the Spanish Inquisition-style torture equipment that passes for amusement rides, but the source of my terror was incidental.

My Dad had won game of ring toss game and the "prize" was a green and black felt head shot of Frankenstein's monster.  I tried to put on a brave face and told my Dad how "cool" I thought it was.  When we got home, he put up on the wall opposite my bed.

Well, that was all well and good until the lights went out.  Turns out that f#$@%^ glowed in the dark.  All night I stared at that baleful visage and thought it was the face of my inevitable doom.  I must have been a pretty sheltered kid since this was the first time I recall seeing something so pregnant with the insinuation of death and horror. 

All night long my mantra was: 

"Can't sleep, Frankenstein'll kill me.  Can't sleep, Frankenstein'll kill me.  Can't sleep, Frankenstein'll kill me."

Next day I was so tired I nearly fell forward into my Rice Krispies.  My folks confronted me and I tabled my theory very calmly that the poster on my wall intended to murder me in my sleep.  They took it down and put it away, much to my relief.

But this moment was watershed.  My parents had done such a good job taking care of me, it was the first time I'd really felt a primal fear.  It was as if I had been suddenly made aware that there were things in the world both real and imagined I'd been protected from, things that were spawned from dark, sinister and unconventional places.  The thrill of terror, agonizing at the time, now seemed like a rush in afterthought.  I'd survived the process and could look back on it now and feel just a tad stronger.

But fear could come out of left field, when you least expected it.  Not long after I got cold-cocked on, of all things, a sunny Saturday afternoon.  The first of my assailants was, believe it or not, the classic Star Trek episode "The Corbomite Maneuver".  I don't know how many of you Kind Readers out there remember this one so here's a quick summary:

The U.S.S. Enterprise comes across a scout ship in deep space, which looks like a glowing version of those hydrogen molecule models that you used to see in school.  Of course, Kirk goes all aggro on the thing and phasers it into oblivion.  Well, things go from bad to worse when the mother ship shows up, which resembles a ginormous soccer ball with a bunch of Christmas lights stuck on it.  I, like many other impressionable viewers, watched in rapt fascination as the pilot of this mammoth vessel opened up a ship-to-ship conference call with the Enterprise and this is what we saw on the view screen:

Some fuse in my brain burned out when they revealed this thing for the first time.  All I could think was "RED ALERT!  RED ALERT!  FIRE ALL PHASERS!  DAMN THE PHOTON TORPEDOES!  KILL IT!!!  KILL IT!!!"

Well, as it turns out, the alien pilot (named Balok, which was creepy enough in it's own right) is merely a more-intimidating stand in for Ron Howard's freaky older brother Clint:

Y'know how kids usually grow out of their awkward phases?  Well, poor Clint didn't.  He's known, along with folks like Michael Berryman, as one of the more unconventional-looking character actors out there right now.

It's pretty sad when Ron Howard is considered the cute one of the family:

Anyway, when I first saw Balok's true appearance it kinda freaked me out even more.  "Bring back the scary dummy!" I yelled at the screen.  "At least I knew he wasn't real!"

As if my jangled nerved hadn't been through enough that day, the T.V. station I'd been watching decided to segue from the world's scariest Star Trek episode into the world scariest movie.  And what was the title of this magnum opus of fear?

THE GREEN SLIME

That's right, baby, The Green Motherf#@$%^ Slime, yo.  Don't think that sounds scary?  Oh yeah?  Well, watch this trailer and keep a change of Haynes nearby:



Ummmmmm.

Okay, so, in the immortal words of a certain habitually howling SCTV character: "Even Count Floyd wasn't scared of that and I get scared real easy!"

By the way, do ya like the groovy theme song there at the end?  Well, here's the extended dance mix version.  See how far you can get through it before you lose control of your bodily functions...

♫♪"Is it just something in your head?  You'll believe it when you're DEAD! Green Sl-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-me!!!"♪♫ 

All I can say is...Wow.   Y'know, I always thought that the Saw movies might benefit from a country and western theme song...

John Kramer was a civil engineer
Who built a place where addicts had no fear.
One bumped his wife with a door one day
So their baby went away
That's why John Kramer became Jigsaw so they say!  Yee-HAW!!!

Okay, so in retrospect, The Green Slime certainly looks more goofy then scary, but in the mind of a six or seven year old kid it was pretty intense.  In fact, there's a scene where an astronaut goes into a confined space by himself to look for the Green Slime and gets all f#$@%^ up just like Tom Skerritt did in Alien.  To this day I'm convinced that Ridley Scott saw this piece of poo and said: "Yknow if I replace the goofy, tentacled one-eyed blobs with something designed by a borderline insane Swiss surreal artist I'm pretty sure I can scare the piss out of people."

After this one-two punch of unmitigated terror,  I was shaken up at first, but ultimately left exhilarated, like someone proud to have survived the roller coaster at Crystal Palace in Moncton.  In light of the scarcity of home video availability at the time and my complete and utter chicken-shittery over being caught sneaking into "R"-rated movies, I trained myself the only way I could: though monster movie books.

One by one I digested such illuminating titles as Horrors: A History of Horror Movies, The Encyclopedia of Horror, and Everything You Wanted To Know About Monsters (But You Were Afraid To Ask!).  A series of library staples particularly near and dear to my heart were the Crestwood House Monster Series, collected here in this awesome photo:

So, by the time I was eleven or twelve, I knew the real names of horror icons Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff (Bela Blasko and William Henry Pratt respectively), the best method to destroy the vegetable-alien in the original The Thing From Another World (you cook it!) and the pains that Lon Chaney went through to realize his startling makeup as The Phantom of the Opera.

At around the same time an affiliate television channel WLBZ out of Bangor, Maine started a "Midnight Monster Madness"-type show on Saturday night called Weird.  It was through this show that I finally managed to see all the classic Universal monster movies like Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Mummy.   

More television fare continued to toughen me up.  The 1982 T.V. movie The Fall of the House of Usher staring Ray Walston and Martin Landau  scared the fertilizer our of me.  This effect was further compounded when I manged to negotiate the ability to stay up late one night to watch a heavily-edited version of Alien on ABC.  Even with half the scenes chopped out and the film barely making any linear sense, it still gave me friggin' nightmares.

Feeling as if I'd been suitably toughened up, I now felt ready to venture back into the terror dome.  Still "bustable" if I went into a video store to rent horror movies I had to wait until one of the pay cable movie networks like "First Choice" decided to have a free trial weekend on Halloween.  In the Fall of 1982 I got my grim wish.  My folks went out for the night and I settled in for a long marathon of good-old fashioned, unedited, no-hold's barred frights.


And soon discovered that I was in w-a-a-a-a-a-y over my head. 

First up was George A. Romero's original Night of the Living Dead.  As the eerie music cued up and the stark black and white scenes established a grim and austere mood I thought: "Cool!  It's just like the old 'Universal' monster movies!  This is gonna be neat!"

For the record, of all the colorful adjectives you can apply to Night of the Living Dead, 'neat' is not one of them.

The film began with Barbra and Johnny, two bickering siblings, who have come to a spooky graveyard to pay respects to their dear, departed mother.  All of a sudden, the two are attacked by a lanky, ghoulish fiend who kills Johnny and then chases after Barbra.  She barely manages to make it to old abandoned farmhouse and barricades the door.  She then ventures upstairs and, to her horror and mine, finds a half-eaten corpse, which the film-makers helpfully show us in wince-inducing close up.

More survivors appear.  They barricade the house for a brief moment of respite, find a television set and this is what they see:

'Whoa!' I thought to myself.  'Dead bodies are coming back to life with a taste for human flesh?  Even a resurrected loved one will want to nibble on your elbows?  And you have to shoot them in the friggin' head to kill them?  Man, this is gonna get a lot worse before it gets better..."

And boy, did it ever.  Much worse.  When a plan to get gas into an abandoned truck goes horribly amiss and a pair of the characters die in the resulting explosion, the zombies rip into the vehicle and partake in a little, shall we say, human fricassee.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  A terrible thought dawned on me: 'Oh my god, the guy who made this movie is obviously insane.  He's actually showing these zombies...*URK!*...eating people!'

I was horrified.  If Romero was willing to flat-out break the taboo of cannibalism on screen, what the hell else was he willing to subject us to over the next forty minutes? 

And Romero, the mad genius that he is, actually trumped himself not once, but twice more in Night of the Living Dead.  I'd already been slapped in the face by the movie.  But when the sick  little girl dies, then gets back up and kills her own mother with a garden trowel, I felt like I'd been thrown down a flight of stairs.  Then, as if my wits hadn't been abused enough, Romero throws on a brutal shock ending that is, in essence,  the equivalent of someone in jackboots coming down to the foot of those steps and kicking me in the gourd.

I had no idea cinema could be that nihilistic, that devoid of scruples and so cruelly terrifying.  Unlike the reasonably innocent frights provided by the monster movies from the 30's and 40's, Night of the Living Dead  was refusing to play nice.

I fought the temptation to whimper and shut off the T.V., but up next was Poltergeist. I decided to stick it out since I'd heard good things. 

'Okay," I thought to myself, 'I can handle this.  It's just a PG-rated Steven Spielberg movie.  Probably like a horror film with training wheels.'

Well, for the first third of the film, I was right.  I was lulled into a false sense of security with the ample humor and familiar scenes of Spielbergian-flavored suburban bliss. In fact, for quite some time, it played out like the evil twin of E.T. which had come out earlier that same year. 

But then when you least expect it, Poltergeist takes off the kid gloves and starts hammering you with loads of eerie lore, ghostly manifestations, and EEK!-worthy scenes with the inherently creepy Zelda Rubinstein.  

And then this happened:  

"No fair!" I yelled at the screen.  "You can't show maggots and some dude ripping off his friggin' face in a movie rated PG!  You just can't!"        


Next up was the remake of Cat People, but I was too far gone.  In retrospect, that's kind of a shame since Nastassia Kinski spends huge tracts of time strolling around in the film sans clothing.  Idiot.

So, I shut off the T.V. and then proceeded to turn on every light in the house.

It was obvious at that point in time that I still had a long way to go before I could call myself a horror movie maven.  I also knew there would be sterner tests to come, but also more rewarding chills. 

But that is a tale for another Halloween!

Have a good BOO!-Day and stay safe, peoples!  

EPIC:


FAIL:  Maybe I shoulda started here: http://www.esquire.com/the-side/feature/top-ten-horror-movies-list-102809

Everybody Has A Price...Mine Just So Happens To Be Really Cheap.

Hello, Mes Amis.

Okay, so...in my previous entry I established how not to court me for future advertising opportunities.  Now I'd like list ten things that I'd happily shill for.

So, without further ado, here's DAVE'S TOP TEN THINGS HE'D PIMP OUT FOR IN A SECOND:

1. Good Movies  If you come to me with a decent film project I will flog it without mercy.  As a corollary, any motion picture involving the presence of Jennifer Aniston, a talking pet or a Saturday Night Live character spun out to feature length need not apply.  Also, as much as it pains me to say so, I will no longer be mentioning Star Wars anymore.  It's not that George Lucas raped my childhood, but he did invite it inside Skywalker Ranch with promises of candy and touched it in it's Danger Zone. 
2. Good Music  If your band or album doesn't suck, I will gladly shout your praises from the rooftops.  In fact, I'm so desperate for good music lately, I'm willing to promote you even if your music is merely  semi-distinguishable from everything else.  Also, to save us both some time, please note that your music will likely have no resonance with me if you're under the age of twenty.  What life lessons can I possibly glean from the lyrics of some snot-nosed kid who's cubes haven't even dropped yet?  Mark my words, in a few years some enterprising obstetrician/budding manager is gonna get rich by filming a still-in-utero video featuring a fetus with a comb-forward CGI hairdo lip-syncing inane lyrics to a dance track.  I'm tellin' ya, it's money. 
3. Good Television  Next month I was planning on doing a blog series on television, so for all you folks playing along at home: here's a sneak preview!  About four years ago I was blissfully snobby about the state of television and seemed perfectly content to write off the entire medium as a colossal waste of time.  Then this jackass I was working with at the time had the audacity to give me the first season of The Shield.  In light of this revelatory viewing, a whole new world chock-a-block with entertainment value opened up to me.  Entourage, Dexter, Freaks and Geeks, Battlestar Galactica, The Tudors, Supernatural, Mad Men, and Veronica Mars blew me away in quick succession.  Each episode is produced with the sensibilities of a mini feature film and not one of them involve tattooed orange people excusing the most reprehensible human behavior you can imaging with the mantra "Hey, you wouldn't understand, it's a 'Jersey' thing!"
4. Good Video Games  Video games have come a long way since their inception.  I have to credit early designers with coming up with inventive attempts at something passing for a game just to try and offset the crude graphical tools they had to work with.  But now, the visuals are so amazingly sophisticated that the best (like the Halo, Gears of War, Brother in Arms, Left 4 Dead, or Half-Life series) play out like interactive films.  Which is why, in my humble estimation, even at their worst, video games will always be superior to homogenized, crappy network television.  After all., with television, unless it's something really engaging or enriching, you're typically just sitting there inert, slowly being spoon-fed pablum-flavored entertainment, your brain getting fatter than Homer Simpson during the ironic punishment doughnut eating nightmare in Hell.  At least with video games, you're not quite so damned...passive.
5. Good Books  Have you ever heard the quote: "Yeah, the movie was okay, but the book was w-a-a-a-a-a-a-y better?"  Well, there's a reason for that: a wealth of additional details, the benefit of descriptive language, the power of imagination, and the author's freedom to do whatever he or she damn well pleases.  In the immortal words of Stephen King: "A day without a book is like a day without sunshine!"  Hmmmm, you'd think he'd be more of "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" kinda guy...                         
6. Good Board Games   Hey, I've already done an entire treatise on why I prefer board games over video games but this bears repeating: sometimes you just want to teabag an opponent in person.
7. Good Radio Stations  Only within the last month or so did the city of Halifax get a modern rock radio station worth crowing about.  "Live 105" is a virtual godsend in this city, which has suffered under the yoke of "classic" rock  for the past fifteen years.   Up until "Live 105" arrived on the scene the situation was pretty grim.  "C-100" propagated nothing but non-threatening manufactured pop product, "89.9 HAL FM" and "Q-104" were designed for people who are laboring under the erroneous belief that rock attained perfection in 1975 and "Kool 96.5" (wow, there's never been a more ironic name for a radio station, by the way) is a viable promotional tool for artists that are either all completely irrelevant, defunct or deceased.  And although "Live 105" is already starting to cheese me off a bit with their definition of "heavy rotation" at least I'm getting sick of songs produced in the last fifteen to twenty years.  Here's the link if you wanna give 'em a spin: http://www.live105.ca/
8. Good Comics It's kinda sad that this amazing medium has been ghettoized for so long.  It really doesn't  deserve to be written off as something just for kids.  In some ways, comics are a superior art form to both film and standard novels.  It gives a cool visual component, but unlike film it isn't so fleeting.  The Egyptians certainly thought it was a pretty solid way to tell a story; after all what are hieroglyphics other than panels of an ancient funny book?  I really do believe that titles such as Sin City, Bone, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Sandman, Watchmen, Preacher, The Walking Dead, From Hell, V for Vendetta and The Dark Knight Returns are all just as valid as works of literature as Ulysses and Atlas Shrugged.  
9. Good Beer  I had a bit of a struggle not to mention this one first, for fear of looking like a raging alcoholic, but I can't hold off any longer.  When I was in university, I always thought I hated beer abd eventually I learned to tolerate it.  Then, in a tremendous moment of epiphany, I tried a micro-brewed beer offered here in Halifax at the Henry House pub called "Old Peculiar".  I've never looked back since.  Guinness, Harp, Murphy's, Kilkenny, Smithwicks, Sapporo, Stella Artois, Hoegaarden and Innes and Gunn have all joined the ranks of my favorite beers.  Please take note of the conspicuous absence of Coors Lite, a beer for people who don't like the taste of beer, or Bud Lite Lime, the makers of which seem to be admit "Yeah, our crappy beer comes pre-skunky, so we're just gonna use some unnatural lime flavor to cover it up."  *Bleah*        
10. Grey Poupon  "Oh my God, if your makin' a toiky sammich, put a little bit of mayo on one side, slap on your toiky, get some fresh lettuce and a coupla slices of foim, ripe tomaita.  Then for a bit a zip, spread a bit a dis stuff on 'dere...it's like buttah!  It makes your sammich right poiky!"  Seriously, I'd put this stuff on toast for breakfast if I didn't so many weird looks from people.

So, if you think your represent one of the aforementioned products, contact me as soon as possible.  After all, by advertising on "You Can't Get There From Here" you'll may very possibly be able to reach literally dozens of readers.

EPIC:  Awww, who am I kiddin'?  Here, this should keep you busy for a bit.  Don't don't too freaky-deaky  with the mustard, tho...




FAIL: Sweet Jesus, can someone make Will and Jada Smith stop breeding already?

http://www.vevo.com/watch/willow/whip-my-hair/USSM21001602

This BLOG'S For You! Well, at least for now...

Hey, all!

Well, with close to three-thousand visits to my blog since April I must admit that it's gotten a bit more attention than I expected.

What really freaks me out is when companies contact me from out of the blue for inappropriate advertising opportunities.  Way back in May I did one (and only one) entry about sports (hockey to be precise, found here: http://emblogificationcapturedevice.blogspot.com/2010/05/best-game-you-can-name.html), and just a few days later this was sent to me:

Dear Webmaster ("Who is this Webmaster?  I am no Webmaster, I am the Keyholder!!!"...sorry)

My name is Dierdre (name changed to protect the stupid), and my company Pushy-Interwebs (name changed to protect it's clearly fly-by-night nature) represents online sport sites in various domains. We are looking at reputable sites to offer them profitable opportunities to help promote some of my clients sites.

We would like to know if you are interested in working with us on this.

For further details please don't hesitate to contact me.

Cheers,
Dierdre Brainsample
Advertising Consultant
Business Development Department
dierdre.brainsample@pushy-interwebs.com

Well, never one to discount something outright I replied back with the following:

Hello, Dierdre.

I appreciate your interest in my blog but had you given even a scant cursory glance at some of the other entries, you would clearly see that sports is a topic that I will scarcely, if ever, revisit.  In fact it's very likely that the content of the entry that prompted your email will never be mentioned again.

Having said that, I would certainly review any information you can provide about this opportunity.

Thanks in advance,

David Pretty

NO REPLY

Then in August this inexplicable exchange occurred:

Hi David Pretty,

I am Trina Echoears, I work for Cyberdyne, Inc.

Could you please mention about our Cyberdyne Operating System Optimizer on your blog.
http://cyberdynelovesyou.com/products/systemoptimizer/system-optimizer.html

I will give you a full version in exchange.

Sincerely,

Trina Echoears

Well, I mulled this over for half a second and shot this back:

Hi, Trina.

Thank you for your interest in "You can't Get There From Here". 

I might suggest, however, that if you'd taken a few fleeting moments out of your clearly busy day to scan over a few of my entries you might have picked up on the complete and total absence of references to computer software or reviews of the aforementioned products.
 
I'd go so far as to say that the time you would have saved composing and sending the email below would have been better served reading just a few paragraphs of my work versus trying to hone your penchant for Jedi Mind Tricks.

Having said that, I have been using the trial version of your product for the past few days and although my computer isn't operating any faster it also hasn't become self-aware, tried to murder me in my sleep or attempted to tap into any nuclear missile defense grids.

As such, despite the fact that I've never mentioned software in my blog entries (and never intended to)  I'd be more than happy to embed an ad for the Cyberdyne System Optimizer on my landing page.

Let me know if this would be suitable.
 
Thanks for your interest and have a great day!

NO REPLY

Finally, just recently I got a package of information from Google AdWorks.  I'd already set myself up with AdSense, which is supposed to take the content of your blog and post appropriate ads which readers might have some ungodly reason to click on.  If a certain amount of readers do this (I estimate it would need to be about forty-eight to sixty-thousand), then I might earn a check back from Google which would provide enough scratch to buy that pack of gum I always wanted.

Well, that's all well and good, but the irony isn't lost on me when I go off on an 11-part tirade ripping Sears a new corn hole only to spy a ginormous ad for www.sears.ca hanging over my comments box like some sort of blood-engorged stirge.  Oh, irony thou art truly ironic!  

Nevertheless, I got a package of information from Google recently asking if I wanted to use a free $100.00 credit for AdWorks which would put my l'il ole Emblogification Capture Device at the top of the virtual pile of results if anyone searched keywords like "blog", "employment" or "crackpot". 

So, with due diligence, I followed the link, created my one hundred and seventy-fifth new website profile since leaving work in April and then redeemed my $100 coupon.  Basically it was my intention to drive it into the ground for about ten days (or until my credit ran out), hopefully pick up a few new readers and then drop the program like it was hot.

Well, great idea in theory but not so good in practice.  Turns out, for the aesthetic purposes of the ad, the entire URL address could only be thirty-five characters.  Mine was a whopping forty-nine! 

I tried every possible work around with no luck, so I just abandoned it.

Then, a few weeks later I get a phone call from some dude with Google AdWorks located in Arizona.  Curiosity piqued, I called him back and we had a lovely little chat about my little syntax hiccup.

"Well, I'll see what I can do to pare down the name of the blog," I said.  After all, fourteen of those forty-nine characters were not of my choosing like the http prefix, the blogspot.com and other irrelevant mush.  What the eff did I need that crap for?

Well, I went back in, mucked around for a bit and came to the conclusion that he wanted me to pare down my blog title!  What?!?  Ditch Emblogification Capture Device?  And change it to what?  My original title of You Can't Get There From Here had already been taken when I started.  There couldn't be any other title.  It was what it was!  What else could I possibly call it?  This Is Dave's Blog Entry? 

Hey, wait, that's actually not bad.  Crap!   And it's just the right amount of characters.  And I just thought of this now!!?  F#$%, I'm such an idiot!


Errrrrr, I mean, NO!  Was he nuts?  Right now if someone "Googles" the name of the blog, it's the first result to come up!  Not that anyone would ever do that on their own in a million years, but since April I've been doing a sort of grass-roots advertising campaign by leaving otherwise blank business cards lying around the HRM with Emblogification Capture Device cryptically printed in various fonts.   

The AdWorks dude soon called back and left a message for me, asking how I was doing in neutering my blog's name.  I couldn't bring myself to call him back and explain in some lame, pretentious, artsy temper tantrum that I can't change the name of the blog because it would be like changing the name of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button to Benji the Hunted.     

After he left literally a dozen voice mails I finally picked up on the last one, just as he was promising with a straight voice that this was "sure to be the last message".  I snatched up the phone and blathered in quick succession that I would, in no uncertain terms, rather die than give up the name of the blog and that Google, yes, Google needed to find some internal solve to get over this creatively inane forty-nine character limit.

He waited me out patiently and then assured me that the advertising URL and the actual URL were two totally different things.  He told me he was going to email over a link which would allow him to view the format of the site address so help me pare it down while retaining the original name of the blog.

I breathed a sigh of relief.  That was, until his next question...

"So, when we get this all squared away, have you given any thought as to what your daily advertising budget will be?"

I let a beat pass.  I'd already shown earlier that my hand of cards was composed entirely of Jokers, so I decided to lob that conversational grenade back into his foxhole.

"Daily advertising budget?  Um, well, what would you recommend?"

"Well, on the very minimum end of the spectrum, how does $11.00 a day Canadian sound?"

It was now my turn to let the crickets have a solo.

"Uh, yeah, listen, um..Ryu (name changed to protect the oblivious), I don't know if you actually read my blog, but it's basically about an unemployed clown bitching about his past jobs, banging on the drum all day and playing dress-up."

"Oh," he said.

"Yeah, and to be perfectly honest, I was just gonna use up the $100 credit and then drop it, unless all those schizophrenic Sears ads started to may off like loose slot machines in a moment of karmic payback..."

Ryu from AdWorks cleared his throat and then proceeded to gingerly navigate out of our suddenly pointless conversation.

"Oh, well, if that's the case, then let me just pass you along to another department that works with...smaller scale (translation: non-existent) budgets..."

I politely took the number down.  Before I hung up, I just had to ask:

"Ryu, why would someone send this to me?  I mean it's not as if my site is based around gold for cash or online sales of LE 3-D televisions.  Really, why did I get this mailer in first place?"

"Oh, likely it's because...you're did you say you were located again?  Up in P.E.I.?"

"Um, close, Nova Scotia."

"Well, it's likely our marketing department thought that your region was untapped, so to speak, so you likely were a part of a mass mailing."

Mass mailing?  Really?  I suddenly felt so unloved. 

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EPIC:  I'd whore for Cheap Trick anytime...


FAIL: Did these things get sent to me because people didn't read or because they couldn't because they "lost their glasses"? Here's the indescribably bizarre Pete Burns, lead singer for the 80's pop band Dead or Alive humiliating himself on British TV as part of Celebrity Big Brother in 2006...