I was out for a drive the other day, and I decided to take the path less travelled. Boy, did it ever make a difference. I came around a bend in the road and I saw this by the side of the road:
Now, it’s not all that uncommon to find beer cans in the ditch (there are still a few dirty, filthy litterbugs out there), but these ones were still full. Almost as astonishing as that was the fact that they were close to 10 feet tall! I did a little bit of calculating (I asked J.D. to do it so I wouldn’t have to, but she was busy) and I determined that the owner of these cans would have to be somewhere between 120 and 144 feet tall.
I was seriously considering climbing up and getting into one of these cans, but then I thought, “What if I drown in there?” Then I thought, “What a way to go!” Then I thought, “What if the owner comes back and finds me in there? What do I do when I find a bug in my beer? I just fish it out then flick it off my finger as hard as I can without caring whether or not it lives, after all it’s only a bug.” Then I thought, “Well, maybe that’s not such a good way to go.”
So I just took some pictures of the cans to prove that I really saw them and then I drove off, thinking about what a great story this would make when I got back to the bar.
So, lately I’ve sort of been thinking that my day job is an awful lot like “Survivor“. 
First of all I have to hang out with a bunch of strangers, very few (if any) of whom I would ever choose to associate with. Next I’m forced to to stay at a small self-contained locale, not unlike an island.
In my first couple of weeks at this job I was presented with a few challenges, most of which I won, and I just sort of took my time to understand the game without taking too many risks. Gradually, I was presented with more challenges, then I made some alliances and slowly became well-liked by my fellow castaways co-workers. I was able to survive a few eliminations and I even got immunity a couple of times.
It didn’t take me very long to become the leader of my tribe; and I survived many more eliminations. A little while back I became the back-up hunter/gatherer shipper-receiver for the whole island. Now after one more elimination, I have moved up another spot to become the head shipper/receiver. If this trend continues, next I should become the Jeff Probst of my job and then the Mark Burnett.
Outwit – well, if you knew the kind of people I work with you’d know that’s not even a little bit difficult to do
Outlast – the ladies will tell you how well I can outlast other guys
Outplay – I never play at work; ’cause work isn’t fun, work is work
So I was wandering around the city today, just taking in the sights. When you grow up in Redneck country, a city with a population of 85, 000+ seems to be filled with endless wonders. And today was no different. I saw a truck pass by and the name on the door said, “Low Speed Transport”.
I thought to myself, “What an amazing place we live in that offers such choice in how quickly you want your freight moved.”
I’m sure lot’s of people have had a feeling the “Rapid Trucking” or “We Move It Now” were just too fast. They need things transported but there’s really no rush at all. Anytime within the next six or seven months should be just fine. It makes me wonder if this concept would work in a restaurant. You could come in tonight and place your order and then come back tomorrow to eat it. How about low speed blogging; all of you can keep coming back everyday to see what’s new at The Redneck and I’ll just write whenever I get around to it.
Hey, wait a minute…
“I think it was an Asian gang or something… There was this guy, he looked Asian… and he was speaking another language, I’m pretty sure it was… Asian.“*
So I was out for a bike ride yesterday, and I stopped at a corner near the water fountains to wait for the light to change. There were three ne’er do wells gentlemen guys facing the other direction.
One of them turned and approached me. In a low voice he asked, “Hey. Do you know where I can get some weed?”
Strangely, I actually contemplated for a moment whether or not I knew such a thing before replying, “No, I don’t.” He apologized and then turned away. Then one another one of the group came up so me and asked something I didn’t quite catch. I begged his pardon and he repeated himself but I still couldn’t quite understand him. Very warily I just shook my head and quietly said no.
Then I finally understood him when he said, “You don’t know where downtown is?”
This puzzled me a little bit but I answered, “This is downtown.” He turned back to his friends presumably to tell them that they had reached their destination and that they could expect the weed to start flowing like water. It’s too bad that the old Windsor and Park Hotels are gone now. Those were really good places to get weed…or so I heard.
*The Cable Guy, watch it, it’s hilarious.
So last night (or more accurately this morning) at around 3:30 – 4 a.m. my room-mate came home from her job and turned on her t.v. (she lives upstairs and I have the basement). Normally she is considerate of the fact that I am asleep when she gets in and keeps the volume low. Every now and again though she forgets and thus my rest is disturbed (and my regular viewers already know I don’t need to be any more disturbed).
Now I’ve always been the kind of person who has a lot of trouble falling asleep when there’s noise in the house; and last night was no exception. After being awakened I tossed and turned a lot; I would partially doze off then coming back again. At one point I thought I should just get up, even though I had intended to get up at 6:15. And then I thought, if I did get up I could go write something here at The Redneck, and I seem to recall thinking of a good topic. Then, fortunately, I did go back to sleep until my alarm rang.
The only bad thing is, when I got up I could no longer remember what I was going to write about. So that’s why I’m merely giving you a dramatic account of my trials and tribulations whilst I was sleeping.
Has that ever happened to you? What have your sleep troubles been?
Normally, I frequently tell people that I have no life. I usually have quite a lot of time to just sit around staring either into cyberspace or at the t.v. I can just let my mind go blank until inspiration suddenly hits me upside the head and I come up with a topic to blog about.
Unfortunately, I’ve just been too freakin’ busy to do nothing for any length of time. Between solving another murder, going to a trade show, and catching a flick with the sister (not to mention driving through a blinding snow-storm for two-and-a-half hours just so I could crash in my own bed); I’ve barely had time to get three or four hours of sleep. I certainly haven’t had time to get into the kitchen to prepare custom sandwiches for all of The Redneck’s faithful Beer Buddies. But I promise I’ll get to them real soon. I’ve got a three-day-week-end coming up so maybe I’ll even be able to go out and visit some other cyber-spaces.
But now, I have to go wash the dishes.
I apologize for not being at The Redneck for a couple of days, but I have a good excuse. I was called down to Calgary; my Facebook friends Kelly and Kev needed my help to solve a murder mystery. This also gave us a good excuse for a dinner party.
As we ate we determined what happened; a man named Bobby was murdered and his eight friends were the prime suspects. In order to find out who the killer was each of us had to “become” one of the suspects. Kelly was Cynthia Masters, the editor of a women’s magazine. Kev was Peter Simmons, owner of the Old Lodge where the murder took place and all of us suspects were staying. Kristy was Patricia Collins, international stewardess. Sue was Bess Andrews, a former beauty queen, now confined to a wheelchair due to a car accident. John was Joe Barley an undercover police officer. Kelly’s dad was Bill Bishup a former football player forced into early retirement due to an injury. I was Michael Roth a “whiz kid” computer programmer/designer. Sandi was supposed to be Wynter Newly, the spoiled daughter of a wealthy industrialist. Unfortunately, due to illness, Sandi cancelled at the last minute. However, we still needed someone to get into Wynter’s head in order to properly solve the crime; thus I decided to get in touch with my feminine side and I became this woman as well as Michael. It was a mind expanding experience.
As we became our characters, we discovered that not only did we have connections to one another (apart from attending the same college), we also each had a motive for killing Bobby. But who did the actual deed? Well, you’re just going to have to purchase the game, gather eight of your friends, eat some food drink some Blue Beaver Beer (or, I guess, some reasonable alternative) and solve the crime for yourself. Who would have thought murder could be so much fun.
So, last night Tim and I once again had the distinct pleasure of seeing The Arrogant Worms live in concert. The last time we saw them was nearly a year ago; November 25/06 (if you want to hear more about that one just click here). This time around they were playing in a small town minuscule community of Bearberry. This community has a hall and a bar/grill type place and pretty much nothing else. Unfortunately the bar/grill was closed so we couldn’t get any beer there. The hall was licensed but they didn’t serve Blue Beaver Beer. Fortunately Tim and I came prepared for that possibility so we didn’t have to go dry.
The show itself was, as always, hilariously entertaining. Most of the comedy was rooted in the name and stature of Bearberry. Most of the members of the audience were from out of town, but all of the native Bearbarians (as Chris dubbed them) were good sports about the ribbing. The Worms performed all of their smash hits that have not yet been recorded such as "Big Box Store" and "I’m Getting Mixed Signals From the Boy", which is evidently the true story of Mike’s son.
They also played many of the really huge hits that have propelled them to international stardom within the town limits of Bearberry. There probably would have been a riot if they had tried to get away without playing "Jesus’ Brother Bob" and "Last Saskatchewan Pirate".
The trio also showed off their Canadian pride by singing several national anthems that they have written. As I listened to Trevor singing, "We Are The Beaver"; I started, for the first time, to really consider the deeper meaning behind the lyrics. When he said, "We can chew right through small trees", I pondered how that applied to Canadians. Do the small trees represent the minor problems that we experience in our everyday lives? Are we as a people better able to "chew" through these problems than say Russians? Russia is the bear which "mauls anything that dares gets in it way". Does that mean they just use brute savagery to solve their problems? As well; the beaver "slaps it’s tail when dangers nearby". Do others rely on us as some sort of an early warning system? Just how exactly does a Canadian person compare to a Canadian beaver?
At that point I downed another Blue Beaver Beer and I just sat back and enjoyed the music and stopped trying to analyze it. I suggest you go buy several of their c.d.’s and do the same.
Recently I had occasion to attend a social gathering with a number of my FaceBook friends. Much alcohol and "junk" food was consumed; and, as is always the case when this particular crowd gathers, there was much philosophical debate. At one point Kev happened to mention in passing that he believed I was a square. Now at the time he meant it in the best possible way, however I felt inclined to politely disagree with him.
"I am far more than a plane figure with four equal sides and four right angles.", I protested, "I am much more of a parallelogram with equal sides that is not a rectangle (i.e. a rhombus)."
I think the reason that some of friends think of me as being square-ish is because after quaffing much Blue Beaver Beer I tend to remain the same calm, good natured person that I am at all times. I would never pick a fight with a bar-stool, nor would I pick up a total stranger, take her back to my place and engage in a lively round of pictionary. I know that some of my friends do exactly that sort of thing after drinking heavily.
Personally I identify myself with the noble rhombus due to the fact that although it is somewhat square-ish, it definitely has some unique properties to it. It is not stuck being all right angles, it has enough flexibility to range (at least theoretically) anywhere from 89 degrees to 1 degree. I most certainly have such range. After all what square would ever even consider bringing this sort of a cake to a philosophical debate night:
Whew! You would not believe last week. Not only did I work 13 hrs per day, including commute, but some of the weirdest things happened. It was like the complete reverse of Ernie’s experiences last week.
I literally couldn’t believe it when my teenage son got in a fight with his mother and stormed off. I mean, what kind of teenager does that kind of thing? It was like the twilight zone.
I got up the next morning and all the breakfast stuff had completely disappeared! It was almost like someone had eaten it all and no one replaced it. Or aliens snuck in and took it while we were sleeping….. Too bizarre.
And then that whole paycheck thing. All of a sudden, on Monday, a deposit was made into our checking account. It was like magic. One minute, negative balance. Next minute, money! And the weird part was, the amount deposited matched exactly the number on my pay slip! In a universe where things like this happen, how can you not be amazed? It was almost like it was pre-arranged between my work and the bank.
And then there was the Tom Norton’s incident. I went through the drivethrough and ordered a large coffee and a bagel. When I got to the window to pay, I was informed that my items had already been paid for by the person in front of me. Thank you, whoever you are! Boy, what a week.
