Saturday, March 31, 2007

A Time to Reflect

10 years ago... It was 1997

1.) How old were you?: Fourteen

2.) Where did you go to school?: JL Mitchener Public School

3.) Where did you work?: I babysat occasionally

4.) Where did you live? 23 King St, York

5.) Where did you hang out? There aren't really places to "hang out" in Cayuga

6.) Did you wear glasses? Nope

7.) Who was your best friend?: Chris Jaic

8.) How many tattoos did you have? Aside from some rub-ons nodda.

9.) How many piercings did you have? two

10.) What car did you drive?: Go-Kart

11.) Had you been to a real party yet? Unfortunately I had.

12.) Had your heart broken?: I think the more appropriate term is having your hormones broken.

13.) Single/Taken/Married/Divorced/Bitter: Single and not bitter. One of the few times in my life that I was really quite content on my lonesome.

14.) Favourite band: No Doubt

15.) Favourite movie: The Rock


5 years ago... It was 2002

1.) How old were you?: 19

2.) Where did you go to school?: Cayuga Secondary School

3.) Where did you work?: Subway. This particular day as I recall >:(

4.) Where did you live?: Still York, later that year Peterborough.

5.) Where did you hang out?: Work and school

6.) Did you wear glasses? Still no

7.) Who was your best friend?: Sutor and Tammy

8.) Who was your regular-person crush?: I refuse to admit on the grounds that it is WAY too embaressing.

9.) How many tattoos did you have?: none.

10.) How many piercings did you have?: Same old, same old, though I had a fake nose ring I liked to wear on occasion.

11.) What car did you drive? I sort of gradually took over the Intrepid by placing my empty pizza boxes and gym clothes in the back seat and reprogramming the radio stations to 102.1 the Edge.

12.) Had you had your heart broken? At that age it's more like having your brain broken.

13.) Single/Taken/Married/Divorced/Bitter: Single til the summer

14.) Favourite Band: The Dave Matthews Band (in fact I was just about to see them in concert for the first time as a B-Day present)

15.) Favourite movie: Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail

Presently

1.) How old are you?: 24 today :)

2.) Where do you work? Zellers and Signature Group Creative Marketing

3.) Where do you live? Sudbury, in my professor's house!

4.) Do you wear glasses?: Nope (PS: Andrew aren't you SUPPOSED to wear glasses?)

5. Who do you hang out with most? :P The Zellers staff, the Dooly's staff, Joe and Andrew.

6.) Do you talk to your old friends?: Zach and Yvonne for sure!

7.) How many piercings do you have?: My earring holes have grown over.

8.) How many tattoos?: I want a tattoo of a lizard crawling up my back.

9.) What kind of car do you drive? Sudbury transit is my ride.

10.) Has your heart been broken?: At this age you realize that the Tin Man was right. That's how you know you have one.

11.) Single/Taken/Married/Divorced/Bitter: Single, occasionally bitter :p

12.) Favourite band: Too many to chose from. At the moment I'm grooving on Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes and Feist.

13.) Favourite movie: Still a Python fan. Truthfully I am a huge sucker for Big Fish. It probably has my all-time favourite half hour of movie-making in the history of cinema (from him arriving at the circus, through to him arriving home from the war).

Friday, March 30, 2007

Her favourite flowers are daffodils

Don't forget to support that Canadian Cancer Society, this week (and I think next) they are selling daffodils!

Because one can never have too many...

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Oh Geez

You have a mission. It is to go to the Rainbow Showcase Theatre and see the movie Fido. Not only is it the only thing worth watching at the movies right now (so far as I can tell) but I get the distinct feeling that it will not be at these cinemas for long. After all how can it compete with the likes of Norbit and Saw VIII?

It is satire at it's finest: both subtle and ridiculous (occasionally at the same time). It has all the makings of a cult classic. Possibly a cult of the living dead.




How else to describe it? It's like Dawn of the Dead meets Pleasantville, meets Bubba Ho-Tep encounters a cousin of The Stepford Wives and has a long distance relationship with Death Becomes Her.

What? I'm making observations about movies I've seen. I think it's healthy.

Monday, March 26, 2007

What am I doing?

Seriously. What am I doing with my life? If I get hit by a train tomorrow what will I have accomplished? Today I dealt with this woman complaining to me that at 80,000 HBC points for a $10 gift card at Zellers it "Isn't worht it". Isn't worth what? Pulling a card out of your damn wallet when you buy something? Shopping a huge cheap discount store and getting free crap for doing so? I mean I know it's made out to be more phenominal than it is, but the points are effing FREE people, what do you expect?! At 10 points you get a $50 gift card, congradulations we're out of business. Like what other place are you getting such sensational points from? Canadian Tire money? Airmiles?

You know what's "not worth it"? $8.25/hour to listen to you bitch about how your points aren't worth enough.



If I don't get into Grad school don't be surprised if my next production is "The Assasination and Persecution of Jean Paul Marat as performed by the inmates of the Assylum at Charenton under the direction of Liz Buchanan".

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Lyrics for the day

Hey, I ain't never coming home
Hey, I'll just wander my own road
Hey, I can't meet you here tomorrow
Say goodbye don't follow

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

FREE ALCOHOL ON ST PATRICK'S DAY!

Now that I have your attention...

FREE ALCOHOL ON ST PATRICK'S DAY!


Seriously! On March 17th at the Algonquin Rd LCBO I am doing a tasting for the new Starbucks Cream and Coffee liquors. Come out and give them a try! I seriously don't care if you buy it or not, but I may need a little positive support as I attempt to sell a cream liquor on St Patty's day that isn't Baily's :S

Anyhow, come on out and see me at the Algonquin Rd liquor store on Saturday between 12:30 and 4:30 and get free booze and cookies.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

And Liz Came Tumbling After

Yesterday I took a little tumble down my hill. I was always amazed that this didn't ever happen at Pearl St. I was rushing down the hill to get to the bus station in time for a quick Tim's break when I wiped out on some invisible ice. I went for a good two metre or so slide and knocked many numerous parts of my being around. I immediately got up and kept on going hoping that I wasn't hurt. After a short time I felt fine and rejoiced in my fabulous Wolverine-esque healing strength. It is possible that this was premature.

I woke up this morning and my whole body hurts. It's like I got run over by a train or something. I couldn't get a good picture of the bruise in the small of my back (chalk that up to a low megapixel digital camera and being too sore to twist my body around into good lighting). So here's my elbow bruise which was way cooler this morning:



I'm actually a big fan of bruises. I figure if it hurts you might as well have something to show for it.

Monday, March 12, 2007

Things I could watch if I got.... Satalite!

The music might be going down-hill, but a new career may be in the works...

Having said that I couldn't find an acting clip from the show that lasted long enough, so I went with the cool piano scene with Hugh Laurie:

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Self Expression

When we do a good job at Zellers they reward us with what are called "Speeding Tickets" for providing "fast and friendly" customer service. When we collect enough of these we get to pick a pin to decorate our uniform.

That's right...



we get FLAIR!

In other news I MIGHT be able to quit Jade. I started getting some LCBO shifts again... fingers crossed!

Sunday, March 04, 2007

A Typical Evening in Customer Service

The scene- there is a sale on Folgers Coffee, and naturally after a few days we have run out...

Customer: Where's the coffee?
Me: We ran out pretty quickly the sale started a few days ago. I can write you a rain-cheque if you like.
Customer (indignantly): Well, how long is that going to take?
Me: I really can't say. Usually we keep stuff like that stocked so maybe a week. We can have them call you when it comes in-
Customer: -That isn't going to get me a cup of coffee tomorrow morning, is it?

FREEZE!!

What I said:

"No I'm sorry, but there are other brands in the store, or you may be able to locate it at the Supermarket here in the mall"

What I PROBABLY could've gotten away with saying but didn't have the guts to:

"Here's a buck twenty-five, get yourself some damn Tim Hortons"

What I wanted to say drenched in sarcasm:

"Oh I'm sorry, you need the coffee TOMORROW? In that case I'll go to the back and grind some beans! If you need cream I can stop by the dairy farm on the way back."


ANYWAYS!

I got most of this out of my system at Dooly's this evening, bless Jenny and Steph's patient souls, but today was the sort of day when there was no right side of the bed to begin with.

I worked both at the Jade and Zellers back to back, which is usually not as bad when Zellers is the second. However despite my genius plan to avoid forgetting my uniform for the second job by packing it my back-pack the night before I managed to foil myself by getting half way downtown and realizing that I didn't have my back-pack on. So I missed the 9:45 Paris LoEllen (because let's face it if you don't arrive at the Sudbury transit terminal 45 minutes before work starts, then you shouldn't expect to get there on time), but came up with an alternate plan. I would ride Regent University at 10, get off on Paris street and run up Paris street to the Four Corners. For those with no knowledge of Sudbury geography, it's a good hike. This actually worked relatively well until I ran through a huge freezing puddle and DRENCHED my feet throroughly. I would have spent nearly 12 hours working on my feet in soaking wet socks and shoes, had I not come up with the unsurpassably ridiculous plan of wearing my mittens on my feet all day.
The Jade was the usual Jade. I got reprimanded for doing stupid things like offering to cut up a customer's brithday cake and serve it at their table. This apparently qualifies as a "waste of time" because the customer can cut their own cake. I should be spending my time doing more valuable things like chopping cabbage until it is razor thin ("No, no finer finer!"), because if there's one thing that will keep people coming to the Jade for special occasions with large groups it's imperfect cole-slaw.
Things did not get much better at Zellers.
It seems like everytime I get a nice Manager, idiot employees take advantage of them and treat them like crap until they break them. I had been noticing for a few days that my really super nice manager at Zellers seemed strung-out. Staff have been stealing, back-stabbing, faking sick to get out of work and bitching about the job non-stop. The big Z brought in a new Customer Service Manager to straighten things out (this could be a story in and of itself). The boss I like (the Store Manager) looked deflated and tired. I was saddened by this and had worked up some courage to ask him if I could help out in anyway (despite feeling that I was stepping over my boundaries) tonight. I got in and found out that he quit yesterday because he just couldn't take it anymore.
I hope that the change will help him and that he will have success elsewhere. I don't know him that well, but he seems like a really nice guy and he took the time each shift I was there to tell me that I was doing a good job and to thank me for helping out with extra stuff.
The entire thing leaves me with a pretty unpleasant feeling about the store and the atmosphere is getting really intense. While it's nowhere near as bad as the restaurant, at least at the Jade the customers are usually nice.
I think I need a hug from Zeddy the Teddy.

That's enough for now. Time to get some rest so that I can start a fresh new day of being yelled at by jerks! Being a 20-something rocks!

Thursday, March 01, 2007

"I know what I'm getting for my next Laptop!"

Having minimal production values and simple concept in a commercial=1000000 youtube parodies. I feel, however, that this one is note-worthy:




Notes:

1) I had three titles chosen. This was the most mature.

2) If anyone finds this offensive, please see the following disclaimer