Thursday, November 25, 2004

Was he even paying attention?

When leading tour groups at the fort, i usually ask the kids alot of questions. Lately i've found that all the kids keep putting their hands up even if they don't know the answer, they just want to fit in.

for example:

i asked a group of grade four kids "does wood sink in water, or does it float?"

all the hands go up and i pick one of them

the kid replies, "YES!"

??????????????????

kids like these will be contributing to my pension in the future

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

Random thoughts....

A&B sound was having a customer appreciation night from 7 to 10 last night. As i arrived at 7 the doors were still locked as many of the meagre employees were still running around adjusting prices.
It was pouring rain outside, the least they could do was let us in just at the front part. Great customer appreciation that is.

Saw "Alexander" last night. I would have renamed it "Seigfreid and Troy"
45 minutes of kick-ass fighting, alongside 2 hours of useless banter. And Angelina just isn't believable as an old mother. Rosario Dawson is hot though.

Who would have thunk val kilmer and kevin spacey are old school buddies? (both grew up in the same neighbourhood and attended Juilliard together)

Wong Kar Wai's, IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (criterion edition) would make a good christmas gift (wink wink nudge nudge)

So there's this Asian dentist who just happened to open up his practice next to the sikh temple on scott road in surrey. His name just happens to be Terry Mah. He's so proud of himself, he's displayed his name promenantly on the outside of the office "DR. TERRY MAH!"
I wonder if anyone has told him that "terry mah" translated in punjabi, literally means "your mama!" perhaps he graduated with some brown guys who told him to open shop there just as a practical joke. imagine if some immigrants are having a conversation about it right now:
the following is translated from punjabi to english:
1-"ouch, my teeth hurt. hey buddy, do you happen to know a dentist nearby"
2-"of course, my dentist is quite close, right next to the temple as a matter of fact"
1-"really old chap. well i do say, could you possibly tell me this doctor's name?"
2-"of course, it's easy to remember; YOUR MAMA!"
1-"excuse me?"
2-"YOUR MAMA!!!! right next door! i visit YOUR MAMA twice a year! and YOUR MAMA always gives me a treat when they are done with me. Usually a toothbrush to clean out my mouth, it can get messy sometimes"
1-....."my mom???"
2-"what? your mom is a dentist too? no no, i meant YOUR MAMA! right next door. all the guys in the neighbourhood go to YOUR MAMA, because YOUR MAMA gives the best rates in town. we all walk out with a smile!"
Miscommunication. This, my friends, is one of the roots of brown-on-brown violence in surrey.

230 in the morning i wake up in fear as the sound of gunshots hits my house and the rumble of firepower shakes my room. i fall out of bed, and do the military crawl out to the hallway, away from any window. and then i realize that it's mike downstairs playing SOCOM, or the latest edition of metal gear solid, at full blast. it gets me everytime.

driving down highway #1 on my way to work in the morning, i fall behind a dumptruck in the fast lane that appears to be hauling gravel. I can tell this because little pebbles are falling off the top and lightly tap hank, my truck, while i'm whizzing by at speeds over 110km/h, then this ROCK (not a pebble, BUT A ROCK) skyrockets out of the truck, hits the pavement and bounces back up into the air and smashes into my windshield at top speed! sounds like a SOCOM gunshot, so i quickly veer into the right lane, look myself over to see if i've been hit, no blood so it's good, but then i see the crack on my windshield. when something like that happens to your car, you just feel helpless.

Jesus was born with "no crib for a bed." but wasn't Joseph a carpenter?

God bless the inventor of sesame snaps. who knew that taking the seeds off hamburger buns and assembling them like sheets of plywood would taste so good??

That'll do for today,
I should get back to work.
See ya when i see ya

Sunday, November 21, 2004

I LOVE CHIRSTMAS....

'cause it always seems to fall on a holiday.

Anyways, so about Hank (my nissan pathfinder). i took him in for a tune up on wednesday morning and had a piece of shit burgundy sentra courtesy car to take to work. after work, i returned to the service department, paid my few hundred dollars and received the keys to hank who was deemed "as good as new" by the manager in the department.

then the trouble began

off i left in the evening to go pick up heather, but as i was driving down the street i heard a screeching coming from an engine. looking behind me i saw there was an old lincoln towncar tailgating me, so naturally i assumed the sound was coming from that car, since i did get a tune up that very day, it couldn't be me.

but then the lincoln turned and headed off down another street... but the sound was still there

it hit me

IT WAS COMING FROM HANK!

now back when i had Rex (my redneck truck), he usually made this sound every now and then, and all it was was i little loose screw on the fan belt, nothing big, could easily be fixed later on.

"i'll just take it back to the dealership tomorrow morning" i thought to myself

and then the troubles began

so i get onto highway 91, gunning it at just over 100 km/h when the truck starts screaming, and POP there slides off one of the belts and the engine begins to overheat so the truck just shuts itself off. RIGHT ON TOP OF THE BLOODY BRIDGE!!!!!

fearing my life, i hit the emergency lights and quickly veered to the outside lane with whatever momentum was left in hank. thankfully, i had picked up one of those miny yellowpages from an esso about a month earlier (that i leave in hank just in case something like this happens; or if i crave pizza)

so the struggle ensues, i have to get out of my truck on top of the bridge with cars whizzing by me at triple digit speeds, manage to make my way to the back and call a tow truck.

12 minutes later a tow truck appears, so i get him to tow hank all the way back to the service department. the driver was a cool dude so he drove me home as well.

the next morning i call the jackass who fixed my truck and told him he fucked up and better have hank ready by the afternoon... and he shouldn't expect me to pay for the repairs.

turns out it was a stoopid little mistake made by them when they were replacing the engine belts. apparently, the first belt that goes on is the timing belt, but this belt always slips off if the other two belts aren't in place yet. so to keep the timing belt where it is, you have to increase the tension on it; then you put the other two belts on and simply release the tension on the timing belt and all should be good to go.

this fool of a toque, forgot to release the tension, hence the timing was off, hence the slipping of the belt; resulting in the overheating, causing the engine to automatically shutoff to prevent further damage.

bastards!

nonetheless, using the bitching ways of my sister, the communist, i made them turn red faced with shame and as a result, they reembursed me on the towing costs and also gave me $150 in credit the next time i bring hank in.

quite the chaos if i do say so myself.

but hank is doing great now, save for the crack on the windshield

but that's another story

Friday, November 19, 2004

WTF???!!!

apparently my yahoo email account has been hacked
there is no way for me to log into it because the password i have used for the last 6 years no longer seems to work

so for the time being; eastindianajones@yahoo.com is on hold

please direct any emails for me to my new refined email address
amnjohal@yahoo.com

or even

amdaddy@hotmail.com

that'll do for now

i'll tell you about my car dying on the alex fraser bridge on the next entry

Monday, November 15, 2004

... and then there were 8

Back in my high school days, before i was shown the light of rock and roll, i was addicted to rap.

To one group specifically, the Wu-Tang Clan. I mean, there were probably three years in there where i thought i was the missing member. I had an all-out afro growing, with the braces on my teeth to go with it; desperate pleas to my orthodontist to give me head gear to go with my braces to complete my menacing, wild, wu-tang look didn't fly too well.

9 members introduced the music world into a dark, hardcore style of rap that contrasted not only with the flashy ways of people like Notorious and Tupac, but also contrasted with the style of gangtas like NWA. Mainly in a time when Dr. Dre, with his release of "The Chronic," was the mainstream rap sound of the time; the wu-tang music created a hazy, surreal, and menacing soundscape out of hardcore beats, eerie piano riffs, and minimal samples. it was dark and encouraged mosh pits at concerts. This band is the "nirvana" of the rap world.

But this morning i received a great shock. A founding member passed away on the weekend:

The Ol' Dirty Bastard

my favourite rapper of all time, collapsed saturday afternoon while in studio recording a song. He would have turned 36 today.

With a long history of crime and drug abuse, i wouldn't be surprised if it was an overdose, although i hope it was something more natural like a heart attack. perhaps because i want to believe him when he said he had kicked the habit.

Russel Tyrone Jones personified the image of a "crazy lunatic" and brought a rap style that was unheard of in his age, claiming to have "no father to his style" he named himself the Ol' Dirty Bastard, and various name changes followed; Osiris, Big Baby Jesus, Dirt McGirt, Joe Bananas, Dirt Dog, Unique Ason, etc...

Although i never agreed with his way of life, his music brought out something in me. It told me it was okay to act crazy and let loose once in awhile and take what others may deem to be extreme risks when you in fact have total control of the situation.

Shimmy Shimmy Ya and other songs are what propelled me to go into acting in high school and actually audition for the theatre company. I thank the Ol' Dirty Bastard for getting that gorilla off my shoulder.

And I'll miss him.

The rapper.... not the gorilla.

Friday, November 12, 2004

Chingy.... you did it again:

looking at the cover of his cd, makes me want to order a big mac. click here

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Sleazy...

the 8th dwarf.

Wednesday, November 03, 2004

well it's clear now...

There are more inbred hicks south of the border than there are nutjobs and tree activists. georgie won again.

Yet for a few hours there, they were still questioning as to who was going to win the election as all of that nation's focus was on ohio.

It would have been the best time for us to attack!

Monday, November 01, 2004

Oh the memories...

So yesterday was the fifth anniversary of my dad's funeral.
hard to believe that it's already been 5 years

It was also hallowe'en.
Came to the realisation that i'm growing old, because i was more excited about going to play hockey last night than lighting off firecrackers in my front yard.

While walking out the front door at around 730, i noticed that our pumpkin had been jacked, "probably blown up in the alley by now" i thought, and then a bottle-rocket whizzed across my yard. A couple of policemen on bike-patrol rolled on up to my driveway because they heard the noise and i pointed them in the opposite direction from where the rocket came from. sure i was aiding a crime, but the kids deserve to have a little fun now and then.

While driving down to kevin's house to pick him up for hockey, you could see the fireworks going off on all the side-streets. And i discovered just how easy it was to distinguish the races based on their firework/cracker activities.

Those with beautifully lit fireworks just going off one at a time with the sound of ooohs and aaahs in the background had to be whitefolk.

The nonstop hammering of firecrackers had to be asian.

The one with dozens of cars out front with many costumed people and the sound of karaoke in the backyard was definately filipino.

and the brown... oh the brown. just look for the street covered in smoke, smell the peanuts, and watch as the bastards light all their stock at once and run for cover. ripping the sticks off the bottle rockets, igniting them and tossing them in the air like a game of russian roulette... brought a smile to my face. and then i reached an epiphany... someone could really get hurt!

i had never thought about it before when i used to do it, but now i was worried about the safety of the kids...

damn

i'm old.

fortunately i was able to prevent myself from lecturing them.

came back home after hockey, took a shower and went into the kitchen to see what candy, if any, was left.

shocked to find that there was quite a bit remaining. fewer kids this year than last. is this whole candy-giving craze dying out, is this date turning into a celebration for arsonists instead?

or is the nation truly getting fatter and the kids are becoming too tired to walk for free candy. i remember when i was a wee lad and could go non-stop from house to house getting as much candy as possible. and i was fat. it was the adrenaline rush that kept me going and you could see all the kids out there as well with their parents hauling the larger bags that the kids would dump their candy into.

and then the true answer hit me.

all night, i barely saw many adults with the kids. definately not as many as the years before. they didn't seem excited either. they were more interested about doing things like "going to play hockey" than participating in hallowe'en. if the adults don't participate in it like they used to, this day will die out. the kids need motivation to hype them up and get them going.

but there was no one there to "do it for the kids."

and the kids are always watching