Author: Jason Doucette

I guess last night’s news (Canadian-led Afghan assault kills at least 3) wasn’t very well received – the latest article has a headline all about discovering a weapon’s cache, then the lead in paragraph talks about how Canadian troops “discovered” two dead al-Qaida — after firing rockets into their cave. D’yah think OJ could’ve just used that line and saved us a summer of drivel? Man, I need to get out more if that’s the most recent pop culture analogy I can come up with…

According to this article, the Nigerian money scam gets a response about one percent of the time. I must get 3 of these a week, so I guess that means I’ll be going broke in August or so. I’d hope that the gullibility stats are dropping; I mean, if you get two emails from Nigerians in the same day, both offering you millions of dollars, does anyone actually think they’ve just hit the jackpot? “All right! Maybe one’s a scam, but I’m definitely set for life if the other one comes through!” I’m going to start forwarding the letters to the other scammers, maybe they have some kind of union or it’s a franchise where you’re supposed to be offered exclusivity for an alphabetical list of domain names.

My voice mail light was on when I got to work today. Fortunately, it wasn’t about some meeting I’d missed or some problem I was getting the blame for, it was a voice mail spam about an upcoming CRM trade show. CRM is short for Customer Relationship Management – it’s to do with what business do with all that data they’ve been gathering on you, so you get some kind of personal treatment, or at the very least, they target you for offers that you might actually buy. In this case, the message was talking up the show, trying to get me to register for it. The thing is, I already had. What does it mean when the CRM show organizers don’t “get” CRM?

It’s important to note that I’ve taken up the habit of snacking on cashews. I have a big bag of them in the kitchen, and once in awhile I’ll grab a handful of them and wander around our spacious home, popping them into my mouth and enjoying the cashewy goodness. Just something I’d like to say, that’s all. AngelA and I went to the antique show this weekend. Both of my longtime readers will recall that the last visit scored me a freakin’ Vectrex, but alas, this time that vendor couldn’t even find his 2600 carts and the best I could get from him was this funky number stamp that auto-increments each time you stamp it. It’s heavy and comes in the original box. It’s a little besoin de oil and ink, but that’s ok, because what exactly do I plan on stamping and numbering? Or rather, what don’t I plan on stamping and numbering? The big score was in the board games department, where I got the fever. Pac Man fever, that is. I got the Pac Man and Ms Pac Man board games. There’s a bit of sexism in the vintage board games industry, I reckon, since Mr. Man cost $10 more than Ms. Man. Still, both were made in the early 80’s, and I don’t think they had pay equity back then. While both games have all their pieces, that’s only really true if you don’t count instructions as a piece. I didn’t have too much trouble figuring out what the rules must have been, but I’m a bit amazed at how much nudity there was in the children’s board game field back in the day. The Pac Man game has a board that’s like a Pac Man maze – there are holes that marbles fit into, and the playing pieces are plastic Pac Men that actually eat the marbles. AngelA thought it was a bad idea for little kids to have marbles, but I think it’s pretty cool that I very likely bought some 20 year old spit. Anyway, I’m setting up the board, got me a handful of marbles, and AngelA gives me a bite of her cookie. I chew, swallow, and hey, remember that first paragraph about the cashews? Yep, I popped a marble into my mouth. It’s amazing how a shiny, smooth white marble can seem so clean and so dirty at the same time…

Many moons have passed without an entry, even longer than intended, as can be seen in the previous entry. Ah, but, well, it’s said that, oh crap, whatever. Just watched The Score, which I liked about half of. The half I didn’t like could’ve used some kung fu or maybe some Godzilla action. You don’t see a lot of Godzilla heist movies. Someone should look into that. Angela also liked half, but it’s not clear what the degree of overhead is right now. I realized a while back that I need to get a media pass. I could get into stuff for free and beat lineups and stuff. Plus I’d get to wear a hat. Maybe none of that’s true, but apparently it’s as good as a spot on the guest list at the Rivoli, and we didn’t have either the other night. What’s wrong with being a media whore? I need to do some coding soon. I haven’t decided if I’ll try to do something new or just steal an idea or two from some other great sites that I’d love to tell you about but can’t because then my theft will be obvious and you’ll either like the theft or not, but there’s not much chance of any Godzilla jumping in for the parts you don’t like. I’m also thinking about the colour green. Is green on a website run by a vegan too much? I upgraded to Mac OS X a few weeks ago, which is finally getting good, but I just entered the “oh crap, no support for my graphics tablet” phase. Which hit around the same time as the “no support for the digital camera” phase. Other than that, things are going well… It seems like I can trace every major computer purchase to a previous computer purchase that necessitated more spending. How the hell did the dot coms fail?

(You know what? It sure would have been nice if I’d entered this in the right section, or at least if I’d taken the 10 seconds it would’ve taken somewhere in the past week to check the page to see if my entry went through… ‘Cause hey, it’s March 7 now!) I’m starting to seriously question my sanity, or at least my sense of identity. It started last night. I was (am) exhausted, and fell asleep around 10. The phone rang at 10:37, which I guess is just enough time to get into that “if I wake up right now I won’t know where the hell I am” phase of sleep. I answer, and it’s a call for Angela. I wasn’t disoriented enough to wonder who Angela was, but I was a little fuzzy on where she was, so the caller got the generic “no, she’s not here right now”. He asks if she could call Jason when she gets back. Wait a minute, I think (almost out loud), I’m Jason! I had to ask his last name, but I don’t think I explained that it was to clarify things for me, not Angela. Turns out he has a different last name than I do, so I’m still me at this point. This morning, I got an email cc’d to a lot of people I don’t know, from someone I don’t know, inviting me to a dinner to toast someone else I don’t know before she leaves on some trip to India. I spent 5 minutes staring at the thing trying to figure out if I had in fact forgotten someone’s name or something. I ended up replying back to the sender, asking if they’d gotten the wrong person. No reply yet, but I have had a few group replies from people saying they’re going to be there. If I don’t hear anything soon, I’ll send an email to the group saying I’ll be the one in the blue shirt. Mild irony: the email was from a “senior advisor” in a corporate communications department.

Does anyone know if you have to smoke crack? Can it be consumed in other ways, and are these alternate methods as effective? I can understand why I can’t smoke crack at my desk, what with no-smoking laws and all, but I could really use an alternative. Any assistance would be appreciated.

So I was at the Weakerthans concert this weekend, and we got there just as the last opening band was finishing up. I head over the the washroom, and I notice that the guy I’m following is wearing a zip-hoodie sweater with a big AK press logo on the back, which I thought was pretty cool. We both go into the washroom and do our thing, and of course I’m following the awkward protocol that has evolved over years of men having to urinate next to each other – everyone does their best to pretend that they’re not there, so as to maintain the desperate illusion that it’s not a big communal washroom. No eye contact, etc. Anyway, 10 minutes later the band is setting up and I notice that John K Samson, lead singer guy for the Weakerthans is wearing a zip-hoodie sweater with an AK press logo on the back. Now, there couldn’t have been that many sweaters like that at the show. Did I let my conformance to the rules of the urinal get in the way of a chance to schmooze with a Weakerthan? It’s probably for the best – “Hey John, pissing, huh?” Yeah.

Remember the SNL gag “Who are the ad wizards who came up with that one”? Feast your eyes… “In honour of Black History Month, we at Giant [supermarket] are offering a special savings on fried chicken“. I can’t find the words.

When you are about to sneeze, make sure that you are at least 6 inches away from any nearby foreheads. Not that that has ever happened. Or that it was really funny.