Friday, December 28, 2007

Cleaning up before the New Year

I hope that everyone had a great Christmas. Just a few items I need to attend to before moving on to my next post.

First - on the second last day of school we had invited the grads to come for a Christmas lunch. About ten grads from across the years attended and I must say it was nice to see some old faces. And I do mean old since they are all older than I remember when they graduated. It was nice to see most of last years grads attend.

The second item - which actually took place on the same day but was celebrated the day after - was my birthday. Apparently I am also getting older. One birthday gift in particular stands out from the others. I received a $200 bottle of scotch. No - not the expensive scotch but rather a $200 bottle much more suited to my tastes. In the photo below, as a comparison, both bottles cost about $200. Which one would you prefer?


Sunday, December 23, 2007

Merry Christmas

HBB is off to visit his mom for Christmas. Just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas before I go.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Warning !!!

I warn all readers - you may read the following blog - but - once read, you can't unread it. Proceed at your own risk.

So Monday was the snow day and the weather was brutal but I had to venture out. I had a doctors appointment.

You see, several weeks ago while doing an extra thorough job of cleaning I noticed a growth - a rather large growth - in fact a growth the size of a small walnut on the end of my left testicle. At the time I thought, "hmmm - any growth in that region can't be good". In fact I was so worried I even got up the nerve to Google "Testicular Cancer". I must warn you now - never - I repeat, never Google "Testicular Cancer".








In fact, ever since that day 2 weeks ago, I have been living with the idea that I must have the big C. I have mentally explored all of my options from the good - living the rest of my life only half-nuts (most people who know me will readily acknowledge that up until now I am a full nut) to the bad - take up cycling and enter the Tour de France or throwing myself off of a cliff. I haven't decided which of the two options is worse.

As you can imagine I entered the doctor's office with some degree of fear. As he was in the process of giving me a lecture about my weight, my blood pressure, my cholesterol levels, etc., I interrupted him to explain my predicament. In fact I told him that those other items were of little concern to me since I had (what I thought) was a cancerous growth on my testicle.




Up on the table I went, unders went down and he started to examine my right testicle, muttering, "yes there seems to be a small growth here". I pointed out to him that the growth I had discovered was on the left testicle and he switched over. After a bit of painful probing he finally declared, "well there is some definite swelling but I'm not too worried".

Not too worried!!!!! Some obvious responses popped into my head ranging from, "of course you're not worried, you don't have a cancerous growth the size of a football growing on your nuts", to "if the growth was on my big toe I wouldn't be worried either since I could just cut it off but these are my nuts we're talking about".

What I did respond with was, "Oh - why?". To which he responded with a number of suggestions as to what it could be and that these were far more likely than cancer. One of those suggestions was simply an infection and he provided me with a prescription, which I am now taking, until I can get in to have an ultrasound done. That should be fun - I'm really looking forward to having someone smear goop all over my nuts and then running a sensor around my sack while I look on. I only hope I don't see a heartbeat!

Remember - I warned you!

Monday, December 17, 2007

Snow and More Snow

Another snow day! I think this is our fifth this year. Damn global warming!

OK - so about a month ago when most people in Ontario were getting their snow tires installed, HouseboatBob (HBB) was (as he is want to do) going on and on about how snow tires in Southern Ontario were not needed. In fact HouseboatBob goes one step further and suggests that he has no need to change his summer tires in favour of (at least) all season radials.

God must have been listening that day. In fact I suspect he plotted with Mother Nature to teach HBB a lesson. After shovelling for almost 10 minutes this afternoon I almost gave in to God, Mother Nature and their cruel joke on HBB. But I didn't and I got my car out onto the road and I was off to the store to buy food to eat. Sure it took some shovelling (which I haven't done in at least 10 years) but I'm not ready to give up the contest yet. My stomach is full and I'll shall shovel to fight another day.

Come on Mother Nature! Is that the best you have? Let It Snow - Let It Snow!!

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

WoW Update

Given a snow day one would expect that I would be playing Warcraft - not so. They are down for their weekly maintenance - you would think that they would coordinate with Canadians better than that.

However, I must update my Warcraft progress since I did make level 60 on my second character this past weekend. Now the fun begins - it doesn't look easy to level at this point. Since I might get bored while waiting to level my higher characters, yesterday I started two new characters.

Ok - that's all for now since anymore rambling about Warcraft might cause some to think I am ready for an intervention. Off to do marking which was my other choice for today.

The Double

The much anticipated but rarely experienced 'Double' occurred today. Yep, for the second day in a row, a snow day was called. I can't honestly remember when a 'Double' last occurred - I'm thinking it has been at least 6 years since the last one.

Random Thought #1: I'm glad they renamed the problem from Global Warming to Global Climate Change. If they hadn't every Canadian on the way to work would be spitting out the phrase, "Global Warming My Ass".

Random Thought #2: For the past several weeks I've been making fun of people who think that the winter season means that they must have snow tires on their car. I've been saying that snow tires are not needed in Southern Ontario and that my summer tires will do me just fine. Today I'm thinking that is only true if you are a teacher and can rely upon snow days when there is a snowfall.

Random Thought #3: Catch up on my marking OR Warcraft?

A picture of my parking lot, and that may be my car, from my window. I haven't been outside for 2 days and it doesn't look good for today. Since my cupboards are bare I'm thinking pizza delivery for lunch.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Eco-Footprint my Ass! What about your Ass-Footprint?

Today I went shopping at the local grocery store for a few supplies. As it is the beginning of the holiday season I knew it was going to be busy. I knew the checkouts would be long and the parking supply short. I knew that, to get through the ordeal, extreme patience on my part would be required .

Indeed I was patient as I walked around snot-nosed crying children, women with shopping lists the size of a small novels in their hands complete with a determined ‘get the hell out of my way’ grimace affixed to their face. Their pussy whipped counterparts trailing behind them firmly grasping the handle of their shopping cart trying hard not to get caught staring at the occasional good looking female striding past them with a vapour trail of exotic perfume following behind. You could almost see these poor lost souls mentally comparing the physical attributes of their spouse with those of the sexy, young women breezing past. I could feel their pain. God how I love the holidays and that look on the faces of married men. The “how did I arrive here in my life?” look.

As I tried to exit the store I encountered a traffic jam. A man had stopped his cart in the ‘exit’ hallway to load up a package of water bottles. Why we feel the need to buy water in plastic bottles is beyond me but that is another blog. As this man tried to lift the package of water bottles into his cart the plastic shrink wrap surrounding the bottles slipped off the top and the bottles started to tumble out. At this point he had no choice but to pick up the bottles that had tumbled out, push them to one side and attempt to load another case of water.

Now I don’t blame this man for interfering with my exit from the store. Firstly, under normal circumstances, there should have been sufficient room to go around him and secondly, he had no choice as to where the water bottles were stored. He had to stop his cart in the exit hallway. Additionally, it was likely he was only at the store collecting water because his wife had made him go to the grocery store. A single man likely would only purchase water one bottle at a time and then only from the local gas station or convenience store. I felt his pain.

What I don’t understand is the endless supply of fat, self indulgent women in this world. Standing right next to this man were three women who had stopped to have a little chat about their ‘friend’ Sally who recently had a baby and had apparently not yet lost the weight. Though I do not know Sally, I none-the-less felt compelled to call her and inform her that these three fat bitches seemed to be experts in finding and storing lost weight if she, Sally, were to ever lose her weight and needed it back.

What is it with fat people - are they not aware of the relationship between circumference and diameter? Are they not aware of their ass footprint size? As an example, if you have a waistline of 50 inches ( and I’m being kind to these women) it is easy to calculate that the area of your ass-fat footprint is over to 200 square inches with a “block the lane” profile of almost 16 inches - that’s almost 1.5 feet!. In reality the effect is even more exaggerated since their stomachs tend to stick out in the opposite direction of their ass. It is known in the scientific community as the DAFI or ‘Doubling of the Ass Fat Impact’. Put the combination of three fat asses along with two shopping carts in the store exit lane and you have the beginnings of a human traffic plug somewhat akin to inserting a wad of hair into your sink drains. Nothing can get through.

Did these women recognize that they were blocking people? Did they not clue in to the numbers of people starting to line up in front of them as well as the line on the other side queuing up to enter the store? Did they think that we had gathered about them to hear about Sally and her weight problems? Did they not recognize that the combination of their three fat asses was effectively blocking the entire lane of traffic trying to exit and enter the store. Apparently not.

Apparently fat assed women don’t have a sense of humour either. I received a very nasty and bitter stare from all three when I suggested to the one lady nearest me that she should move to the left a bit so that she could BLOCK EVERYTHING INCLUDING LIGHT FROM ENTERING THE STORE!!

I don’t know - I thought it was a funny line. But then again - perhaps that is why I remain single .... and happy.