monster sarcasm rally

The oddly specific proposition

'Tis the season for Christmas parties and festive gatherings. And that means one thing is certain — people will be getting it on. Or at least trying to...

I had my work Christmas do on Tuesday. After the bar staff kicked us out of the first place so they could close up, a bunch of us went to an after-hours bar in the City.

I ran into a guy I had met at a bar a few months back. We chatted for a few minutes, then he returned to his group and I to mine.

A few hours later he reappeared.

'I'm heading out now. I'm going to grab a cab. You're welcome to join me — if you want. Just putting it out there. It's an idea.'

That's sort of your bog-standard, textbook classic proposition. Nothing's too specific. We both know what he means. We both know what he wants. I can (and did) say no without a scene and with only minimal wounded pride.

But the key feature is plausible deniability. If I were to create a scene (what? You don't call me for two months and now you think I'm going to sleep with you!) or if some mysterious, beefcake boyfriend were to appear from behind a previously unseen tree and start something, he can claim he just meant sharing a cab. That's all. Nothing else.

Right.

One guy decided to take a slightly different approach. He started off in fairly typical form, but then veered off into what has to have been The Most Oddly Specific Proposition. Certainly the oddest I've received from a man I don't know.

He began by asking what I was doing later. Well, no. He began by buying me a drink. Not the drink I asked for, mind. But a drink none the less.

I said I was going home. He asked if I were sure. Oh, yes, I was. He told me he had a hotel booked just around the corner. All the time waving his hands around, showing off his wedding ring.

Then he asked if I was familiar with talcum powder. 'Erm... Yes', I said. He asked if I ever used it. I do not.

He went on to offer me 'the most amazing night ever', having talcum powder rubbed all over my naked body. All night. Even if nothing else happened, he said, we'd both have a wonderful, incredible night.

Wow. So much for plausible deniability.

Also, eew.

New and improved

I'm considering re-inventing myself. Not, you know, into a whole different person. I'm not going to do something crazy like eat a sausage or go see a musical... But maybe I could do to rethink some of the things about myself that I've always taken for granted.

For instance, and this is probably a way-too-obvious place to start... It's been about 20 years since I last wore a skirt or a dress at all. Maybe I could do that. Just an idea.

Okay, maybe not THAT dress.

Erm... No, not that one either.

But still... What do you think?

Oh, and please don't tell anyone I said this.

Plus one

I went to a wedding this weekend. The bride and groom are atheists. I am not.

Oh also... The woman who officiated the ceremony had an amusing speech impediment. I mean, I shouldn't laugh, but it was funny.

Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us togethew today. Mawwiage, that bwessed awwangement, that dweam within a dweam. And wove, twue wove, wiww fowwow you fowevah and evah… So tweasuwe youw wove.

Happy Canada Day!

Trafalgar Square in London is home to the biggest Canada Day celebration outside Canada.

Highlights from my mum's visit

Saturday. 14:00.

She absolutely insisted we HAD to go to Wick because that's where her great grandfather was born. When I said it was inconvenient, she said it was fine in a way that told me it was anything but fine.

So I booked everything: flight, trains, hotel... This involved booking and paying for flights to Inverness, 3 nights in a nice hotel, and train tickets from Inverness to Wick (4.5 hours each way). Throw in assorted cab fares, train tickets, restaurant meals, etc. Well, it adds up.

Upon our arrival in I asked 'now what?'

She didn't know.

So now we're at Wetherspoons. For those of you who don't know, Wetherspoons is like... Well, it's... Hmm... Er... Imagine if Swiss Chalet and the Whatever & Firkin pub chain got married and spawned thousands of resto-pub offspring.

Saturday. 15:55.

I am sitting on an unmoving train in the arse end of nowhere listening to an obese woman ineffectually harangue her two small children in the squeakiest, most grating voice imaginable. As near as i can tell, the children are engaged in quiet, peaceable playing.

Sunday. 08:25.

My mother has just finished complaining that she's too hot. I've thrown cardigans and jackets in a tote bag for later in case it gets chilly, as we're doing a Loch Ness cruise today.

S: Alright, let's go.
M: Okay, I'll just put my cardigan on.
S: You've just been complaining that you're too hot. Why are you putting another layer on now?
M: Because I'm wearing all black. I can't go out in all black.
S: ?
M: I'd look ridiculous. I have to have some colour. I can't wear nothing but black.
S: That's absurd. Let's go.
M: Okay, I'll just change my clothes. I'll meet you downstairs.

Sunday. 09:10.

We just asked our taxi driver where to go for breakfast. And That's how we came to find ourselves in (you guessed it) Wetherspoons!

Sigh.

Sunday. 21:35.

Oh, good grief. My mum's got me watching some show. A man just said to the lead female character, 'what happened between us was just so... (sobs) precious.'

PRECIOUS!

Timbits

 

Today marks 34 years since release of the original Star Wars.  

Also, I have officially passed all the credit and reference checks with regards to the house I made an offer on last. Rental, of course. They're sending the contracts over later today. Move date is mid-August.  

Also also, I am quite annoyed at my socks. They were sold to me as a matched set by M&S not even a month ago. Never the less, one is substantially larger than the other and insists upon falling down every six minutes or so.   

 

Possible news

I should have new on the house front next week.

In the meantime... I seem to have a job interview coming up. Same company. Different department. Potentially two levels up in grade. In fact, it's a second interview.

Go me!

Update

A friend said to me recently that I was a pedant.

Well, only literally, I responded.

______________________

In other news... I met a guy. A self-professed sarcastic, grumpy nerd. And an occasional pedant. In other words, just my type.

Pub fight!

We went to pub quiz last night. During the wipeout round* the following question came up: Who was the second actor to play James Bond.

What followed was undoubtedly highly entertaining to our fellow patrons.

I wrote down a name. Ford looked down, and promptly scribbled my writing out. He wrote in something else.

And then we shouted. Loudly! I maintained that his choice didn't count. He countered that it was a film, it had James Bond, and the timing was right. But it's not canonical! No Broccoli!

Anne pulled out her knitting and tried to pretend she didn't know us.

When they came round to collect our sheets I asked whether they were adhering to canon on the James Bond question. The poor lost lamb was like a dear in the headlights. He didn't know the meaning of the words.

Of course, I was right. It was indeed George Lazenby. Mind you, we still lost.

* In the wipeout round if you get any question wrong, you lose all your points for the whole round. You can leave them blank, you just can't put any wrong answers down.

Living it up

Hello and greetings from Brighton!

A friend of mine is visiting from Canada this week. With her baby.

That's right — baby.

I'm not overly fond of children. I mean as babies go, I suppose this one's alright. He's not awful. He looks like Winston Churchill and sounds like a pug dog. He thinks I'm absolutely hilarious.

My friend had a massage the other day, so I sat with Baby for an hour. I read to him from the book I'm in the middle of: a non-fiction account of the Fire of London. I'm past the fire itself and into the clean-up and repercussions. He laughed the whole way through all the murders and papists and politics.

My friend has turned into one of those awful mums who park their buggies wherever the hell they want with complete disregard for other people. 'When you're a parent', she says, 'you have to stop caring whether you get in anybody's way. You just have to'.

Erm... No, you don't actually.

We're currently in Brighton, as noted above. It's 20 to nine in the evening, and we're in our hotel room sitting in the dark. Wouldn't want to wake the baby, you know. We've actually been back in the hotel for close to an hour, when baby needed to go to sleep.

Don't get me wrong; it's good to see my friend. It's not the most exciting weekend away.

Killing time

Funny thing, after spending 10 days in hospital in Canada I started feeling sick again over Christmas. Again just tired and with the same pain in my neck as started everything off in November.

Much to-ing and fro-ing with the doctor and several tests later and I got a diagnosis. There was an abscess on my spine.

Seriously. An abscess on my spine. Rate of incidence: one in a million per year. Mostly affects men. Mostly affects men over the age of 50. Mostly affects men over the age of 50 who are intravenous drug abusers.

The neurosurgeon says he believes this (not the pneumonia) was what caused the septicaemia in November. The pneumonia was likely something I picked up in hospital.

I had emergency surgery to remove it in January. I spent nine days in hospital and then spent the next six weeks trekking out to hospital every day for IV antibiotics.

Have you got any idea how much time that takes up? Have you got a spare 3-4 hours a day? Every day? For 6 weeks? I've read a lot of books this year.

Anyways, I feel great now. I made it through all that, and now my life is my own again — so to speak.

So, how are you?

Crap weekend

Embarrassed myself again on Friday. I'm going to spare myself the reliving of the details. It wasn't bad, just kind of humiliating.

Bah.

Saturday woke up to a text from my dad saying that my grandmother had died overnight. Although this is the most awful of the things that happened this weekend, it wasn't entirely unexpected.

Later on Saturday morning I had a disagreement with Velcro Dog over a cat. He wanted us to chase the cat. I wanted us to cross the street. I moved. He didn't. I tripped over him and fell. Landed on my arse, my elbow, and my head. Much pain ever since.

Saturday afternoon I went for coffee with Rose. I went downstairs to the washroom. Steep steps. Fell the last few. Nothing major, just slid down them on my arse. When I came back upstairs the staff all came rushing over to see if I was all right. The manager PUT HIS HAND ON MY BELLY and said 'oh no! You shouldn't fall when you pregnant'.

Arsehole.

Nothing new under heaven

I've got no news for you. I should have some very soon. Hopefully... And it may (possibly) involve the subject of this most excellent quote:

...a village famous, or rather infamous for the yearly collected rabble of mad-people, at Horn-Fair; the rudeness of which I cannot but think, is such as ought to be suppressed, and indeed in a civiliz'd well govern'd nation, it may well be said to be unsufferable. The mob indeed at that time take all kinds of liberties, and the women are especially impudent for that day; as if it was a day that justify'd the giving themselves a loose to all manner of indecency and immodesty, without any reproach, or without suffering the censure which such behaviour would deserve at another time.

Boobs of steel

As previously mentioned I had to go back to the hospital today to get my left tit poked at and prodded.

The waiting room of breast clinic was wall-papered in repeating announcements. I'll spare you the barely legible original, but they translated roughly to the following: expect delays today due to staffing issues. As if to emphasise this point, the area was manned by an octogenarian volunteer in the end stages of dementia. Far from being able to answer any questions, she seemed confused by all the people coming and going.

Anyways... Eventually I got to see both a technician and a doctor. And I learned two new things about myself.

1. I am allergic to ultrasound goo.
2. I have boobs of steel. The doctor kept breaking needles off when she tried to insert them into my impervious flesh.

Hmm... I wonder if I'm bullet proof?

Three jobs and a booby

Greetings, my two and a half remaining readers. How are you on this fine Sunday?

Life in Sarsland has been — well — interesting. I had my New York interview this week. It went well — mostly. I was interviewed by three people. I'm confident that two of the three will report back positively. The third person spent the entire interview actively smiling at me. Or smirking. Or smiling. Or smirking. I really couldn't tell. She either really liked me, or she really didn't. And since she's the big boss, her opinion matters. 

So, basically, I don't know. I've no clue. I'll either get an offer out of them this coming week, or else I'll get a please-go-away-now letter. One or the other...

The flight back was a nightmare, but I haven't got the energy to tell that story. And it's not that funny anyways, just frustrating.

The following morning I had a phone interview for a completely different job. That interview went spectacularly well. The guy ended the call by saying I think you're the perfect candidate for this position. (Well, thank you. Yes, I am.) Normally I would follow up several hours later by sending a thank-you note to the interviewer. In this case, though, he sent me one approximately 30 seconds after the call. Seriously.

I have a second interview this week with the head of the European team. Unless I seriously screw that up or there is some major HR frak-up, I feel reasonably confident that I will get an offer from them.

I really don't know which one I would choose if offered both. Both have roughly equivalent salaries. Both have good prospects for the future, but in different ways. Both seem to involve great teams of people. One has more interesting day-to-day work; the other has better work-life balance (a concept almost unheard of in my industry). One has the added advantage of a great title and name-brand recognition, which I guess sways the odds in its favour. Hmm...

As soon as I got off the phone, I got dressed and headed to the hospital. Yes, that's right, the hospital. The urgent care centre, to be precise. You see 48 hours earlier a golf-ball sized lump had appeared in my left tit. And it frakking hurt... In the two days since the stupid thing had doubled in size (to about the size of a tennis ball). It felt like it weighed about as much as a bowling ball, and it hurt like nothing else on this earth has any right to.

Oh yes, that's right. I not only had a job interview while in more pain than I have ever been in in my life, I kicked serious arse on said interview.

I spent many hours sitting in an uncomfortable chair in the hospital's waiting room, re-reading Heinlein's classic novel, Friday. To make a long and (literally) painful story less long, I was eventually told that it is almost certainly an abscess. Neither pleasant nor sexy, but definitely not life threatening. Painful? Oh wow, yes. But I'll be okay.

I have to go back tomorrow to be poked at and prodded some more. And I'll be on antibiotics for another week. But that should be that.

In the meantime I've got one really big boob, which is pretty awesome. I feel like I should take some side-profile shots of myself just to prove that I ever achieved such 'status' even if only briefly and for all the wrong reasons.

Anyways, back to the whole job conversation... On Friday I got an e-mail from a former colleague who wants me to work for her company. Cutting another long story short, I may have a job offer from them before the end of the week as well. Hee hee.

I guess this is what it feels like to be popular!

Tim bits from my travels

Edmonton moment: My favourite Indian restaurant is no more. I mean, it's not gone — just different. I ordered pista burfi, pointing right at it. And the (white) girl behind the counter asked me what it was. [sigh] It wasn't even very good.

Vancouver moment: My friends and I went to a pub called the Cambie. I was sitting on the patio, slowly drinking my pint when I felt eyes on me. I turned to my left and there was the dude from SNFU, staring at my chest. Well, more specifically, at the SNFU t-shirt I was rocking. As if there'd be any other reason...

London moment: I saw two women in Ann Summers. Two women in full-on burkas, I might add... I was buying a rather snazzy bra for £10. They were buying sequined nipple tassels.

It's four in the FRAKKING morning!

And the front door — was open — AGAIN!

Erm... No, that's not right. But it is early and I am up and out of bed. Like, on purpose even.

I need to be ready by five, at which point a cab will come and whisk me away to the airport. I will board a plane and thus begin my nine-day holiday. These will be nine very busy days. In fact, I realised yesterday that only one day is not pre-planned.

Let's see, we've got family, friends I haven't seen in years, friends I haven't seen in months, former co-workers, a baby, a pregnancy, a wedding, a divorce, a new puppy, and an all-raw, all-vegan restaurant. Not to mention a combined total of 10 hours on planes and one six-hour road trip.

Oh, I suppose I should be getting ready...

So confused

Dear Britain,

I don't get it. So, the Tories won. But they didn't. What?

In the even of no party obtaining a majority, the existing government has the right to try to govern by forming an alliance. What? But they lost!

Do you people just not do the whole minority government thing?

In theory, your political system works the same as ours, except on this point. We've had three successive minority governments now (Liberal, Tory, Tory again), lasting for six years as of next month.

The opposition parties are free to form a coalition to take the ruling party out, but normally they don't. There is no riotting in the streets. The world does not shun us. In fact, life carries on pretty much same as usual.

I don't get it.

Sincerely,
Sars the Confused Canadian

A pox on your entire company

Dear Mirage Margarine,

Sitting at work today I found it a struggle not to scratch my skin right off. And the hives made for an attractive pink-on-pink look... I racked my brain trying to come up with what could be causing it. I drew a blank.

At home after work the hives and the infuriating itch finally began to subside a bit. I made dinner and sat down to enjoy it. Afterwards as I was cleaning up something about the margarine container caught my eye. Three little, tiny words: new nutritional info.

Oh crap.

New nutritional info. Darnit! I read the ingredients, and sure enough: palm oil.

I have been using the same brand of margarine for two years. I bought a new tub of it yesterday. I put some in the soup I made for my lunches. I put some on the potatoes I had for dinner. I put some in the cookies i had halfway made. And now it's all worthless. My grocery budget for the week -- down the drain. And I've got a night of sleepless scratching ahead of me. Lovely.

Also, your website (i.e. the one advertised on your packaging) doesn't exist.

And so I again I say, a pox on your whole company.

Itchingly,
Sars

And remember... I know more than you

Oh, ya... Guess who handed in her final MBA report today.

Also, if you were wondering... SNFU was every bit as awesome as you'd imagine, except for the random drunk dude who tried to attract my attention using the following pick-up lines.

1. Remember this from back in 1984? (No, sorry, I don't remember 1984).
2. So, where you from — Barrie? (No, I guess I just look like I'm from Barrie.)
3. These guys are seriously OLD SCHOOL. You know what I mean. (Yes, I get it, I'm old. Thanks.)
4. These guys are SERIOUSLY old school. Come on, you know what I mean. (Ya, I got you the first few times, but thanks. And stop trying to lick your own nipples.)

Okay, so I suppose that part was kind of awesome, too — in a comedic way.

__________________________

I know more than you!
No, I know more than you!
We can go for coffee.
We can sit and talk.
You can do the sitting,
While I do all the talking.

I'm sensing a theme here...

As I was walking down the street the other day, I passed a woman walking a dog. The small, wee dog was wearing small, wee booties. Aw, little boots, I thought to myself. This immediately led me to wonder if they call him Caligula, and this in turn made me giggle. Is it any wonder so few people get me?

Speaking of evil dictators, I watched a documentary on Vlad the Impaler a few days ago. They showed several portraits and statues of the original Dracula, and I was struck by the extremely close resemblance he bore to a certain co-worker of mine. If you took Vlad the Impaler and put him in a great big, frizzy, fire-engine red wig, a 1980s power suit, and purple stockings, you would have my co-worker. This person sits directly across from me, but I have no actual interaction with her. What's more, she speaks with a thick Romanian accent.

There is only one possible explanation. The circumstances surrounding Vlad's death are mysterious. I believe this is because he was magically transported some 535 years into the future, where he was able to live out his deepest, darkest fantasy: to become a transvestite and work in the IT department of a large multinational corporation that functions like a three-man dry cleaning operation.

Speaking of ancient dictators, have you seen Ancients Behaving Badly? It's good. You should watch it — except not the one about Nero. It's a load of wank. The one expert dude (I swear) wanted to dig him up and have his babies.

And while I'm on this theme... A main character in the novel I'm reading just had an encounter with Julius Caesar, who wasn't really all that badly behaved as dictators go. But I was a on a roll, so I decided to run with it.

The end.

A watch decorates you better than shyness

You, Flow Chart! Excel is not a word processing tool. Putting multiple paragraphs in a single cell is just plain stupid.

And you, Data Girl, as thrilled as I am to hear that you approve of the conclusions I've drawn from my work. I didn't really need you to e-mail the whole team to let them know that what I just sent them was, in fact, correct. Are you under the impression that adds something to the process? Do you think people sit around questioning my work, just hoping you'll step in and tell them what to think? Is your word somehow superior to my word? Maybe you think we just don't get enough frakking e-mails in a day?

Today's subject line is drawn from the subject line of some lovely spam I received. Strangely, in the past few days, messages about 'original copies' of brand-name watches have been outpacing messages about how sadly lacking my penis is.

A TTC moment

It's Saturday morning. I'm sitting with the Smelly one on my lap. Velcro Dog is lying at my feet. We're on the subway heading north on the Yonge line. About half the seats in the train car are taken.

A couple and their small daughter get on. The child is maybe 3. What the hell do I know about kids; I'm not even sure it was female.

In an overly loud voice, clearly designed to be heard by all, the child proclaims, LOOK, THE BIG DOGGY IS WEARING A SHIRT AND THE SMALL DOGGY IS READING A BOOK! The train car quickly fills with smirks, smiles, and bitten-back chuckles. It would be unnecessarily hurtful to point and laugh, I guess.

The child isn't done, though. She continues, THE DOGGY IS READING A BOOK! I FIND THAT VERY STRANGE. DON'T YOU THINK IT'S STRANGE? LOOK, THE PERSON IS HOLDING THE BOOK UP FOR HIM TO READ. WELL, IN ALL MY LIFE I HAVE NEVER SEEN A DOG READING A BOOK.

C'est finis!

I finished my Christmas shopping yesterday. I have never in my life finished my Christmas shopping by Christmas, let alone weeks ahead of time. I don't know what to do with myself now.

Merry Christmas

Five years ago a friend of mine got a puppy — a long-haired chihuahua puppy to be exact. At one point she went away for a few weeks, so I looked after the puppy. The puppy had two favourite things to do: beating up the Smelly one (don't worry — he liked it) and playing a game I liked to call Hide-and-Go-Poop. I thought I had posted about this at the time, but the internet tells me I'm sadly misinformed.

Hide-and-Go-Poop is an awesome game. It involves pooping in some out-of-the-way and hard to find spot (such as under the couch or behind the bookshelf) and then waiting to see how long it takes the humans to find it. Who knew such a small dog could make such a big stink? Ya, trust me, it's great.

Anyways... Fast forward. Aided and abetted by my dad, I decided to get my mum a dog for Christmas (long story). A chance conversation with my friend, who now lives not far from my parents, revealed that the dog has been unhappy ever since her son was born. She's been struggling to balance both under the assumption that it would have to get better sooner or later, only it hasn't.

Her son is 18 months old now. When she tries to pay attention to the dog, the kid runs over and hits the dog. When she pays attention to the kid, the dog runs off and poops on his toys / clothes / bed / whatever.

The long and the short of it is that my mum got her Christmas present a month early and my friend is now secure in the knowledge that her pup has a happy new home — and that she'll get regular updates, photos, and visits.

And before you ask, my mum is THRILLED with the gift. Neither my dad nor I have seen her this excited in a long time. And really, that was the whole point.