Here's an imaginary conversation I had with myself...
Me: My vacuum cleaner doesn't suck.
Myself: That's good.
Me: No... that's bad. Vacuum cleaners are supposed to suck. Mine doesn't.
Myself: Oh. That sucks.
Me: Actually it doesn't. That's the whole problem.
Myself: You want it to suck?
Me: Exactly.
Myself: Uh... who's on first?
Okay, okay, okay... I thought that was pretty funny. But it is true. I've got to go vacuum cleaner shopping. It's pretty hard to be cool while going shopping for a vacuum cleaner. That's got to be about the most uncool thing you can do. I'm not looking forward to it.

Speaking of crocks (see my previous blog entry), did you catch the Grammy Awards? That show is the definition of a crock. The Canadian artists got totally hosed! Sure they gave Diana Krall the best jazz vocal award, but what about Avril Lavigne, Chad Kroeger (Nickelback frontman), and our own local song-boy Remy Shand? Collectively, they had thirteen nominations and ended up with no wins at all. Definitely a conspiracy!

Sheesh! I feel like I'm in a real life version of the movie Office Space. Firstly, I was required to go to a company seminar, where I was forced to sit through a long and boring presentation detailing how to write my own job description by using "the tools and templates that will be provided to me by our human resources department." This presentation contained lots of pointless Powerpoint slides, which only helped me mentally tune out of the presentation and fall sleep even faster than I normally would have. (Don't even get me started on Powerpoint, which is the most useless application ever invented. It's only useful function is to show how creative the author can be in developing their slideshow. "Wow! Aren't those transitions clever? How did you get it to do that?" Etc.) Anyway... now I have homework to do. I have to write a detailed job description which is supposed to take about two or three hours to complete. Everyone in the company has to do this. Then the job descriptions will be reviewed and analyzed, after which we will be required to meet with a consultant. We will be interviewed by the consultant, at which time we will describe what we do at the company and so on. This kind of stuff just drives me totally nuts! I've done my job for over ten years without a problem. Now I have to tell them what I do and justify my job, and in doing so, it takes time away from me, where I actually could be doing something useful instead of some bullshit bureaucratic interviews that are a complete waste of time. What a crock!

Just days after I wrote about the freak, I was pleasantly surprised to hear about this juicy little tidbit of trash television news: Tonya Harding is going to be competing in her first professional boxing match this weekend! Isn't that a total riot? The fight will take place as an undercard to the Mike Tyson vs. Clifford Etienne heavyweight fight on Saturday night. I guess Tonya realized that she wouldn't ever have a hope of appearing on Are You Hot?, so if she wanted to mark her return to trash tv, why not get involved in another fight--her first since she kicked Paula Jones' ass in Celebrity Boxing. Yes kiddies, these are exciting times in the entertainment industry.

My car is happy again... at least the engine is all fixed up. My horn still doesn't honk though. (Dang! Now don't you just hate that!)

I know my buddy "D" just wrote about this topic, but I figured that I'd add my two cents worth too. What is the deal with Michael Jackson? Seriously! The guy is a freak. He only has a few hits that anyone ever talks about. Yes, I'm sure the real die-hard fans can name all his songs, but for the rest of us there was: Thriller, Beat It, Billie Jean, and maybe Bad and Black Or White, but that's about it. But suddenly he's the hot topic in Hollywood, and every TV special makes him look more freaky than the one before. Well I noticed an interesting trend with his music. He seems to foreshadow his life within his song lyrics. For example, he once sang, "it don't matter if you're black or white" and of course everybody has noticed that his skin used to be black but is now white. In Billie Jean, he said, "the kid is not my son" and I seriously wonder if his kids really are his own. Then there was, "you know I'm bad, I'm bad" and some of the real-life evidence against him seems to support those lyrics as well. Well there is just one more song where I wish that his life would imitate his art. "Just beat it!" And that's all I've got to say about that.

My poor car is sick. First of all, it's been virtually undrivable since last August when my horn quit working. (How exactly are you supposed to drive a car properly when the horn doesn't work? People are always getting in my way and I have to honk them clear of my car.) But now, one of the four cylinders has decided to quit firing. You wouldn't believe how little power a car has when a cylinder konks out. It is amazing how much of a difference that makes. Anyway, I have an appointment with the car doctor, so hopefully we'll get these matters taken care of.

Back in December, I wrote about A Cut Above The Breast, a Winnipeg hair salon which was to open in February 2003. The adults-only salon was to feature topless women who would bare their boobs while cutting or styling your hair. I've got bad news, men: it looks like A Cut Above The Breast is not going to be in business after all. At least not yet. An investor for the topless salon says that they will still try to open for business in about a year or two. Hmm... guess I still gotta keep going to Magic Cuts for now!

I knew my memory was bad, but this is ridiculous! On Friday night, I went out for supper with my dad. When we were about to leave, I saw one of my friends who was sitting in another part of the restaurant. My dad left, so I sat down at my buddy's table and started chatting. About ten minutes later, my dad comes back into the restaurant and asks me how long I'm going to be. I look at him with a "huh?" kind of an expression. Then it suddenly dawns on me that we had come there together in his truck. (We had been at the same restaurant a week earlier, and that time we had been in separate vehicles.) Oops. Major brain fade there. Sorry dad!

Are you sick and tired of getting junk mail that you don't want? (I'm talking about basic snail mail here.) Well I've had it with junk mail, and so now I've decided to actually do something about it. My strategy over the past month or so, has been to go to the websites for any companies that sell cool products. Then I check if they offer a free catalogue and if they do, then I fill out my name and address. Now instead of getting junk mail that I don't want, I'm getting tons of junk mail that I do want! I'm telling you... it's been a LOT more fun getting my mail lately! Sometimes I get brochures from a car or motorcycle manufacturer, or other times it might be a mail-order catalogue from a favourite sports team or sporting goods store. (Do you get the feeling that I'm easily amused? If so, you'd be absolutely right!) If I can't think of any company to look up, then I go to the Google Catalog search engine, and browse through the names there. Below each entry, the company's URL is listed so it makes it very easy to find their official websites. In the past few weeks, I've received mail from Nissan, Porsche, Harley Davidson, Joe Rocket, Lego, Budweiser, Crazy Shirts, Jelly Belly, Zippo, and the Vancouver Canucks, just to name a few. (And there's a lot more to come!) Yeah, sure... it's still only junk mail... but now it's fun junk mail!