Things I Learned This Week

1. 24 Hours Just Isn't Enough
Sleep surely takes up anywhere from four to nine of those hours. Usually it's somewhere in the middle, like six. 18 hours left to my own devices may sound like plenty of time, but really, it's not enough. Not when you drop in a shift at work - anywhere from two to seven hours - and time doing domestic duties like washing the dishes, preparing meals and spending quality time with The Missus.

A day like today is the perfect example. Sarah's at work, which means dinner is on me. Additionally, I have a ton of writing to do, but a shift opening the bar also beckons, a shift that quite frequently turns into getting home six hours after I left. Mix in walking the dog before and after work and I'm left with a two or three hour window at best to get my work done.

Bottom line: I need another two or three hours in the day ... or someone to pay me to write so I don't have to go to work any more.

2. I Have Limited Abilities at Predicting the Future
Unfortunately, they're limited to knowing when certain people won't show up for work, not anything useful like lottery numbers or what the next big money-making invention the world will stupidly scoop up in massive quantities like the ShamWow is going to be.

Thankfully, I'm smart enough to use this gift to my benefit, getting out in front of the call-ins I know will happen to ensure that my phone doesn't ring as the desperate scramble to cover the vacated shift goes down.

3. Fedor to the UFC Isn't Happening
Honestly, this one really bummed me out for a couple days.

You would think that with the demise of Affliction, the UFC would be a slam dunk for the dominant Russian heavyweight; the organization with the deepest pockets and best collection of fighters to challenge the man on an eight-year winning streak.

Not so much. Too many hurdles and too much animosity and mistrust between all the parties have led to Fedor remaining a pseudo-free agent and the UFC all but washing their hands of trying to lure him into the fold.

This is precisely why I refuse to recognize him as the best Pound-for-Pound fighter on the planet: he doesn't really want to fight the best guys out there.

4. How Do You Not See This?
Read an article in this month's GQ about a Wisconsin high school student who convinced the boys in his school he was a girl over Facebook and got them to send him intimate snapshots if you will, only to turn around and use said pictures to blackmail them into having various relations with him.

The article is outstanding, right up until the moral outrage of the parents and the shocking reaction they have to the lack of trauma this has caused "the victims." I use quotes not to diminish the situation, but how much of a victim are you if you're the one snapping the self-portraits and sending them off to random "girls" over Facebook?

Open your eyes parents: these aren't your childhood years! Your 13-year-old knows more about sex now than you did at 21 and there is at least a 50/50 chance that he or she has already gone around the bases a time or two.

And don't blame TV and movies either; it's as much your fault as it is the cast of Friends or various Hollywood hits.

5. I Might Be Getting Married Again
No, Sarah and I haven't gotten divorced and yes, we're technically married, but it turns out the process of getting that made legal here in Canada could end up being more hassle than just having a second quickie ceremony at City Hall might be.

After all, it's not like you can just start checking the "Married" box on applications and forms without some kind of legal record of said marriage being on file somewhere. Translating our Spanish documents and going through the various steps on that path could be costly and lengthy, whereas standing in front of a Justice of the Peace and exchanging "I Do's" a second time would be quick and painless, not to mention a funny story for down the road.

I'll keep you posted.

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She Wouldn't Be Alone Now

I remember when this really was an accurate representation.

Now, at least 50% of that graduating class would have more than their legs dangling for all to see and it's amazing -slash - ridiculous to me.

Let me clarify my use of the word amazing. I don't mean amazing in a "hell yeah, look at all these sluts! I love sluts!" kind of way. More of a "where in the fuck did all these sluts come from?" fashion.

When I was growing up, my elementary school had exactly one slut. Her name was Tamara. Back then, the definition of slut meant she let you touch her boobs and slide your hand inside her Levis if you were lucky. (Note: I didn't even try to be lucky back then...)

High school wasn't much different either and not just because I was sitting far, far away from the cool kids. There were ninja sluts - girls who only operated as sluts in the shadows, appearing "normal" on the outside - but the number of overt skanks was far less numerous than it is today.

You can't drive down the street without potentially running over at least four or five skanks every per block!

Seriously... where did they all come from?

Did some law get passed that made it illegal to not have your tits hanging out at every possible moment and the only pants females under the age of 25 are allowed to wear are either (1) black stretchy pants or (B) jeans that are just a little small so your underwear and/or ass hangs out for all to see every single time you bend down to get something?

Who's going to buy the cow when they get the milk for free 397 times a day?

And for all those people who are now going to bitch about my making sweeping generalizations and dressing a certain way doesn't mean anything, you like to look nice, blah blah blah blah blah, I say this:

If it looks like a slut, walks like a slut and is surrounded by several other slut-like creatures, chances are she's going to be sucking dick way earlier than her parents would like too...

While it certainly doesn't just stay in the land of the ladies - there are males sluts too; I was once one of them - there are a couple key distinctions that need to be made for all the "this is such a double standard" believers out there:

1) Yes, it's a double standard. Sluts versus Studs. Been that way for a while. Deal with it already.

2) D'you know what happens to guys walking around showing off more skin than is covered up? They get mercilessly ridiculed by every other man on the face of the Earth until they put on more clothes. Why do you think guys who wear Speedos tend to hang out with other guys who wear Speedos? They're the only idiots who think they look good...

3) Conversely, a girl walking around with more flesh than fabric is not only the target of catty comments from skanks and non-skanks alike, but she also draws the attention of Pervy Perverson, the 46-year-old guy who can't look her in the eyes when she's interacting with him at work. Or worse...

And don't even get me started on the Internet. Everyone with a webcam and a heartbeat has some skanked up picture(s) of themselves and the number of "adult dating services" or "chatrooms" combine to outnumber the remaining websites in existence.

Someone needs to do a study on this and figure out where all these sluts came from.

Or at least get them to cover up every once in a while.

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Dear God, Please Don't Let Me Have Daughters

Moving to a small town only reaffirmed for me that in no way will I be capable of dealing with a teenage daughter in the future.

I mean, sure, she could turn out perfect and I would do everything in my powers to teach her positive values and how to appreciate herself, but I'm pretty sure the parents of the skanky little 17-year-old Puck Bunnies I work with would tell you they've tried their best too.

For those who have never lived in a town centered around hockey, a Puck Bunny is a girl who lives to be with a hockey player, even if they are merely a 16-year-old kid playing Junior B. hockey in a ghost town like Kimberley.

To put this in perspective, I spent some of my formative years in Chatham, Ontario, a smallish city where hockey is everything. The Micmacs - now back to being the Maroons - were gods amongst mortals. D'you know how many of them amounted to much of anything on the ice? About three over the five years I lived in Chatham.

That's the same level of hockey the Kimberley Dynamiters play here in town and these little tramps I work with are all over them like they're the next Sidney Crosby.

While I've been forced to come to grips with the whole "16-year-olds showing up to work with their tits hanging out for all to see in stretchy pants" thing, hearing about the previous night's exploits makes me want to puke.

All I can think about is that one day, this could be my kid and I would go ballistic if she was out doing half the things these girls are doing on a weekend by weekend basis. I'm not saying you have to be a Puritan or anything like that, but have some self-respect.

It wasn't like this in my time.

When I was their age - you know, when they were 3 or 4 - there was one slut to every eight or ten regular girls and everyone wanted the regular girls.

Now, that ratio is flipped and the number of wannabe sluts vastly outnumbers the regular girls. What makes it worse is that it seems like with each passing year, the age for skankdom kicking in keeps getting lower and lower and lower and lower.

And do you know what the worst part of all of this is? The dirty old bastards that I work with who stand around soaking it all in, feeding into the systems, re-enforcing that dressing like sluts, going out and getting bombed every weekend and working your way through the third line of the local Junior B team is perfectly acceptable behaviour for a bunch of 17-year-old girls.

So I've taken to ridiculing the fuck out of the Puck Bunnies and throwing out High Fives to the normal ones...

It's okay to not be a skank!

This has been a public service announcement from ESKimo Enterprises.

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Please Don't Let Me Have Daughters

No one ever believes me when I tell them that come October 30th, I'll be turning the Big 3-0. Maybe it's because I still don't have to shave every day.

That part is a familial / genetics thing because my brother Pete will be turning 32 in September and if he shaves twice a month it's generally one too many times. The baby face is genetic too. Dude is going on 32 and could reasonably pass for early 20s. I'm not even kidding.

Anyway, age has been on my mind for the last little while because working at Montana's has totally skewed my ability to accurately gauge the ages of the people around me. More correctly, I have no idea how old girls are anymore.

This is what happens when you're surrounded by a large female population anywhere between the ages of 16 and 25; they all just blend together and you either look like an idiot for thinking someone is too old or make yourself feel a little creepy when you find out that the tall, attractive young hostess is half your age... literally.

I may not look 30, but at least I couldn't get you thrown in jail!

Two things:

1. I've just stopped answering when people ask me how old I think they are because I always end up getting it wrong
2. Please Don't Let Me Have Daughters!

Honestly, I couldn't deal with this shit as a parent.

It's bad enough now as an innocent bystander and occasional horribly bad guesser. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't spend part of my shift wondering why in the hell these girls come into work decked out like they're going out. And not just to some shit-shack, hole in the wall either.

They come in decked like they're off to the VIP after work, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the fragrant aromas of Montana's are going to linger in their near lingerie. Nothing like heading out for a night on the town smelling like ribs!

Between jeans so tight you can't put a quarter in your pocket to call your Mom when you need her to pick you up and slathering on the makeup so that your teenage skin looks old and weathered like a battle-hardened booze hound, I can't walk into work without shaking my head and praying to whoever is in charge up there that one day there will be a wholesome, Girl Next Door Renaissance.

Those were the days - when natural was pretty, what your boobs actually looked like remained a mystery and fifteen year old hostesses looked like fifteen year old hostesses, not Heidi fucking Klum.

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Here's Me on My Soapbox

The "Older Than You Are" thing only lasts so long, then it becomes the "Younger Than You Are" thing. Neither of which is very beneficial.

We parade out late teen / early twenties actors to play 14, 15 and 16-year-olds and then wonder why our kids want to grow up so fast. Only then, we turn around and cast 30-year-olds as the twentysomething inhabitants of shows like Friends.

Here's a novel idea: Why not give people an honest portrayal of age for once?

Don't rush the 15-year-old supermodel onto the stage in the latest from Gucci.

Cast 16-year-olds to play 16-year-olds and 27-year-olds to play 27-year-olds for that matter too.

Stop trying to accelerate childhood only to slow down aging.

Life is a marathon, not a sprint and 19 is still going to be there, even when you're 16 and it seems so far away.

And when you're 37, understand that 19 was a long time ago, so stop stealing your daughter's clothes!

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