Guitar Hero next door

It's Friday afternoon and I wonder if I will hear the Guitar Hero next door. Every Friday evening, the dude next door is either killing a cat or "playing" a guitar and singing at the top of his lungs. I can only hope that this is a bit of a joke and he's having fun on a video game. But I suspect he's not.

This in and of itself is bad enough but his repertoire of songs seems to be limited to old Guns N Roses and KC and the Sunshine Band. Sigh.

Biggest mistake of my life

Last weekend I walked out of my apartment and almost ran into THE EX. As in the big, fat-ass blob I was with for more than 2 months. And for the first time in the 4 years that we've been broken up, he didn't wave stupidly at me when he saw me. Possibly because he was actually walking with another girl.

As my sister points out, I run into my ex more than anyone else she knows. It's occurred to me though that this is my own freakin' fault. He was living in Delta - in his parent's basement when I met him. Yeah, yeah, I know...and no, I don't know what the hell I was thinking at the time. Anyways, it was ME that moved him into Yaletown. I moved him into my own neighbourhood!

Once I got past the anger with myself, I did have a great giggle cause he's got his cool, frosted tips back :)

Box labeled "Finished Business"

What is it with guys who resurface years after a relationship has died?

I had coffee with a girlfriend today who has had someone from the distant past resurface recently. His maudlin "what if" musings were not only incredibly stupid but such a waste of time. Aside from the fact that they haven't seen each other in over half a decade, he also lives half a world away. Then there's the fact that she's been with someone else for years.

The conversation got me remembering something I learned in a psych class back in university. Research shows that immediately after a breakup, women are depressed and upset and likely to booty call the recent ex. But they'll eventually get over it. Guys on the other hand, don't deal at all. They go on as if nothing has happened and resurface about 7-12 months later looking to recapture the "good times". By then, most of the anger and issues are forgotten and the guys only remember what they lost. Then they call the girl and wreak havoc on her life because chances are she's moved on by then. This is what I call opening the box labeled "Finished Business".

This has happened to me enough times that I've added it to my personal "not acceptable" list. Currently, there's only three items.

1. No opening the "Finished Business" box.
2. No cheating.
3. No mono-brows.

www.LiarLife.com

I found this on a friend's blog and it was just so funny that I had to share it.

I find it interesting that every one on online dating is fit and active and enjoys “hiking, snow-boarding, skiing, extreme sports”. Either they are all a bunch of liars, have done each sport once (i.e. “I walked to the store 2 weeks ago”, “I was ten and decided to stand on my toboggan going down the hill”, “I went on a class trip once to a ski hill”, “I was hammered with my friends and I ran into the middle of the freeway….man it was awesome…like Frogger”). Or...

Those good looking jocks from high-school whom we were all afraid of are the ones that are going to end up alone (ha). Well, wait a second; every one on there is also “very intelligent”.

So the intelligent jocks from high-school are going to end up alone. Do you remember any of those from high-school?

THEN add “good-looking" to the mix.

Where ARE all of these fabulous people in the real world and why do they need to resort to on-line dating?

There needs to be more marketing and less sales. How ‘bout a promotion? i.e. “date me and I will give you 5 free back-rubs a week”, “tell your friends I have a big c**k… dinner at the restaurant of your choice AND I will wash the floors and do laundry”.

NOW we’re talking.

Seriously, we are (I am) so sick of the sales game…I live in it daily…we are all trying to up-sell ourselves to one another…is that why so many marriage end in divorce now?

We fall for the sales pitch; once we’ve bought the vacuum we realize that it doesn’t suck. It just blows.

As for her promotion idea. How about a "try before you buy" promotion? Hundred percent returnable if it doesn't exceed expectations :)

A view into the future

My mom recently went to a fortune teller in Vietnam. She does this several times a year and every time, she's told that I will marry really late in life. Compared to most Vietnamese girls, I'm already REALLY late. The girls there marry at 22 in the city and 17 in the villages. Well, this time around, the guy told mom that I would be married in my 40's!!! At least I now have a target to shoot for :)

The other thing that came up was that I would be fabulously wealthy. I guess that means I should move back to Calgary and look for my oil tycoon?

A reason for a man

On Wednesday night I came home to find no water in the toilet bowl. Uh oh. That can't be a good thing. There are many, many things I have learned to do for myself. Living alone for over a decade teaches you a couple of things. One of the things I am not willing to learn or do is deal with a toilet. It's to sit on. Full stop. Nothing else I need to know about a toilet. So I called in the experts.

The two young guys arrived and put on their cute little blue booties, took one look and said it would be around $150 and did I want them to continue. What a ridiculous, rhetorical question. Even if I wasn't desperate for a pee, I would've said yes. What choice did I have at that point? Anyways, two more minutes go by and I hear the toilet flush. These happy little boys wander out for a $150 cheque!!! First of all, I'm so in the wrong business. Secondly, I realized that there actually IS a reason to have a guy around. At the very least I wouldn't have had to make small talk with two guys who just LOVE video games. Sigh.

Mandarin vs Cantonese

So my new thing is taking up a Chinese language. I figure that I've taken enough of the European languages and that's a total lost cause so I'm going to try something totally different. Or perhaps, given my background, it's going back to the basics.

I figure it's time to start getting on with my life again and my life includes a variety of classes. The difficulty now is deciding which of these languages to choose. I was doing a lot of reading on it and though Mandarin is the official language and more widely spoken, Cantonese is definitely the more prevalent here in Vancouver. Not only that, much of the Chinese popular culture I enjoy is in Cantonese so it's perhaps the better, if not the most useful. I also found out that as a fluent Vietnamese speaker, Cantonese may be easier as they have many similar sounding consonants. Huh. Never knew that.

That said, the Cantonese one starts on a week that I'm in San Fran so it sucks that I would miss the first class. Still, it's probably the one I will choose.

Back in the dating scene?

I knew it was a mistake right from the start. I went out for dinner with a guy last week. First mistake was to agree to dinner as a first date. Coffee is the way to go. Easy escape.

Among many things that went sideways, he answered his VERY loud ringing phone the second we were seated. He then proceeded to check his blackberry EVERY 2 minutes. He even had it on the dinner table for Christ sake. This was made worse by his constantly flirting with the waitress, who was incidentally very cool. The only good thing was that I managed to inhale dinner and get home within an hour. If there's one thing I am an expert at, it's getting out of a bad date *grin*.

God, I can't believe I previously complained about not having a date in nine months.

Costco

I went to Costco for the first time in around 20 years tonight. WOW. I was loving the rows and rows of goodies but I had to wonder...who the hell would buy a Coach purse at COSTCO?!?!?! Which, let's admit, is barely a step up from Superstore. Who would even think of going there to buy one? What Costco buyer thought it would be a good idea to carry this type of merchandise?? Good grief. I wonder if it's a Yaletown thing though. Sounds just about pretentious enough to be limited to my corner of the world.

As I wandered though the uber bulk packages, I also had to wonder if I would ever get to a point where I would buy a package of 50 steaks. Please God, I hope not.

Here's another "hmmmm" thing. Why would Costco, home of the mammoth portions, not offer us bags to carry our purchases home?!?! Ridiculous. I was already concerned about buying a lot because I didn't want to haul it up to my apartment but didn't realize until AFTER I paid that they weren't even going to give me a bag! Instead, the pimply youth chucked my well chosen products into "boxes". That's a seriously tongue-in-cheek "boxes" too. They were little more than a cardboard bottom with corners. Not even cardboard all around. It was as if a child had cut out the middle pieces to make their arts and crafts. WTF? Here's a free CRM tip for Costco. If you want single females to shop there, you'll offer them something to carry their massive, 25 packaged boxes of tampons home. Jeez.

Though, I must say, I was very impressed with the clientele. Full of hot guys. I guess this is why you don't see them at Urban Fare. Why merely buy one pack of mac and cheese when, for just a few more dollars you get 40! That's like getting 37 for free!