What would you do?

I always wondered what I would do when faced with celebrity. Would I drop to my knees and praise them? Would I ignore them? Would I treat them like a human being? I always thought ... hoped ... I would do the latter. Treat them like the person they are and just go one with life. Today I got to find out what I would do.

The problem with celebrity is people think they own you. You just can't have a "normal" life. You can't go to the corner store. You can't pick up the newspaper. You can't go into public at all, in any way. Which is pretty fucked up. They just can't live their life as anyone else. It is as if they stop being a person because they have become a celebrity for whatever reason.

I remember when I was training for a job at Convergys. We were finally taking REAL calls. The guy beside me, who was surprisingly enough training to be a supervisor and broke so many rules, took a call. It turned out that it was from Bobby Orr. If you have read/know anything about me I LOVE hockey. That would be the call of all calls for me. The guy responds ... Robert Orr ... Robert? ... Bobby? ... Bobby Orr?!? And the call progressed from there. I felt ... hard to put into words ... but a good part of it was embarrassed for Bobby Orr. He called to get something done with his phone account and got more because of who he is/was.

Come to today at work. A guy wants to come in and I have to check his ID. It turned out he is the captain of our local QMJHL team. A team which won, in a sweep, the 1st round of the playoffs in a sweep the night before. I sort of recognized him and once I saw his ID it was confirmed. What do I do? Acknowledge he is of age and let him in like anyone else? Acknowledge who he is and let him in? Fawn all over him? Ask for his autograph?

Surprising even me, I acknowledged he was of age to come in and let him in. Just because of who he is doesn't mean I have to single him out. He has as much of a right to just be who he is as anyone else. Part of me wanted to do more but you know what, he deserves to be treated like a human being. Like anyone else. So I held back and just let him in.

It is kind of funny now to look back at it. I always wondered what I would do in a case like that. I always figured I would play it cool, treat the person like anyone else and just go on with things. Nice to know that is what I would do.

What the ... textard?!?!?

So I am at Staples to get some ink and paper for the printer. There is one woman ahead of me. As she puts her credit card in to have the chip read she whips out her phone and starts reading and answering a text. Her transaction is complete and she is still typing away on her phone. The clerk removes her card from the machine and sets her stuff down in front of her and she is still on her phone. The clerk has to take my stuff from me because there is no space on the counter because this textard is STILL texting away on her phone. My stuff is rung through and the clerk can't set it down because this bimbo is STILL on her phone.

Finally I have enough and say "Do you mind doing that elsewhere? I would like to [pay for my stuff and leave."

The woman barely looks up, grabs her stuff, and leaves in a huff still texting away. What a fucktard.

What the ... murder?!?!?

A teen, Trayvon Martin, was murdered in Florida last month and his killer claims self defence. Under a bizarre Florida law that was put into place by Jeb Bush you are allowed to use deadly force if you feel threatened.

The murderer, George Zimmerman, was "on patrol" for a neighbourhood watch in the area. According to what he told the police he saw someone acting suspicious and followed him. Even after the cops told him not to.

What made Trayvon suspicious? He was black.

Because of the bizarre law Zimmerman was NOT charged with anything by the police. He murdered a kid and nothing was being done. Now, due to public pressure, the FBI and a Federal prosecutor are looking into charges. It is disgusting that it took public outrage to get something done.

No wonder Florida has its own classification on FARK. Dumbass. Weird. Silly. Florida.

HRM Winter Maintenance

HRM seems to stand for Highly Retarded Morons rather than Halifax Regional Municipality. Or maybe that is how the Municipal government views the people that live here.

Speaking as someone who uses the city streets a lot travelling to and from work winter maintenance of the roads has been horrible in HRM. We haven't had a lot of snow but when we have been hit the road crews have done a piss poor job of taking care of the roads. Yet somehow HRM is claiming to have used up 62% of the snow budget. The reasons Hayward gives for why so much has been used seem specious.

Salting? Once again, as someone who uses the roads a lot, there has been little salting done. At least when it was needed. I do remember at least one day when the roads were heavily salted ... but we had no snow or ice. Yet the days it was needed there was little or none.

Overtime for weekend storms? We haven't had any real storms! What kind of fuckery is this? And where the fuck are the plows when it is snowing?

Just how stupid are the folks at HRM? Well, here is a great example.

Monday night we had snow. 5-10 cm of it. The roads were pretty greasy. I saw ONE plow out. The roads that were plowed were pretty shoddily done. There was NO salt on the roads. The winter parking ban was NOT in effect so when the plows finally did show up they had to go around parked cars.

Tuesday night there was NO snow but the winter parking ban WAS declared in effect by HRM. Which led to a lot of cars being ticketed for parking on the street even though there was no need for plows to be out.

What do the workers do when there is no snow? According to Hayward

"On days like this they're out filling potholes, graffiti removal, litter pickup — that sort of thing,"

Really? Our winter road snow removal budget is used for graffiti removal? Litter pickup? I have yet to see anyone doing any of the things Mr. Hayward cited. Add to that the fact that the city doesn't usually bother touching potholes until AFTER the spring thaw. What a gobshite.

What a bunch of icetards.