Loud Mouth Know-it-alls.

One of my brother's has the most obnoxious neighbour. Let's call him Jerry. Jerry is a loud mouth know-it-all. He is actually worse than most of that type because he an be so obnoxious about it. Jerry worked for the power corporation and supposedly selling insurance. Yet it doesn't matter the subject he knows more than you.

I can remember a few years back when a bunch of us gathered at my brothers on a Friday evening. Two of the guys are mechanics and were talking about a problem with my nieces car. Jerry had to chime in and tell them they were wrong, he knows the problem, this is what it is. Seriously, these guys do this for a living and are damn good at it yet this twat thinks he knows better. The next day when they worked on my niece's car they were right about the problem.

Friends have stayed away from my brother's when the chance of Jerry being around are strong. Unfortunately for my brother, in the last month and a half, the chances were pretty much 100% any given day.

I tolerated the asshole because he was my brother's neighbour. It became hard to do after after an incident at my brother's 50th birthday party. My brother and his wife asked me to take pictures. There was a pretty big crowd there for the party. When we all moved inside for the blowing out of the candles and munchies I was taking pictures. All of a sudden up walks Jerry.

"How would you feel if I knowcked that fucking camera out of your hands and put it under my foot?" He asked.

My reply was "How would you like it if I knocked you to the ground and put my foot in your fucking throat asshole?"

Jerry blinked, seemed to be about to say something, and left. Typical Jerry. All bluster. No substance.

Jerry even made one of my brother-in-laws, who is pretty laid back, blow his top. He was being his usual obnoxious self telling people they knew nothing about a subject when my brother-in-law had enough. From what I heard second hand it started "Jerry, you are fucking idiot who thinks he knows everything. You need to shut your god damn mouth because you are nothing but a fucking idiot who is full of shit." The verbal lashing lasted a couple of minutes. After which Jerry shut the fuck up and slinked off home.

Since my brother has been home for the last month an a half he just couldn't get away from Jerry. If he stepped out to start the BBQ there was Jerry on his patio. Friends would be over and they would look out the window into the back yard and there was Jerry looking in. He would go out to the garage for a cigarette and to talk with a friend and there is Jerry. Like a bad penny he just kept showing up.

Hell, I house sat for my brother a week ago and there were a few times I felt like someone was watching me. Odds are there was. Jerry.

It hit the tipping point for my brother last week. Jerry had appeared too many times in the span of a couple of days. He had been his usual self and the last time he was over had to insert himself into my brother's conversation with another friend. Once again, he knew it all, my brother knew nothing. My brother tore him a new asshole. From what I hear he didn't hold much back. It ended with Jerry saying he wouldn't see him again. Hopefully Jerry is a man of his word.

Loud mouth know-it-alls. There are too many of them in the world. May they all be put in their place.

Thank You Anthony Weiner

I have to say a hearty thank you to Anthony Weiner. His resignation today caused most of the US media to forget about, or downgrade reporting on, the Vancouver riots. :)

What the ... Things You Don't Say??!?!?

I was talking some friends about the idiot making the weight comment Saturday morning. We started talking about some of the stupid things we have heard people say that they didn't need to. Whether they were right or just rude they should have kept it to themselves.

One friend, S, was at a funeral Friday. A friend's son had committed suicide. S's mother died 4 weeks ago and was buried 3 weeks ago so that is still raw with her. Someone she knew at the funeral looked at her and said "At least your mother was 78 when she died." What a mook. I know what they meant, "Your mother lived a full life." because the funeral was for a 16 year old ... BUT ... you just don't need to say it, especially there and that close to her mother's death.

S went on to relate an incident at the hospital while her mother was comatose just before the end. She comes from a big Italian family so there were kids, grandkids, uncles, aunts, cousins visiting. A group of them were there to sit by her bed and a nurse walks in. She says "What? There is a party and I wasn't invited?"

S said her one of her brothers lost it and kicked the nurse out of the room. Then complained to the head nurse and said he didn't want that woman near his mother again. I can't say that I blame him.

It reminded me of the morning my father died. He died in his bed with family around him. A nurse was around for nights just in case. Dad wasn't dead a minute when this ditz says "What a beautiful death." I know what she meant, he died surrounding by family that loved him, but you just don't need to say that at taht moment. One of my sister-in-laws got her out of the room and the house.

Kind of like my Korean friend who walked up to a guy and said "You are black. You are a nigger." Leaving the racist aspect of it out do you really have to tell someone what colour their skin is?

When young kids make similar comments it easy to excuse them, and use at as a chance to teach them something, because at their age they don't know any better. These kind of mooks are adults and SHOULD know better.

Some people just don't think. They are mooks and stupidity is universal. They might have meant well. It might have seemed funny to them. But they just don't need to make their comments and 9 times out of 10 it was only funny to them.

Internet Heroes

What would a world be like without assholes? It could be a nice place. The internet abounds with assholes of all shapes and sizes. One of the most pathetic is the dreaded Internet Hero.

They sit, probably in their basement, wrapped in the safety of their anonymity. That way they can make comments that they would NEVER make in public. Or threaten people. They are never braver than when you don't know who they are and they think you can't fight back.

I remember back when I used to help run an internet game. Many people who would break the rules and get in trouble would start making threats. They thought they were safely hidden away and would make all kinds of treats to inflict bodily harm on me or my family. Or to kill me. Over a game. Kind of pathetic eh?

You see this type of person all over the internet nowadays. Whether it is in a forum like Dave's ESL, or the Kamikaze Kimchi Kommandoes, on YouTube, of even in chat rooms. They seem to take a perverse amount of pleasure acting out worse than children. Acting in a way they know would get their ass handed to them in reality or see them arrested. They will make the most outrageous claims and comments but only because they think no one can find out who they really are.

They are more than a little pathetic. The only way they seem to be able to make themselves feel good, or important, is to anonymously attack people. Then they scurry away back to their holes basking in the false sense of power they have. "I showed that person I called them an and said I would kill them. I am so awesome!"

On a popular Korean Ex-Pat Blog you have one anonymous asshole "calling out" the blogger. And when the blogger doesn't seem interested the asshole starts to gloat "me 1 you 0" or some such nonsense. Let's see, some anonymous Internet Hero challenges me to come and fight them. Oh yeah, I will rush right out and meet the potential psycho.

Seriously, to make an anonymous threat like that and then to gloat because someone doesn't accept your psycho challenge doesn't make you a great person. It makes you pathetic. But such is the hubris of the Internet hero that they believe their own hype.

Bad Neighbors

God damn my neighbors are mooks! Two sets of them.

The neighbour to our left and the one on the other side of them are, to not use an expletive, MOOKS. Mooks of the Nth Order.

Both have dogs. The immediate one has 3. The one on the other side have 2. All their dogs do is yap. All day. All night. You can't enjoy your back yard with neighbors like these.

The immediate neighbor, to the left, has caused me headaches for years. At one point they had FIVE dogs. I never said too much because I was always visiting, and my mother doesn't like confrontation. Basically, you can't go into the back yard. if I opened the door to let our dog out, who doesn't yap and yap and yap, they would start. If I was BBQing they would start. If I was talking to the neighbor on the other side they would start. They wouldn't stop until well after you went back inside. If they heard someone on the bicycle paths they would start. if they heard a car door they would start.

It can be hard not to to hate a dog for that. Especially for me. I have little patience. But it isn't the dogs fault. It is the owner. They never taught the dogs better. They go to work, leave them out. They just leave them out barking.

Now they have three dogs and the yapping goes on.

Then there are the neighbours on the other side of them. They have two dogs for the last 2 years. before that only 1. That one dog barks constantly all day and night. People have had to call them at 1 or 2 Am to bring their dog in because it is out there barking. When they go to work they leave the dog out. Now they leave both out. Their dogs are actually LOUDER than the dogs beside us.

Now, and this is funny, the far side neighbours complain to people that the dogs of the nearside neighbour prevent them from enjoying their back yard ... because they do WHAT THEIR FUCKING DOGS DO. Yap all the time when someone is in the backyard.

I would like to take both of the owners and start smacking their heads together until ... well ... lets not go there.

I have never encountered such an inconsiderate bunch of mooks in Canada before. Hell, they make the loudspeaker mooks in Korea look kind.

Now that I am home for good and living here I got tired of the BS. I like my backyard. I like sitting out with friends, having a cigar, and talking. I like playing with my dog. hell, I like just going out back and soaking in the silence. I called animal control and lodged complaints.

Lo and behold, the day I lodged the complaints I started seeing results. Fucked up results but still results. I made the complaints in the Am. At 5PM the far assholes dogs started barking. For an hour, off and on, they were at it. Interspersed were shouts of "SHUT UP" from the owners. Later that evening a friend and I were out enjoying a cigar before the hockey game and the near assholes dogs went on for over an hour. A few times the owner would yell "Be Quiet!" or "Shut up!" None of those really worked. the dogs calmed down on their own.

What REALLY strikes me as ... insane ... is that at NO TIME did the owners try to BRING THE DOGS IN. Seriously, assholes, if the dogs won't stop bring them in. All they did was yell at them.

It has been quieter, but unfortunately for the dogs it means the assholes just keep them inside.

I give it a weke or so and the situation will be back to the bad old days.