May 2006 Archives

Tonight I got to watch the first forty-ish minutes of the first episode of Canadian Idol before my mother and sister hijacked the tv to watch some stupid horror movie. All that matters is that I got to see the KW auditions, so I'm ok with how that went down. Knowing all the people I do who went to audition, I was a little disappointed that none of them got air time for their singing. Especially because I know they rock. BUT! I did get to see Scott AND Nancy AND NANCY LUNGING! Which made it all ok. Good luck to all the sweet kids I know on the show. Rock the judges socks off. Break someone else's legs, because I like you when yours work.

Today I went back downtown with Adam and Eric to look at a place to live for September. I some how managed to misplace the card that was given to me so I could call ahead, so I decided that I would just show up and hope to be able to talk to someone. It almost worked; we got a phone call about a place we could rent but can't actually see it for a week. It sounds absolutely amazing though. Adam got excited at the chance to move and redecorate a whole apartment.

So we moved on to dive back into the so called university life, otherwise known as picking up my Calendar. I never thought I'd say this, but moving from line to line that I had to stand in to get answers to my questions was strangely satisfying. I don't think I can think of anything I hated more than my year off. It was so nice to be on what seemed like the right track again. Even if the right track was walking out in the blistering heat through swarms of angry commuters pissed off at the world because TTC's maintenance workers decided they didn't want to do their overpaid work today.

To escape the anger, or the heat, or the anger and the heat, we decided that we would first go to Pizza Hut and the go to Zelda's. After overstaying our welcomes at both fine dining establishments we decided it was time to walk through PATH to get us home. Somewhere along the way my mind separated from my body to do things more entertaining than walking and I failed to properly engage in any conversation. It only made a brief return on the train home when we sat in a car that didn't have working air conditioning and we nearly died. Note to self: carry portable fan. Always.

I totally rocked the comments on Jem’s post about piano skills versus computer typing skills. I also feel the need to brag about how many people agreed with me. Bow down and worship bitches.

Economist's World in 2006 ranked the best cities for business travel in the world. The top three being: Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto. We rock.

I bring you the first in a multi-part series of what will be my quest to find a place to live in downtown. Now that I've decided on a school (sorry Ryerson, it's not you), my parents are one step closer in their goal of pushing me out the front door. All they need to do now is: (1) sell this house, and (2) get a smaller house without room for me. Oh wait, they already have (2) done. Dag, yo.

So Adam and I went downtown with two thoughts before we'd start looking. First and foremost, living in the village is clichéd. Second, Rob's place at Bay and Wellesley is an amazing location right in the middle of everything. So that's where we went first, to the buildings that Rob lived at. Only to find a waiting list 100 people strong for rentals and one hell of rude bitch who worked as the real estate agent that didn't want to do any "leg work" for us. You know, because letting us know if there units in the building that are available requires so much effort. God, it must be tough working her job.

So we moved on. Since she wasn't going to take the time to tell us anything more than to use MLS, we decided that we would just look at the buildings we figured would work and go from there when we got internet access. For a moment I was tempted to log onto MLS right in front of her, but I find using the internet on my Blackberry in front of people who don't have Blackberries but really want Blackberries to be rude. Rudeness being one of the things that the real estate probably wouldn't be able to handle, you know with all the leg work and all.

We walked up Bay to Charles, where we went to look at the gorgeous million dollar suites being built at One St. Thomas. You know, because that's exactly what I'm in the market for as a student. I couldn't even get in to see the sales office without an appointment. Taking that as a sign, we moved on back down Bay towards Dundas. Along the way we remembered that Adam knew a girl who lived in the most amazing building on St. Joseph. Boy was it amazing. We got in to see if we could see any of the units but the office guy was busy. So after chatting with the concierge for a bit, I walked out with a card to make an appointment in my pocket and a huge smile on my face. After seeing that, everything else seemed to be of lesser quality.

Even the buildings that I was in love with all last year on Mutual St didn't seem as nice anymore. There are even some of the townhouses left (the townhouses being amazing), and it didn't seem as appealing. It's not the kind of thing I would ever turn down, but it just didn't make the grade anymore. So here's to hoping everything goes well on Monday.

"You got me a miksterbate shirt?!" "I wear it every night to bed. My dad thinks it's obscene but my mom loves it."

"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!"

"You dropped my girlfriend's shirt off here?"

I dropped Kaman's off at her work. I think I offended a lot of people in there. I love life.

Have you ever had one of those days where you felt like no matter what happened you'd be in a good mood? Even if you woke up from a dream where you were a fugitive trying to escape to BC or your friend just told you that an ex is going to kick your ass if you say anything bad? That was me today.

Despite the fact that I had an right hour shift to look forward to this morning I could console myself with the knowledge that it would be my last shift as a smoothie whore. Even my horribly embarrassing encounter with the bench press last night couldn't get me down; I could hold my head high with the knowledge that it was all in my head and that I didn't really get my ass handed to me by the weights I had just imagination. That trainer never actually helped me save myself from that extra set. Nope.

To celebrate my mood I decided to remember to tell the university that I will be attending in September and that I really do love them and that I just missed their email and I'm not actually ignoring them. All in one long, run on sentence. I think they got what I meant. Moving on from there I continued to celebrate by treating myself to music books. Who doesn't love Mariah and Wicked? Separately they're enough to make almost everyone I know squeal. But together they're like some sort of super orgasm created to keep people addicted to it and not sex. Addicted I am. I spent the rest of my free time before work playing.

I think I'm going to miss the people who work around me. I'm also going to miss watching people. I'm definitely not going to miss all the uppity customers or staff. But you always get some bad with the good. The good is also something I can are whenever I want too. I work out here, have the contact information and I'm prepping myself for yoga in the park.

Then as my day went on my head started to pulse a little. Soon I was into a full on throb with the occasional trip over a chair or a box or my feet. Then before I knew it I had spent an hour on the chair in the back room trying not to die. So much for my good day. I started noticing things I hated about people. Like that one girl who thinks she's hot shit (she's not), and gets all rude when people don't hit on her. Had it not been for Alex coming to save me I might have killed someone. So to prevent any possible murders I'm going to sleep for 24 hours. Someone wake me up on Saturday.

I'd like to take some time to talk about what I did on my summer job. On top of earning tuition for September I:

• Spent four hours in the morning in the sun.
• Spent two hours in the afternoon doing math and the resulting work.
• Spent another hour and a bit in the sun afterwards.

Summer rocks my socks.

Back in the day, holidays that involved fireworks meant something different to me and my friends than everyone else. Once I started hanging out with the right people in grade 10 I learned that there's so much more that you can do with fireworks than shoot them in the sky. You can shoot them at each other.

Every holiday we would inevitably end up at a park with a big field, roman candles in hand ready to do one of the most dangerous things we could do without licences and cars, short of dangerous assault with a deadly weapon. Although I guess you could get pretty deadly with a roman candle. Ask Rob. He learned the hard way that the shit shot out of those things bounces off stuff and burns though clothing. This is why fireworks shows just don't do it for me anymore – no one gets hurt.

My brain has reached the point where there is a dull throbbing at the front that is so strong I swear it has to be visible to anyone glancing at me. Not exactly a pleasant feeling. Luckily I have something to distract myself: the knowledge that my bank account is feeling just as much pain as my head.

Friday, spurred on by the fact that I have decided if I'm going to finish my year off and return to Waterloo to continue studies in Math, go to Mac for Business, UTM for Management, or UofT for Humanities, I decided that I would clear my mind the best way I knew how: shopping. Not that the intimate details of my relationship with Sherway need to be shared with everyone, but I can tell you that I ransacked h2o+, exchanged a horrible Abercrombie tshirt for my brother for a slightly less horrible, but still bad, pair of shorts, and treated myself to a Blackberry. You know, because everyone needs a Blackberry.

Yesterday was Recess. Matt had text messaged me and told me to go because he was hosting it and that he wanted to put me and my friends on guest list. So we went. I was impressed. As soon as it wasn't called a hop, the 14 year olds stopped going. Except for the one or two dancing with guys twice their age with half their brain cells, but those were easily ignored. The music was decent; techno song after techno song that could make you feel like you were high out of your mind even when you weren't.

Now I'm going to spend the rest of the weekend recuperating. My summer job starts Tuesday and I have a feeling it's going to break me. It was that, or have my bank account break me instead. I decided the ability to buy even more clothing pulls rank over my ability to walk. Really though, what's the point of walking if your outfit looks like crap while you do it?

Today before work, Miguel messaged me saying that I was mean and shouldn't be posting meanness in JD's livejournal. So I'm sitting here thinking "Miguel, what crack are you smoking?" because I don't even remember what JD's livejournal was. Of course to go and find it, I have to jump back two user names and check my friends list because Miguel is too busy loving the potential drama to give me the link.

So I found it myself (http://triplesevyn.livejournal.com/7161.html).

I'd like to point out a series of flaws in this comment. Skipping the fact that I couldn't remember his livejournal link, because there's no way to verify that we'll start with what is verifiable. The comment, posted by someone anonymous, was made at 4:56pm local time on May 17th. Where was I at 4:56pm local time on May 17th? That would be slaving away at work making smoothies for people who don't care, and doing crosswords with the girl from Reebok. Not posting some horribly lame comment on a livejournal.

Second, I'd like to ask a question. Why would I post a comment not logged into my account, and sign it with HALF my old screen name? Considering that my computer loves me and never logs me out in return for protection from creepy people.

Now the contents of the comment look familiar, and I have a horrible feeling I'm inviting drama into my life again, but a google search on two old LJs, and this site only show results about how I'm a big loser. Although I can't think of why I would say "total loser" - big loser is more of my thing.

Most importantly for me is the fact that I would TOTALLY own up to any drama that I'm trying to start. Don't believe me? Ask Ms. Fischer about it.

Fucking people.

Alex,

Congratulations and welcome to the wonderful world of smoothie whoring. I hope you enjoy your stay and that it's longer than mine was. Smoothie whoring can be complicated and frustrating at times. Other times it's just boring as feck. Here are some things that should help you along the way.

First, the juice machine never ever gives you the amount it's supposed to. The slant of the counter and the fact that we need to minimize waste means you're always about an ounce short. Usually it doesn't matter. Until you get to the smoothies with yogurt; they're notorious for not blending properly. The zone smoothies need extra juice too – especially women's – because the new protein doesn't expand as much as the old stuff. This brings us to the always exciting supplements.

The whey protein we use isn't standard for the company, and screws up the women's smoothies. Never fear, like I already said, it's nothing extra juice won't fix. The white spoon is 7 grams, the scoop is 22 grams. A scoop of soy protein is 7 grams, depending on how heaping you make it. Protein is super fun for after work outs, which is why we give three for the price of two. The energy one is enough to keep you going for a workout or a long, boring shift. The brain one also works as an aphrodisiac. Totally have permission to laugh on the inside when people order it.

You can technically customize smoothies for customers. It's really just a pain you want to avoid though; unless it's the snooty woman who wants strawberries instead of raspberries. Not worth the energy arguing with her. Extra fruit is 50 cents. Hit the protein button. For the guy who asks for double turkey in his wrap, it's $1 extra (two protein buttons). Bigger water bottle: Bottle and a protein. When in doubt, upsize with protein.

The most popular not protein smoothie is the berry one. The best for before a workout is the breakfast one with energy. After the workout is the protein smoothie. The watermelon one is the gayest. It just happened. You'll get used to it. You'll also get used to adding like 3 extra ounces of juice because the watermelon isn't in season.

Gym staffs get 10% off or a free boost but not both. If they're getting the meal combo, do 10% then add the boost. They don't get the discount on bars, bottles and cans. The tab is on the paper by the cash.

If you ever forget a recipe it'll be on the wall somewhere. Specials are up at the front next to the coffee ones. If a customer asks you something and you don't know, tell them you don't know, that you'll ask when you can and that you'll make something up for this time. It's almost fool proof. Unless it's the guy who gets three protein for one at the mall, in which case you ignore him. I think they just lie to him. So you should charge him for two.

The food ingredients are on the signs for the plates. As for the sauces, use the whole ladle. I don't care what he says about the sauce being too strong. It's way to dry if you don't. You'll find out soon enough. Then you'll hate the food and want to eat somewhere else.

Closing is annoying. I always start two hours before close. Except for last night when I tried to power clean in an hour. Didn't work out too well, so don't try it. Even with the list I always forget about the grill, because it's tucked in beside something else. The thing with the water intake isn't even on the list. I totally forgot to clean it too.

If you ever knock prepped stuff over in the big freezers, look across to see that it won't fall when you open the other door. Trust me, you'll hate yourself if you don't. The best radio stations are 31, 61 and 90.

Finally and most importantly: the gym staff is nice, and decent to look at most of the time. There may not be many hot people who work out there, but the ones that are hot totally make up for it.

With that I leave you to dive head first into the world of smoothies. Don't fuck it up.

Mike

If you're dating a skeezebag, and said skeezebag does something really skeezebaggy – don't come and complain about it. It would be one thing if you had no idea you were dating a skeezebag, or if you were only dating him because he was there (in which case you probably cheated on him god knows how many times anyways). But for me to know that you genuinely liked him, and knew that he was a huge skeezebag going into it makes me question what form of logic you were operating on when he broke you. Just be lucky he didn't give you anything. Actually, you might want to go get tested just in case.

List up to ten (10) things you want to say to ten (10) different people in no particular order. Do not state who these people are. Do not confirm or deny any 'comment speculation.'

• Sleep in until work on Monday.
• Practice a lot of piano on Tuesday.
• Work out until you can't move.
• Buy gerbils to replace your dead hamster on Wednesday.
• Work, then argue with your mother about the need to keep said gerbils (they're omg cute).
• Finally get in contact with your friend who's leaving about details on Thursday.
• Work some more, ignoring the fact that your friend is leaving.
• Get a sweet, sweet phone call from Nancy.
• Picture all the ass Stoner is kicking at her competition.
• Have a lot of sleepovers.
• Busy yourself driving all over to find piercing sprays on Friday.
• Get Starbucks, because Starbucks makes everything ok.
• Arrive at the airport, realize everything is not ok, have another Starbucks.
• Leave airport, talk about anything at all to occupy your mind (traffic, idiots, whore's that wear Abercrombie).
• Go STRAIGHT to release of new McFly movie.
• Drool over how adorable Dougie is. Rinse, repeat (time twelve).
• Go out to Tim Horton's with Sarah, Adam and drunk Miguel.
• Feel really bad for Chris for having to put up with Miguel.
• Realize people are going to kill you, find new Tim Horton's.
• Have another sleepover.
• Find a job delivering hardwood on Saturday.
• Have near death experience involving your brother, a van with 3 tonnes of hardwood, and a stop sign.
• Spend Sunday complaining about pain.
• Go to party with cast and crew of Wonderland's School of Rock.
• Work a twelve hour day on Monday.
• Give two weeks notice to end smoothie whoring.

Today I started the first day in my new fitness routine. Only, I started the first day for the fourth time because the last three times I ended up slacking off or finding something more entertaining to do than suffer through the pain of body building. Things like sleep, television, or watching the paint on my wall. That or work gets in the way and after a set of eight hour shifts I just don't feel like being back at the gym. I want to be as far away from smoothie making as possible.

So I went to the gym ready to conquer the Swiss ball and various free weights in an attempt to find a chest. All was going as planned. I made the Swiss ball my bitch, because everyone knows that abs are the most important part of your body. Unless of course you actually want to use your muscles; then they're only good for swimmers. Lucky for me that on top of trying to look pretty, I also pretend to swim once and a while. Unfortunately making the Swiss ball my bitch meant that any attempts to dominate free weights would fail horribly. Oh did it fail horribly.

Whatever progress I thought I made on the previous three times I attempt to start a fitness routine was gone. I didn't make it through half of the planned work out. Instead I spent my time panting and grunting as my shoulder twitched, my wrists spasmed and my chest thought about exploded. Lifting weights apparently violated their rights as muscles and they refused to cooperate. So after far too much pain, and even more annoying chit chat by the gym bunnies beside be about basketball and everything else to avoid actually lifting weights, I left. I'd pretend I'm disappointed with myself for quitting early, but I'm far too good at making my excuses for myself to let that happen.

Paramount Canada's Wonderland officially opened to the public on Sunday and Adam and I decided that since Eric was visiting and since Jeremy had never been on a rollercoaster (ever) we'd go get season's passes and attempt to stall the end of my youth just a little longer. So I somehow managed to get myself out of bed at 7:00 so we could go spend at least most of a full day screaming like girls on rollercoasters.

Since I drive way too fast for my own good, we had enough time to visit Nancy before she's off hanging out with people who are not me and still get to Wonderland before it opened. I was all dolled up and ready to take stupid pictures. Only there was one flaw in my plan. After walking away from my car I realized I forgot my camera in the backseat, and didn't feel like going back to get it. Every second longer would be a second when another hundred people could get into the series of lines we'd have to wait in. Looking at the lines snake around the front of the park I wished I had walked back to get my camera, just so I could show everyone.

With hideously awkward season pass picture taken, we walked off to conquer Wonderland. After all, the park had just opened and no one was inside. It was ours for the taking! We started small. Adam is a child and needed to go on Thunder Run because Thunder Run is awesome and so much fun and oh please god could we just go on Thunder Run once? So we did. Jeremy needed to start somewhere and Thunder Run was perfect.

Until we started going and he started screaming. Then he didn't stop screaming until we stopped at the end. After a second to recover there was a happy yelp and a stream of "oh god that was awesome but so scary but I loved it and let's go on a real one now" that came out so fast it was like someone was fast forwarding and old Disney VHS.

We continued this process, moving from ride to ride without any real lines, letting Jeremy get on, scream until his throat hurt and then jump up and down until we could start again. Everything was great, until we got into the line for Top Gun. Top Gun's line, which counted as a real line, was an hour long and had us surrounded by the TRASHIEST people in existence. It was either horrible groups of Growing Up Gotti with dirty teen 'stache or the most stereotypical white trash you can think of. By the time we got off the ride I was happy to run off to see the "School of Rock: Live in Concert" show that they were playing.

School of Rock just happened to star Erica, my favourite person from Cawthra, who belted her heart out for a tiny bit before doing the funniest choreographed dance routine I have ever seen in my life. At one point she did something that was so funny, it can only be describe as "Erica in a move."

The only thing that would have made the trip better would be having had my camera to take pictures of all the people we made fun of. Oh well, there's always a next time. Now that I have my pass again, you can expect a next time too.

For those of you fortunate enough to read Adam's most recent pseudo essay on gays and immigrant gays in Oakville, you would have known from the beginning that I was bound to comment on it. When has someone said 'gays' 'Oakville' and 'Adam' in the same sentence and not heard me have something to say on the subject? A whole pseudo essay on how the Sheridan Music Theatre program is ruining life for the rest of us is like Christmas come early. No, I take that back. My new The Mike Haddad Show Tshirts arriving today is like Christmas come early. The pseudo essay is like temporarily dying and going to heaven.

Just a side note on Adam's blog: for the longest time I tried to convince him that he should upgrade to a fully fledged, avec domain name, blog. I wasn't the only one telling him how witty he was. Unfortunately it got to his head, then he started slacking, and now you never get anything new. The moral of the story? Don't compliment anyone – ever.

So Adam wrote a very scathing post about people are coming to Oakville to take Sheridan's Music Theatre Program, telling people they meet they're from Oakville, being a stereotypical Music Theatre Whore and having sex with everyone, and pretty much ruining it for the rest of us. Yes, I'm referring to the ones that are "promiscuous, with sugar-daddies, secret-boyfriends, and secret-girlfriends."

Then it dawned on me just how hypocritical we just might be. For a group of people that claims to hate generalizations made about them, we sure are quick to generalize. I'm using 'we' in two senses here: Adam and Myself, and the greater homosexual population of Toronto's suburbs.

Introduce me to a Music Theatre student and you'll find me hard pressed to not think about how he's most likely had sex with everyone else in his program, and then talked about it, using the excuse that "it's ok because it's music theatre." Yes, and just because they change in front of each other all the time sports teams everywhere are all promiscuous team-cest loving whores too. Sure I try to be friendly, but I usually just make due by insulting someone else while they're around. It's the best way to ignore the voices in my head screaming at me. "They're hitting on you and they know you're dating him" and "They're going to hit on him now because you're not interested" are the two most common. Fuckers.

Yet even in writing this my conscience is kicking me in the face. I'd be hard pressed to name more than three that I really don't like, and even those ones are still for the same reasons. Only they're like the Queen Bee's of the Music Theatre Whoredom so it's easier to focus it all on them.

The bigger problem is just who much we generalize. I'm doing it again right now in saying 'we' and implying that we all generalize, but for the most part we do. I'm more interested in finding out what caused the generalizations. We all know Whitby is full of hustlers who can probably give you an assortment of STDs by breathing on you, that there's a lot of really hot people in Newmarket, and that people in Woodbridge have oddly shaped penises that are only pleasurable to people from Ottawa who like sleeping with their best friend's ex-boyfriends. How'd it happen? Did the city planners say "Ok, we want to focus on getting parents with really whorey kids to move here" or did it just happen. If it did just happen, why continue it? I've met one person in all of my experiences with people who was from Whitby and wasn't a whore. Not looking good for the town that wants to be Oakville. More than that: it doesn't look good for the next generation of homos.

Don't expect me to help though. I foresee far too much potential humour to stop it.

You're on a very shrinking list of sites I link to. Of course I'm going to point your name out in credit. I love your site too much to do otherwise.