Category Archives: Archive

worst resume stuffer ever

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from the Archive:

 Friday, June 24, 2005

                  I mean, frankly, you have got to be fucking kidding me.

                  Okay, so I’m turning over all kinds of rocks looking for a job here. Going to interviews only to find out the company is hiring people to write high-school papers for foreign students. Scripting internet porn (who knew it was scripted????). Pyramid-scheming for the Russian mob. But this has to be the all-time worst writing job I’ve ever seen; the earnest, wholesome and chatty veneer is the blood-curdling icing on the – sorry – cake.

                  Hair Care Down There Magazine

Hair Care Down There, y

                 Seriously, a magazine about pubic hair care. Quotes:

                  We’re pleased you’re joining the growing number of women (and men) who realize that good grooming includes the previously ignored area “down there’s not just about hygiene either.
                  It’s about feeling good about ourselves and having fun in the process.

                  [one has to wonder about their idea of “fun,” really]

                  Where do you go when you have a question about shaving, or you want to share your own hysterical story? [totally; nothing goes together like pubes, razors and hysteria!] Right here! Our writers and editors are working around the clock to dig up any and every bit of information regarding – what else – Hair Care Down There.

                  [“Dig” winner, most unfortunate image deployment, 2005]

                  Why we do it. How to do it better. Who’s doing what. And more.
                  Articles, Q&A’s, tips and a place to swap ideas, all updated the minute we unearth something new. We value and welcome your suggestions and contributions and we invite you to visit often.

                  [if I unearth something new down there I go see a doctor!]
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mini matters

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My friend Sandy is great. The most outgoing person you’ll ever meet who isn’t annoying, she’s the kind of person who was born with invisible pom-poms in one hand and an invisible Martini in the other: half Noel Coward and half Barbie.I was in her store a few months back, and she was telling me how much she was looking forward to getting her car paid off, ticking off the days on the calendar until FREE CAR DAY. Her eyes sparkled, even though they had glitter on the lids they sparkled from the eye part, the Sandy part, and although the glitter still sparkled it looked dull compared to the Sandy sparkle. And it was last year’s colours anyway.So a couple of months later I go back to the store. I generally don’t go so often, as I have little money with which to make purchases there, which is sort of why the store is there and why Sandy in particular is there, to sell stuff, which she rarely succeeds in doing to me, but then no-one does, much of ever.So back to the store I go, even though I still do not have any money. And there she is, Miss Yaletown, sparkling fit to beat the band, whatever the hell that means.“What’s up Sandy?”

“I just bought a new car!”

“Oh?”

“Actually, I just bought two of them.”

“Oh?”

“Well, my brother wanted a car for grad [I got a pen for mine] and the bus was not on with me, not after the first couple of times.”

“The Hastings?”

“You got it. Even the Davie. I’d just had enough, so I talked to my Dad and we thought we would get, like, a bulk discount if we bought two of the same car, one for me and one for Paul. He doesn’t care what kind of car he gets, anything I’d drive is good enough for him ’cause he doesn’t know what people in the Big City drive and he knows I’ve got that covered. I went next door, to the Mini dealership, and bought two. They were like, Sandy, don’t you want to take one for a drive first? Nope, I know what I want. I want a red one.”

Who could argue with that? The car has some powerful magical mojo; she was downtown today, doing makeup at a posh wedding, at a posh hotel, and as soon as she arrived she realized she’d forgotten her wallet. People in Vancouver don’t keep parking meter cash in their cars; well, dumb ones do, and they can never figure out how their windows get broken so often…anyway, she had not a sou. Couldn’t use the valet parking in case they paid by cheque and she couldn’t cash it in time. She was stuck.

But there was a spot right out front. She grabbed it, city-honed reflexes in control. She sprang from her Mini to the lobby, from the lobby to the elevator, from the elevator to the hallway, to the suite, to the bride herself, for whom she recited the tale (in doubletime) and from whom she begged a toonie. Out of the suite, into the hall, into the elevator, into the lobby, onto the sidewalk (doorman only just got the glass door in time) and thrust the toonie into the parking meter. It gave her an hour.

The job took two.

The bride tipped her $45, which she figured would pay for her parking ticket and enough for lunch. Back she went, out of the suite, into the hall, into the elevator, into the lobby, onto the sidewalk in front of the hotel, and there she saw it.

A piece of paper, tucked carefully under her windshield wiper. Picking her heart out of her shoes, she sulked her way over to the offensive scrap and wrenched it from her precious car. It read:

I put some money in your meter because my wife has a Mini just like this.

A friend

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Vancouver see wall

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from the archive, but it could have been written tonight for that matter.

As I slump here in front of my blue, glowing screen, coughing like Tuberculosis Mary, occasionally wiping mysterious dots of liquid off the monitor (even though they sure are purty with the little rainbows around the edges) and with, apparently, no lining left in my throat at all, I remember the good old days.Like last month.When I could still get outside and go for a skate. Sometimes I encounter something that gives me faith in civilization, and the Vancouver Seawall is one of those things. Other times I stare out at crowds and think just look at them all walking on their hind legs like that but that’s a story for another day. Like I said, the Seawall I like. Especially now that I can get to it within five minutes, three if the lights are right.One of the best things about living on the Downtown EastSide is the fine sense of proportion developed by the cops. It’s technically illegal to rollerblade down a major road, or ANY sidewalk, let alone skate down Main Street itself right past the Cop Shop and Court House with an off-leash collie trucking along the sidewalk, pacing you. Once I was spotted by a total keener of a cop who gave me a disgusted look and signaled me over to the sidewalk, no doubt to give me a thick sheaf of tickets, so I thought, as I often do, let’s see if showing off will do us any good. I skated slowly over and as I did I said to the dog, “Lady, left side,” and the dog obediently went to the left side of the sidewalk. I said, “Lady, right side,” and the dog obediently got up and went to the right side of the sidewalk. I said, “Lady, middle,” and the dog went to the middle of the sidewalk and stood there looking up at the cop with her big innocent brown eyes. I refer to the collie, you understand. The cop gave me an even more disgusted look and waved us away. Face it, your run of the mill Border Collie is probably smarter than Jamie Graham. Not to mention they have bigger fish to fry in this neighborhood.From my house you can get to Waterfront Road easily, and follow that under Canada Place till it joins up with the new part of the Seawall, between there and Stanley Park. There’s half a dead rat on the road right beside Crab Park, but it’s flat enough you can skate right over it. Or you can go the other way, onto the old Indy track and join up with the Seawall at Science World; that’s nice, because then you can go the south route to Granville Island or head to Stanley Park again from the other side, only instead of passing through pancaked, dried rats you get to go through Yaletown. I for one always enjoy the sight of mountain bikes that cost more than a year’s housing and get a cheap laugh out of Porche SUV’s, especially when used to ferry a 95 pound woman. Some jokes stay funny, you know what I’m telling you?

Once, I was skating through Yaletown by the playing fields, skiing a little bit on the downhills and getting a great bang out of the experience now that I was pretty good, feeling all Malibu Barbie in my pink flowered Pucci-style Victoria’s Secret Miracle Bikini, and I passed a couple of guys skating the other way. They turned and stared. One said to the other, “Now you see why this is better than ice skating?”

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the return of the whistler in darkness

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from the Archive, and you should read THIS first. I mean, you can go ahead and read this one first instead, but that’s probably only your best option if you enjoy being confused and experiencing the futility of busted and ersatz suspense. In which case you should be reading Ionesco and leaving me the hell alone.

I have cracked the mystery of Screamer, Screamer 2.0, Yeller and Whoo!It’s all the fault of indie music. That rock an’ roll gits the blood ta boilin’ and the youngun’s git up ta all kinda mischief.Pat’s Pub in the Patricia Hotel now features the few local bands who do not actually suck. They’ve even made it into the Georgia Straight, twice. That’s lovely. Vancouver needs good local music groups. Vancouver does not need groups of incoherent yet voluble and active drunks spilling out onto the street at 2am. Face it, if they’re loud enough that the locals in this locale are complaining, they’re just too damn loud.

Patricia, sweetie darling, could you maybe get them a room or something? You always prided yourself on being the only respectable hotel on the Downtown EastSide, so why not live up to that? How about having your bouncers follow them and smack them around a little bit when they start with the Whoo, Scream, Scream, and Yell? Is that too much to ask? Wait, let me help you…

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the whistler in darkness

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from the Archive

The first few nights I thought he was trying to flag a cab. Then I thought he was trying to flag a hooker. Then I thought he was keeping six, and this was a more subtle form of yelling “Cheez it!” when the cops turned up. Still don’t know, but it’s damn annoying.

There’s a whistler in this town, and he comes out after midnight. If this were the Scottish moors he could call a collie a mile away; this is the kind of whistle that passes through stone and steel and my bedroom window as if they weren’t there. He sounds off about once every 90 seconds, for couple of hours, and downpours do not deter him. Sometimes there are bursts of whistles, sometimes just one. The bursts are not musical, just the same rising note, a nonverbal questionmark. I wonder what the question is.

The screamers are back. Tonight, there were two: a man and a woman, and a yeller, all going at once, having, to all appearances or accoustances, a grand old time, screaming and screaming and yelling. Yeller isn’t angry, just loud enough that I can hear him a block over, and he yells alot. Some day instead of tuning him out I’m going to listen to it. I’ll either be bored or forced to testify: guess which is more likely!

And then there is Whoo! Whoo! (not to be confused with John Woo, the Hong Kong phenom of film) Whoo! is a guy whose vocabulary has been reduced to a single word, the aforementioned “Whoo!” and a single volume setting, maximum. Foreigner was playing in town recently, and Supertramp is coming, so maybe he’s just reliving the glory days of rock, when your Bic lighter and your Black Sabbath T-shirt were all you needed for a party. It’s nice to hear someone having such a good time in the neighborhood, but if I get him in a dark alley I’m going to…tell the junkies the cops might investigate all that noise…and then I’ll just walk away. No fingerprints.

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