Lost Photos

Computers are great until the stop working. My mini disaster happened when I was updating your favourite holiday blog. I removed the memory card from Amy's camera with all our flight pics; including some beautiful pics of Halifax's bridges. I slid the card into the card slot on Meggan's computer, or at least the slot where I thought it was supposed to go. Too late did I realize the card was too small for the hole. It slid down too far and I couldn't get a good grip.

We tried everything to get it out; including taking the laptop apart. In the end Quintin had to take it in. The card was removed, but both, laptop and card, were damaged in the process. New pics to be uploaded soon.

Moscow Airport

After flying 4744 miles at 3300 feet, doing 700 miles/hr. we landed in Moscow. In the middle of nowhere Moscow, but Moscow none the less. Customs was effortless, breathing however was a little harder. Not every country appreciates smoke free atmospheres.

Nor do they believe in soft toilet paper. The bathrooms reminded me of the Palace washrooms. Instead, replace the soap guy with a cleaning lady. She remained in the bathroom cleaning the toilet as soon as you were done. She was so concerned about keeping the place clean, I think she confused the paper towel for toilet paper.

We were hoping to buy some good Russian vodka. But, a nice Russian working at the duty free shop informed us we were only allowed 100ml on the plane with us. They sold nothing that small.

This explains Stallone's slurred speech. Boy looks good though.

After roaming around the handful of duty free shops, that all looked the same, for 5 hours, it was time to go. We got to take a bus to our plane, so I can at least say I breathed the Moscow air. The bus was crowded, but there was still enough room for a Jaws look alike. No, not the shark. The metal teeth wonder from James Bond. He was sitting next to us, looking unimpressed as usual, no doubt on his way to some dessert location to star in the next James Bond movie.

AeroFlot: The Bermuda Triangle of Service

It all started to go to hell when our flight "attendant", Oleg, told us wine would be $4.50. Amy had improved my dread of our 7 hour flight from Toronto to Moscow by telling me of the FREE liqour on our international flight. When Oleg told us in his broken English of the charge recharged my dread. We dug around in our pockets (Amy's, not mine... we all know substitutes have no money) while Amy recaped her travel history including over 30 international flights; all of which included free liquor.

If you are young, attractive, well-educated, speaking foreign language, diligent, and communicative we can offer You an air steward placement.

While Amy desperatly searched for loose change, I noticed there was no TV in front of me. Instead, a 15" screen was located on the ceiling 5 rows ahead. More dread. I dug out my noise reduction headphones and pluged them into the jack, wiggled them several times and tunned into the feature film; a 1970 movie in Russian with English subtitles as big as 12 font Airal; not bolded. I'm not entirely sure what the movie was about, but it played 3 times, back to back... just in case you missed one of those little subtitles.

Amy managed to scrounge up $5 in change (a toonie and 3 loonies). She waited excitedly for our "attendant" to return hoping for a Russian wine she had never heard about. The food cart was coming down the aisle; at least we were going to be fed. Olev, clearly Oleg's sister, told us there was no more choice. We were going to have fish for dinner. All be it, salmon cooked 3 different ways; smoked, steamed and baked. Amy asked for white wine, repeated herself several times and then was informed that the airline only accepted paper money. We must have missed that in the fine print. Olev pointed to Amy's colourful Canadian money with the harmless loon and soon to be endangered Polar Bear and we basfully pocketed the useless money.

While we ate, people kept walking by carefully caryring their own empty food trays to the back. They appear to be to be unphased. As if they've flown this airline many times and have long since accepted its shortcomings.

The flight isn't all that bad. Besides Amy there are 3 other good looking girls. Yes, what a pig I am. I like to people watch. Attractive girls are just more enjoyable to watch. Blondie has a PSP I desperately want (the PSP that is) She appears to be travelling with her brother--I hope--and her sister. Another Russian is behind us stretched out over 3 empty seats behind us. She looks as though she could possibly be an internet porn star, or at least a mail order bride gone wrong. Neither of these people are interesting to watch. More interestingly, a mother and her 3 children were ahead of us. Her husband looked rich and twice her age, but I'm not one to judge. She obviously is hte enforcer of the couple and I enjoy myself watch her try to get kids, who don't appear to be hers, behave.

The loud guy behind me who, until now, consistantly gossiped about office politics, is snoring loudly. People around him giggle and make eyes. I wish I had a permanent marker.

Dubai! See You Next Year!

Some of you have negative opinions of Blogging and Facebook. I generally share in these opinions; I'm usually leading the charge. Cleary this blog and continuous Facebook stalking contestant my hypocrisy. And I'm ok with that.
Amy and I are spending the holidays in Dubai. Blogging about our adventures will keep you all up to date the lazy way and allows me an outlet for my travelling frustrations.

Stay tunned.
KAZ

March Break

I wake up to the morning sun beating down on my face, 'causing me to squint. There's a slight breeze sneaking through my cracked window. I roll onto my back, stretch and finish the roll out of bed. I stumble to the kitchen and try to catch what time it is while rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Wow. 11:00 already. I feel a little bit of guilt for not being as productive as I should be, but only a little. I poor my favourite cereal and plop myself down in front of the TV to watch what's being passed off as cartoons these days. I find Inspector Gadget and settle in. No, it's not the weekend. It's MARCH BREAK!

I'm writing this for the simple, yet emense pleasure to piss off all you suckers who picked a 9 to 5 job that makes you get up 6 days a week while looking forward to the brief vacation you'll get. I write this to annoy all those who foundly remember the weekends, holidays, snow days and, of course, summer vacation. You poor, poor people who have entered the "real world".

You can whine and complain about the time off, the short work days and shorter weeks. I wont deny any of it. I knew full well what I wanted. Hell, I even told them in the interview I wanted to teach so I can watch Saturday morning cartoons. But, you all went to school. All of you know how school works. It's not my fault your teachers did a good job inspiring you to be successfull and you went and got one of those "real life" jobs. The teaching opportunity was there for all of you, you just decided otherwise.

I'm not going to debate teachers' pay, our work load, or the apparent stress--I don't have any stress, I get weekends off. I'm not going to justify, or criticize our time off. You'll never hear me complain about our pay, the kids, or the parents. That said, I could tell you stories that will leave you shaking your heads and questioning whether you should have kids.

Oh, Inspector Gadget, you clown; you'll never catch Dr. Claw!

To those who disagree with the "perks" teachers recieve, there's still time for a career change. Two more years in university would go by fast. Take that pay cut and start working for $38 grand a year. The summer sun misses you!

Facebook. It Has Come to This

Long before Facebook, MySpace, and Window's Live Messenger there was the "Uh-oh" of ICQ. Then there was msn; a program people continue to use to often complain about their life, publish their most recent Soap Oprah, how drunk they were last night, or profess their undying love for someone/something. This idea of expressing ones' self with emoticons and profile pics lead to a slew of friend networks such as Hi5, or FaceBox. Microsoft wanted a piece of the action, so they came up with MySpace. Eventually, the friends network known as Facebook emerged and flooded my hotmail account with emails from people I already rarely talk to on msn.

It seems to me the majority of people add absolutely anybody they recognize to their facebook. I log into hotmail fully expecting to see at least 4 or 5 facebook emails--even if I've checked my account just a couple of hours ago--I proceed to facebook hoping a friend has left me a funny comment, or perhaps that girl I had a crush on back in High School has excepted my friend request (who I found through long hours of searching and feeling slightly like a stalker) But, no. It's more often someone I met breifly, or somone I haven't talked to in years. Facebook is contageous, addictive, and too cluttered when I have Joe-Blow filling up my wall with "Hey, what's up?", inviting me to ridiculous groups, and telling the world what religious revelations they've recently experienced while jerking off.

People, you have to wonder why you haven't spoken with someone in years. Maybe our personalities clash. Maybe I hit on your sister, or maybe even your mother (anything goes these days). Maybe you're a tool and have yet to realize it. I don't want these people on facebook and I certainly don't want to be on yours.
Then you have to consider how close you are to the person you're inviting. Facebook can get pretty personal. Compramising pictures and stories can surface at thee most inconvient of times. Keep the socially inconsiderate off of your facebook, they'll tarnish the image you've worked so hard to create. I'm keeping facebook limited to my friends I have spread across the world. I'm keeping facebook to those who I've spent more than just a couple of minutes chatting with, or a random drunken night when you lost your real friends and had to hang out with some clown.

I don't mean to be rude. Friend networking is great. It introduces you to women who might otherwise would never have talked to you and people who might be able to get you a sweet job. But honestly, does everyone need to know everyone? It's already hard enough to go out in Halifax and not worry about running into someone who will ruin your night by bringing up a part of your past you've tried to escape. Or, some socially annoying busy body who wants to hang out because they're on your facebook.

Cheers
KAZ

McKid dispute

For the record, I hate commercials. They’re horribly written, poorly cast and down right stupid ideas. Full of unintelligent catch phrases and jingles that get stuck in your head. The only good commercial McDicks has ever had were the adventures of Ronald himself, staring the Burgler, Grimace, the bird and those little fry people with legs. Too bad they were cancelled because of the obese youth. You can blame that one entirely on the parents.

When the “Corn-a-copia of awesomeness” flew out of the mouth of the casted typical teenager (braces, slightly tilted hat, rat-stash, poor excuse for sideburns) the first words that flew out of mine were “shut the hell up!” I didn’t consider if it was scripted, or if McKid came up with it on his own; it was a catch phrase and a poor one at that.

J-Dubb has won the King of Wit and Sarcasm title many times over (not to mention the Spiteful heavy weight belt as well). It’s foolish attempting to get out of this using excuses like I was only acting; I don’t really talk like that. Or, I made some money doing it. J-Dubb will eat you like a Quarter Pounder hung over on Sunday.

The point is this McKid, you either thought long and hard about your punch line, it just popped into your head and slid out of your mouth, or it was scripted. Chances are it wasn’t scripted because you haven’t used that as an excuse (which would have been mine). No, I think McDonalds went out looking to “reach” all ages and genders with their Oscar winning commercial and they needed a teenager. Tell me, McKid (I’ll never get tired of that name. Thank you to whoever came up with it) was there a casting call on 94.9 that you answered because you fit the typical screwed up teenage youth of today? Did you get your “acting” resume together and saunter to the audition wearing your tilted hat and best clothes? Naw, I bet you were actually in McDonalds eating that shit when they approached you explaining what they were doing and asked if you wanted to say a few words for some cash and a free meal. No cue cards. No script. No prompting.

They told you to be yourself. So, you slouched there and started to speak in what could only be described as Cape Breton dialect. How bleak our future is if that’s the best use of the English language an educated teenager can come up with. Yes, educated. I’m sure you go to school, or at least went to school.

People are pleading J-Dubb and his court of jesters not to attack Cape Breton with stereotypes. Yet, there you are on national TV (it’s probably been translated into Chinese by now) and plastered on the internet (http://onegiganticcornucopiaofawesomeness.ytmnd.com) “acting out”—or faking as your “friend” Steven says—those stereotypes; not to mention the stereotypes portraying your fellow teenagers as ignorant, unhealthy punks.

So, you see? You’re an idiot if you claim you were acting like a “typical” Cape Bretoner and you’re an idiot if you claim you were being yourself because it was such an unintelligent use of English language (simply put, it was a dumb thing to say). Either way McKid, you are a McMoron.

-KAZ