Hour TBD

Do you ever take your clothes to a 1-hour dry cleaner? There should be a disclaimer on the sign saying "1-Hour Dry Cleaning* but we pick which hour.

Every time I try to get my clothes cleaned in an hour, there are a billion reasons why I can't have it. Like:

"Sorry, you have to drop your clothes off before 7 to get the 1-hour service."
"But you open at 7:30."
"Are you here to get your clothes cleaned or to make excuses?"

Dry cleaners are some of the funniest people in the world.

Dog Walking 101

Now that it's warming up and people are getting their dogs out again (See previous post), it's time for a few reminders.

1. If your dog doesn't come when you call, your dog should be on a leash.
2. If your dog is aggressive towards other dogs, your dog should be on a leash.
3. If your dog is aggressive towards people, your dog should be on a leash.
4. If your dog will steal from people's picnics, your dog should be on a leash.
5. If you are walking a dog, YOUR DOG SHOULD BE ON A LEASH!

That about sums it up.

Overheard on a bus

Taking the bus offers so many great eavesdropping opportunities. Like the day I heard a couple of young kids discussing what they had learned in Social Studies class recently.

"The girls in that religion, they have to wear, you know, vials on their head."

I laughed so hard I almost cried. I could just picture women from some strange religion walking around with vials and beakers and other lab equipment on their heads. I guess their religion really values good posture and balance.

Learning should be fun

Jodi likes to watch a few shows on TLC. The Learning Channel. Learning? What do TLC viewers learn? Well, the educators from "What Not to Wear" teach us the important lesson that if you do not spend $5,000 each season to change your entire wardrobe then you are a bad person.

The only time I change my wardrobe is when I gain weight. Which, according to TLC's "I Can Make You Thin" also makes me a bad person.

So, to review: TLC is educational; Lloyd is bad. The truth hurts.

Small Business

I noticed there is a bookstore at Lawrence and Victoria Park in Scarborough, run by the Canadian Bible Society, called "The Bible Store." That must be the world's smallest store. A store with only one product.

Imagine if they started doing that for every book. Instead of big box bookstores, you could just have little stores, each specializing in just one title. There would be "The Cat in the Hat Store" or "The Archie Double Digest Volume 163 Store."

We'd be over run with tiny bookstores. I don't think it's going to catch on.

Reverse Psychology Protesting

I read in the newspaper this morning about protestors in Edmonton, protesting against a coal gasification project near the city. They assembled in front of City Hall for their demonstration, in which they used origami paper geese to call attention to the effect the project might have on migratory birds.

Environmental protestors using thousands of sheets of paper to prove a point? Killing trees to save trees? This could revolutionize the protest industry. Some ways in which this new protest method could be put to use by other groups:

-Right-to-lifers arranging to have their members all have public abortions to draw attention to the plight of the fetus.

-Civil rights demonstrators organizing their protestors in an orderly fashion by race, religion, gender and sexuality to point out the plight of minorities.

-Anti-war protestors opening fire on women and children to show how destructive war is.

-Protestors at the G8 meetings outsourcing their protest to India for wages well below the poverty line.

I think this new reverse psychology protesting will be very exciting. Thank you, Edmonton protestors for this fun new trend you have started.

Next Stop: Snarfle Marfle

I imagine that every successful job interview for a bus/subway/streetcar driver with the Toronto Transit Commission goes like this:
"Can you call out the stops with a mouthful of ball bearings?"
"Yes, of course."
"You're hired."

But the sign says...

Her - "Welcome to The Everything for a Dollar Store!"
Me - "Thanks. I'll take everything in the store. Here's your dollar."
Her - "?"

Hairspray, Part 2

Speaking of hairspray, is anyone on the planet actually attracted to hair that looks like it would break if you touched it?

Hairspray

I haven't used hair spray since my high school prom, so I'm not exactly a hair spray expert. But I imagine that in the production of hair spray, all sorts of horrible things happen to the environment. There has to be stuff in hair spray that will make its way into the water and eventually end up in polar bears' livers.

If the kids who take the same bus as me in the morning would just cut back on their hair spray use by 50%, I imagine they would single-handedly be responsible for stopping global worming.

And my bus wouldn't stink of hairspray anymore.

Stop Picking on Scarborough

Like on most public busses, the Toronto Transit Commission's busses have little digital signs that say the route number and where it is going. For instance, every morning on the way to work, I catch a bus on Brimley Road that says "21 Brimley to Scarborough Centre" or something like that.

But there is one bus in particular that makes me laugh every time I see it. It is the 86. It just says "86 Scarborough" on the front. It sounds like the route number and name were decided by someone who really hates Scarborough.



I say, leave Scarborough alone. And 86 that bus instead.

Can you save me now?

Telus is always advertising their cell phones by showing fish swimming around them. I don't get it. Does Telus offer waterproof phones? That would actually be pretty good for me, because I can't swim, so if I fall off a boat, I could call 911.

"911, what is the emergency?"
"Glub bla fffet glub"
"Is this some kind of joke?"
"Glub bbb ffllb."
"Damn, I hate those new Telus phones."

Time

A sign outside the Color Your World store on Lawerence Ave E in Scarborough:

"Help wanted - Trade Division. 30-40 hours."

My first thought: 30-40 hours is not nearly enough notice for most people.

Shut-in

There is a condo building at the corner of Brimley & Ellesmere in Scarborough with a sign on the front door that says "Please leave door closed at all times."

So, why have a door? How do those people get home? And when they find a way in, are they stuck?

Butt why?

The big sign at the front of the bus that says "Please exit at the rear doors" is clearly too complex for most bus riders to understand.

How hard it it to understand that the whole bus riding process will go much smoother if you get off at the back while people get on at the front? It's very simple physics. Everytime you get off at the front, you slow down the whole bus trip for the rest of us by slowing down the people who are trying to get on. Why do you do this?

I think it comes down to how sexually repressed we still are. Do people really think that it will make them look bad if people see that they enjoy getting off at the back door?

Poor little jocks

Have you seen the commercial on TV for the Olympics that has a bunch of kids saying things like "I'm not a loser" or "I'm not a loner" in several languages. Then they all start saying "I'm an athelete" like you can't possibly be both.

(If you don't recognize the commercial, go to olympic.org and click on "The Best of Us"in tbe multimedia gallery in the top right.)

What kind of jock nonsense is this? I always expect the next line to be "so go find a fat kid to call names and leave the jocks alone. Faggot."

Standing In The Way Wins The Race

Why does everyone on the bus bunch up at the front?
1. Get on the bus
2. See a spot to stand near the door
3. Take that spot and refuse to move, even if you are blocking the way of people who get on the bus after you
4. This way, when the bus gets to your stop, you'll be the first to arrive, at least 0.25 seconds before the suckers at the back!
5. Spend the rest of the day feeling proud of yourself for your incredible time-saving efforts this morning.

Bus rules

When somebody farts on a crowded bus, and you're looking around, trying to figure out who is acting so casual that it's obvious that they are the farter, everyone sees you looking around so much and figures that you're looking around to see if anyone noticed that you farted.

Rules of the bus

TTC Rule #726: The more people that there are standing up on the bus, the harder the driver must slam on the brakes at every stop.

We gotcha back

There has been a series of ads running on Toronto Transit Commission busses all about why you shouldn't be mean to TTC employees. The headline is "We Stand Behind Our TTC Employees."

I couldn't read the small print, so I spent a ride to work one day, coming up with possible examples for the next line in the ad:

...so they block your punches
...because they can take a hit better than us
...so we can catch them when you punch them out
...so we can hold them while you pop them in the mouth.

*Note, I neither approve of, nor encourage violence against bus drivers. But I can sometimes see why it happens.

Thoughts from the bus

Nothing says "I'm a lush and don't care who knows it" like sending your 12-year old to school with their books in a liquor store bag.