Iceberglandia

It is time for me to start planning my summer vacation to Mexico. I haven’t seen my daughter in a year, and I want to change that.

Upon planning a trip, I guess the first step would be to find out when you are traveling, so you can notify your employers in advance. Which leads me to today’s little misadventure.

I’ve always flown (either from Buffalo, NY or Toronto) into Brownsville or McAllen, TX, and then moved by bus, because traditionally, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper. Like, a few hundred dollars cheaper. I think the most expensive flight I’ve taken was from Toronto to McAllen last summer, and if memory serves me, I paid 641.00 CDN.

Which is why, today, I am in awe. Check this out. From Travelocity.com:

and

Apparently, it costs about the same to fly to both places. At least when you see the starting price. For a mere 23 dollar difference, I’m better off flying into Monterrey. Saves me the 50 dollar cab ride across the border, and hey, my bags might arrive with me!
Now let’s see what Expedia.ca has to say:

and

Holy fuck! Now, it turns out, it’s even cheaper less expensive to fly to Monterrey than to McAllen! Cool!  Count me in!
But, wait a minute… isn’t it cheaper to purchase tickets directly from the airline itself?

Um… nevermind. That was Mexicana, by the way. Let’s see my buddies over at Continental.

Shit, now I’m confused. Good thing I’m not purchasing right away. Now, these prices can change. A lot. I hope they change in my favour.
I remember flying in December for less than 500 bucks. Hell, the cheapest flight was around 360. And now, look at these prices! Stupid oil. I might end up riding my bike all the way to Mexico if I go in December…

But, wait! I just found out today that my ex’wife isn’t sending my daughter to my hometown, AGAIN. So why bother traveling? Oh, yeah. This time, if I don’t see my daughter, I’m raising hell.

The Iceberg.

I always aim to please. And help. Today, I’m going to save an hour and a half of your life I wouldn’t want you to waste. An hour and a half better spent organizing your sock drawer, cooking a meal for your significant other, dusting your bookshelves, or whatever. It’s very easy:

Don’t watch “One Missed Call”.

What a stupid movie. What bad acting. What a dumb plot. What annoying delivery. I hate myself even more for having watched it.

The Iceberg.

Once again, I find myself with the conundrum of finding a place to live. It’s not that I was kicked out, or anything. My landlord is bringing his parents from El Salvador, and well, he wants them to live with him.

I can understand that, and I appreciate the fact that he at least gave me enough notice. But for me, it sucks.
On one hand, I guess this place is the nicest I’ve had, so it’ll be a sad moment when I pack and move. On the other, moving right out pisses me off. Not only the actual hauling of boxes upon boxes of stuff (ok, ok, I don’t have that much stuff), but all of the intangibles that revolve around moving.

Where am I going? How far from work? How far from a supermarket, a laundromat, an LCBO? What will my neighbors be like? How noisy, nosy, smelly, clean/dirty will they be? Will I wake every day to the tune of dumbass kids playing hockey, or some chump that rides his motorcycle to work AT 7 IN THE FUCKING MORNING? Will they be alcoholics, drug addicts, gang members, or Christian fanatics? Will I be able to smoke in my new place (to tell you the truth, I hope not – I’ve found I smoke a lot less since I moved in here)? Will I be able to have a pet? Will there be a big enough kitchen? A place for my bike? Will the shower provide a decent stream, or a mere trickle?

I’ll find out soon enough, I guess.

Oh, another thing I hate about moving: notifying everybody and their mothers of my new address. The bank, the government, the idiots at Bell and Rogers, family, friends…

Such is the life of a nomad.

The Iceberg.

Believe me, I’m not a prude, or a person who scares easily. But as of this moment, I feel like one of those fundamentalist christians upon discovering that Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a dove. I have lost all hope for humanity.

No, let me rephrase that. I lost hope for humanity years ago. Why couldn’t I have been born (or hatched) into a different species? A cat, a rat, a bat, a gnat… something other than a human being?

Flipping through the channels on my TV, I stumbled upon a promo for an upcoming show. I was in awe. Not the good kind.

See, there’s this new show called “Hurl”. According to the promo, the object of the show is this:

A group of contestants eat a lot of food. Competitive eating amounts. Then, they climb onto this contraption that spins them around in circles. The last one to puke, wins!

To each their own, I guess, but if your idea of television entertainment is watching people vomit, chances are I don’t want to be associated with you. On any level.

The Iceberg.

I have been riding my bike, in whichever of its three inceptions (be it the one I borrowed from my brother-in-law, the 20 dollar towel hanger, or my current one) on and off for two years now. I’ve ridden through sunshine, thunderstorms, pouring rain and winter winds. I’ve ridden uphill with two flat tires, I’ve crossed major intersections with the chain hanging out, I’ve lost my breath, I’ve had my shoelaces caught up in the stupid cog, and I’ve had my foot slip from the pedal at pivotal “pedaling” times. I’ve had rocks thrown at me (by a quartet of drunken fucks who, lucky for them, missed me), I’ve arrived at work so fucking hungover I didn’t even lock the bike to the rack (only once – this past monday) and I’ve even ridden home with a variety of “odd” packages: a pizza, a couple of supermarket bags…
I’ve never fallen of the fucker, that’s a plus. But despite all my previous rides, including that bike trip from Fergus to Elora (and back) when I was still fat and out of shape, I’ve never felt so much revolting hatred for my means of transportation as today’s trip to work.

The fact that it’s barely spring, I’ve only had the bike for a couple of weeks, and in a way I’m still not a hundred percent plays no factor in this – the rest of the week, I managed fine (even Tuesday, when I got sprinkled by rain). It was the wind. And that fucking gigantic physics-defying insect.

Wind, for the average pedestrian, is at most, annoying. For the average sailor, it is a blessing. But for someone on a fucking bike, it can be hell. I swear, by the time I got to work I could have sworn I rode all the way from Chicago. I guess I had every God in Olympus, Valhalla and,,, well, wherever else gods meet cheering for me, because I cannot summon a decent explanation for how I made it up that hill.

Of course, the stupid iPod Shuffle didn’t help one bit. When I only had my classic, I could make folders, playlists and whatnot. Depending on my mood, I could either decide upon death metal, alternative rock, a podcast or two, or fuck… 80’s mexican pop sung by chicks with no talent, if I so decided to. But with the shuffle, there is no such privilege.
While ideally, when biking up that hill, a heavier song pumps me up (in a perfect world, Pantera’s “Stronger Than All”, or stuff like that), the idiot Silver Shuffle had other plans for me. As I pedalled my soul out uphill, straining in each passing second to maintain at least a minimum grasp of the real world, all I could hear was “plant a little seed, and soon it starts growing….” Of course it’s not as much Apple Inc’s fault as it is mine, for throwing Collective Soul into the mix, but it’s the irony that gets me. It’s one of the few non-metal songs I have in there, for now.

Not five minutes after making it up that fucking hill, I’m desperately trying to make it to the next traffic light, almost praying that I’ll get a red light so I can catch my breath (which, of course, on this particular day, NEVER happened), when from the corner of my peripheral vision I catch a glimpse of some giant fucking thing that’s flying full speed into me.

If you’ve read this blog enough, you’ve probably figured out that luck and irony have formed a pretty strong tag team against me. So, if you watch music videos frequently enough, you’ll know which song was playing when that dumb bumblebee hit my adam’s apple*.
Fuck, did it hurt.

I finally made it to work. As I locked up the bike, I swore to myself I’d get a car. Soon.

*Blind Melon, “No Rain”

The Iceberg.

Two weeks ago, we were told at work that we would, in fact, be enjoying the long weekend with the rest of Canada.
This was repeated to us two days ago, even.

But that would’ve been just too good, now, wouldn’t it?

Yesterday I was asked to come in on saturday. I don’t mind, really. I mean, after all, I still get two days off, something I’m not entirely used to. Plus, one of the days off, the monday, I’ll be getting paid. Picture that! I’m going to get paid to get drunk. I wish I could make a carreer out of that.

The Iceberg.

It’s not that I’m whining. I was just thinking about it and decided to create a post about it. I just hate being incommunicated with people from back home, not because communication is impossible, but because it doesn’t cross people’s minds to do so.

Of course I’m generalizing here, but to a great extent, and if I were to show you my ‘Personal’ and my ‘Deleted Items’ folders you’d believe me.
This is the not-so-broad scope of utility people from Ciudad Victoria find for internet communications:

eMail
To most people, it is the most delightful, the most compelling and the most rewarding (and, sadly, their only use for eMail) experience in the world upon finding themselves with a Hotmail account, to be forwarding utter shit. From their innermost belief that Bill Gates is indeed giving out millions of dollars to whoever forwards a fucking eMail, to stupid optimistic/religious/philosophical ponderings and life lessons created (rather shittily, I might add) with Microsoft PowerPoint, to the insanely absurd “chain letter” style shit that begs of me to send it to everyone on my contact list, lest a pox fall on me.
No, they hardly ever bother to drop a line, you know, to actually communicate with me. Like a fucking “hey, what’s up!”.
Of course, I stopped doing the same a long while ago. Why bother? When I did it, people were too busy planning their retirement with the millions they’d get from Microsoft.

MSN
I already ranted a lot about MSN a few weeks back. I deleted a whole bunch of shitbags that were only taking up space, and to be honest, I feel like deleting even more.
If people lack the basic etiquette of responding to a simple “hello”, or pretend they’re busy every waking moment (oh yeah? are you on the brink of ending world hunger, you glorified clerk?), or if the simple fact that they have tits makes them be “choosy” about who to talk with, fuck’em.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand that at times people are too busy. But, all the fucking time? Like, on a fucking sunday night? Then why bother to log on?

Phone
Yes, we all grew up afraid of the telephone. No, dummy, we didn’t cower in fear at the sight of one, what I mean is that since children, it was ingrained in our minds that long distance calls were expensive.
But times, they do change. For example, I used to buy long distance cards to call Mexico. One of the better deals was a little card called “Good Call” (and I mean a better deal, rate-wise. The service was shittier than, well, shit). Then I bought my new cell, and signed up for a LD savings plan. For 7 bucks a month, I can call Mexico for I think 5 cents a minute.
And the same thing happens from Mexico to Canada. Both of the leading cell phone companies in Mexico (Telcel and Movistar) have nifty little LD calling plans. For example, Telcel offers you the possibility of making a 20-minute call to anywhere in the US or Canada, for the equivalent of two dollars. Movistar has the same thingie, but 30 minutes, and 13 pesos. Shittier signal, but still.
On occasion, I’ve felt like calling up my buddies, but judging by how eternally occupied they make themselves out to be, I’d hate to interrupt their World Peace Summit.

A few exceptions
I guess all it takes to become communications-literate is to leave the aforementioned Ciudad Victoria.
My ex-wife suddenly became an expert in what eMails are supposed to be for: Personal communication. Sadly, all of her eMails are a carbon copy of eachother, and on a monthly basis: “Send me money”.
The two friends I talk to the most (via MSN) are not in that city anymore. Of course, one of them is of the variety that prefers to ‘impress’ me by saying he’ll be back later, he has an important call. On sunday night, at 2 AM. Oh, sorry to bother you, dipshit, who is it, TOKYO?

On a side note, what’s with people’s obsession with fucking cell phones? Despite being too cheap/”busy” to actually use them, every time I go back home I see everyone carrying around at least 3 different phones. I guess they think it gives them “status”. I agree. It gives them the “status” of “idiots”. Especially those clowns with three cellphones and a Nextel walkie-talkie thingie.
I can understand some exceptions. But generally speaking, fuck, I thought I felt stupid by having a home phone and a cell.

In closing, I repeat I’m not whining if people believe they have “moved on” and have no use for an ex-acquaintance who now lives far, far away. But hey, just do the decent thing and delete me from your account. It saves me from creating comical thoughts about just how busy you are.

The Iceberg.

My history with video games sucks.

Just so you get an idea of how much my video gaming past sucks, here are a couple of highlights (note the time frame).

* Once, I played Asteroids on an Atari 2600 I borrowed from a friend, and was way over 500,000 points before my mom made her last warning that supper was ready.
* I was able to finish Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2 and Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES. Also on the NES, I finished The Legend Of Zelda. And Megaman 2.
* The highlight of my gaming life was when I finally finished Super Mario World (also on a borrowed console – the only console I owned until 2006 had been the NES).

And that’s about it. You can say I outgrew video games a looong time ago.

When I bought my first computer, in the Triassic Period (1997), I had bought it for other purposes – internet (yay 28.8 modems!) and of course Word. Then, one day, my sister’s boyfriend arrived with a shoebox full of like 70 diskettes and proceeded to install them in my computer. The end result, a good couple of hours later? Quake, a game I quasi-enjoyed for a good 30 minutes. And deleted not very long after.
Around this time (I wasn’t keeping a diary, so forgive me if I can’t tell you the exact dates) A friend bought the brand-spankin’-new Sony Playstation. When he found out, a couple of weeks later, he couldn’t afford it, he put it up for sale. I was interested, but had no money. Luckily, another friend did, so many a time we’d end up at his house, playing “Goal Storm”. Soon enough, I was the ‘Santino Marella’ of the group (as in, everybody could beat me ’cause I sucked), and by the time they had gotten their hands on the FIFA version of soccer, my spirit simply committed suicide.
A few years later, I became reacquainted with a friend from high school – a guy who years before thought it was everybody’s delight to go watch him play games on the Sega Genesis. Only this time, he thought it was everybody’s delight to watch him play Resident Evil 2 on the PC. I soon enough made myself a copy of the game, and decided to give it a spin. It was fun, for the first 5 minutes, until I invariably got my ass killed. So then I looked up some cheats and finished the game. Take that, stupid lickers!
Then, said friend got himself an XBOX. And he wouldn’t shut up about it. Grand Theft Auto this, and Resident Evil 4 that, and emulators this, and whatnot. It was, at least, better to hear him talk about that than about his obsessive love/hate relationship with Jesus Christ.
The last few times I saw him before moving to Canada, he was – justifiably – infatuated with a new game he had bought: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. It was the first time in a long time I had actually picked up the controller.

I forgot to mention. Back when I was married, I did spend quite a few evenings playing the PC version of Worms:Armageddon with my ex-wife. And chess.

When I arrived in Canada, still jobless, the Price of the PS2 had recently dropped. stores were dying to rid themselves of it, eagerly wanting to stock their shelves with XBOX 360’s. On one occasion, I tried asking my sister to buy me a PS2 (I’d pay her later), but she strongly refused. So, childish as I am, I vowed to buy one, just to show her…
A few months later, now employed, I applied for a Zellers Credit Card. When it arrived in the mail, I ran to Zellers and got me my PS2. And GTA:SA.
I played it (well, actually “played it” implies that I followed the story, missions and all – I merely entertained myself by commiting random acts of mischief) a couple of times until one fateful sunday when I decided my day off from work went by too fast when glued to a video game. Then, for months, nothing.

One day, while waiting for the bus downtown, I walked into a pawn shop, where you could buy games for 10 bucks. 30 dollars (plus tax) later, I walked out with Socom 3, Worms:Forts Under Siege and WWE Smackdown vs. Raw. The total time I spent playing between the three games was about two hours. The PS2 has been collecting dust on the shelf ever since.

No more video games for me, or so I thought. Recently, my brother-in-law gave my sister a Wii for her birthday, and for what it’s worth, I’ve enjoyed playing it the two times I’ve been to their place. And now, I’ve been toying with the idea of getting one. Of course, I hardly ever have time to play, but just in case I ever feel the need to break into a sweat by pretending to bowl in my miniature living room.

The Iceberg.

Yesterday I made a stop at the store to give my last cigerette some company. In front of me in line were two guys, one white and one black. The white guy was wearing that Nirvana t-shirt with the dead happy face, and the black guy was wearing some white basketball uniform. I failed to notice if it was representative of an NBA franchise, or just his high school team. They soon left, and a few seconds later, I hopped back up on my steel pony, oblivious to the fact that the next morning I would be discussing apparel here.

When I woke up, I was thinking about some of the shirts I kinda always wanted, but never got around to having. For example, said Nirvana shirt. I was quite the Nirvana fan back in the day (big enough of a fan to be able to discuss the merits “Bleach” had over the more successful “Nevermind), and while I did own a Nirvana shirt (not official merch – some knock-off with the Nevermind album cover on the front and the word “Sliver” on the back), I always wanted the other one.

Other band t-shirts I never got around to having were the one with Megadeth’s “So Far, So Good…So What!” cover, the Sex Pistols’ “Never Mind The Bollocks”, and thanks to Axl, the Nine Inch Nails “Sin” one.

Also, during a brief period (a long time before wiggers started popping out from under every rock on the planet) I had the idea that I would look cool in a L.A. Lakers jersey, despite the fact that not only do I dislike the sport of basketball, but I also create a vortex of suck whenever I hop into a court.

Another kind of shirt I always kind of (and I do mean only kind of) wanted, was soccer jerseys. But unlike everyone in Mexico, instead of the more successful Brazilian National, Real Madrid or Barcelona, I just wanted to wear “ironic” soccer jerseys, especially from teams that suck, like the Venezuelan National, or some obscure european club.
NOTE: Some will say I succeeded in wearing soccer jerseys from clubs that suck when I owned not only one, but both jerseys from the mexican team Puebla F.C., but I wasn’t trying to be ironic. That is my team.

There are many, many shirts I’ve had, and miss dearly. Mostly my band shirts. Most of them, for some reason, disappeared without a trace.

I used to have a Carcass shirt, a Napalm Death long sleeve, Judas Priest’s “Painkiller”, Def Leppard’s “Hysteria”, both Use Your Illusion 1 and 2 (on white), Pantera’s “Vulgar Display Of Power” long sleeve, Anthrax’ “State of Euphoria” (although, that one didn’t disappear. 14 years later I finally had to throw it out.), and my sometimes-totally-unofficial-because-that’s-the-way-mexico-city-rolls concert shirts. Two KISS shirts, two Pantera shirts, an Anthrax/Pantera one, an Anthrax/Judas Priest one, and a Motley Crue/Megadeth/Anthrax one I only wore once.

Perhaps the one I miss the most, though, is my british flag one. You know, kind of like the Sex Pistols, but still with sleeves because I am a square. Besides, nobody wants to see my skinny shoulders. Not even myself.

As for my current band shirts, I have a GN’R, a Slipknot, a Burzum, Mayhem, Behemoth, Slayer, Pigface, and I think that’s about it.

The Iceberg.

It is, as of this writing, 8 of the clock (a gratuitous Dark Tower reference) in the morning of a Sunday. I’ve been awake for, say, three and a half hours. It’s going to be a bitch all day.

I did my weekly cleaning/cooking/washing/picking-up on saturday, since I didn’t have to work. After that, I indulged in a couple of internet conversations, a generous share of beverages, and one of my traditional “let’s see what roads Wikipedia leads me down to this time” adventures, which started with a genuine interest in reading the howabouts of the phrase “snake oil” and ended with me reading about Carl Jung’s writings about dreams.

I didn’t make it to the movies. Judging by my inability to leave home, I’ll watch Iron Man once the torrent is up.

I didn’t make it to the bar downtown. One of the downsides of starting to drink early. Or, better yet, having “pending” conversations on MSN.

Somewhere around 10 PM last night, I remembered I hadn’t watched WWE Backlash yet. I burned a DVD, put it into my player, and plopped my ass on THE AWFUL COUCH OF SLOTH. I swear, that couch is cursed. The funny part is, when you fold it out and try to sleep in it, you can’t.

I watched the first, um, 40 minutes of Backlash, before falling asleep. How I woke up at 4.30 in the morning, in my bed, is way beyond me. As I woke up, I had a quick decision to make. Go back to sleep and finish off my 8 hours of sleep at 7 AM, or go out for a smoke, pour another drink and watch the rest of Backlash. Naturally, I opted for option number two.

Since waking up, I watched the rest of that, watched stupid infomercials and a fishing show, and I recently ate the last contents of my “weekly cooking”.

I know I’m a good cook, but fuck! I had originally planned to make that for the whole week! As of right now, the contents of my stomach include – of course, cooked in their own deserving manner – 4 pork chops, 7 (SEVEN!) potatoes, two onions, a full head of garlic, three tomatoes, about two cups of frozen veggies, two flour tortillas, two slices of “diet” cheddar, a good amount of salsa (my favorite… habaneros, jalapeños and chipotles… with my secret recipe), a liter and a half of Bacardi Limon, and about half a gallon of Tropicana Banana-Orange-Strawberry blend.
The rest of the week, or even the month, I’ll bitch about tipping the scale at 200 pounds. But for now, I’m half-happy, half-surprised.
Hey, don’t judge me, If Scarlett Johansson/Halle Berry/whichever celebrity you happen to like was as available as my stir-fry was to me, you’d indulge, as well…

Since I’ve been awake, I’ve been thinking. “Contemplating, thinking about thinking”, Robbie Williams would say. I just got back from smoking a cigarette, and the dawn and the wind reminded me of the beach. The fucking beach where my previous life ended, but the beach I miss so damn much. La Pesca, Tamaulipas, Mexico.

Yesterday, in between tasks, I had to run out to the supermarket. Alas, I was all out of salsa, so I needed supplies. And, Tropicana solvents. Being that I was in the proximity of a Zellers (think walmart), I decided to purchase a pair of sunglasses.
I kind of flirted, and it kind of backfired.
See, somehow, I decided to model the pair of sunglasses I intended to purchase. It wasn’t necesarily flirting, more of a searching for an ego stroke. I asked the cashier, “before I buy this, how do they look?”
Her response, was that “they” (the glasses) looked good. She cleverly avoided mentioning what I looked like while wearing them. Ouch.

Such is my life. Shitty as it may be, I feel happy, for the moment. Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” is playing, my glass is half full, and if I feel the need to smoke again, the weather will provide memories.

I’m the only one on my MSN list to appear online. Everyone I love, or care for, is sound asleep right now. From a non-religious point of view, God bless them.

The Iceberg.