Iceberglandia

So, I’m not one to flaunt my minor achievements, and to the unknowing mind it might not seem as that big a deal, but I managed to go a full week without beer. I could have prolonged my so-called streak, if I so desired, but fuck it, it’s the weekend and I’ve nothing better to do.

Anyway, I found myself visiting, once again, The Beer Store. Being a nice saturday afternoon, of course I wasn’t the only one at the store. Surprisingly, the place wasn’t packed.
I made my way to the discount beer section, because hey, I’m not an aristocrat who can afford 50 bucks for a case of Carlsberg. I picked up my case of Lakeport Pilsener, a beer I upgraded from Carling Lager because hey, it has .5% more alcohol, and it’s 40 cents cheaper. I made my way to the register, and stand in line.

At the front of the line, there’s some guy buying a case of Molson. Behind him, a chick (or a tranny) about my size, with the whole bleached hair/giant sunglasses/white minidress look. He/she decided on a six-pack of Corona. Behind her, some putz and his yo-yo buddy, buying a 12 of Brava. After that it would be my turn. No big deal.

I come to the conclusion that for all the fanciness, the girl (and god help me if she wasn’t female) wasn’t all that hot. Hey, it was either that, or look at the Toronto Maple Leaf goalie mask beer holders.

Finally, the putz decides to make his 16 dollar purchase with a major credit card. Woo-hoo! I think. Somebody has to actually file paperwork in order to share a 12-pack with a yo-yo in a green hat.
For whatever reason, after they’re done, they haven’t left the store. I get my case rung up, pay for it in cash, and walk over to the other teller (closed) so I can go through the ritual of placing my case of beer into my backpack.

It is then that myself and the green-hatted yo-yo notice the same thing at the same time – a black Beer Store bag, with a six-pack inside it. Abandoned. Forgotten by some hasty customer from earlier in the day. Before I completed the thought “hey, I just might be able to pull off an Oscar-worthy performance and walk outside as it had been included with my purchase”, the dumb yo-yo picked it up and told the cashier he found it on the other teller, and that somebody might have forgotten it.

Why oh why didn’t the putz go alone? Why did he have to drag his stupid friend into my evil plot to remove already-paid-for merchandise from such a fine establishment? Why must some inbred hick in a green baseball hat be the judge on who deserves the benefits of the errors of some customer to hurried to remember his/her purchase?

It’s no big deal, after all, since I have 24 cans in the fridge (or had, as of 8 PM saturday) and am rocking quite well with my superior music taste (as far as Band of Skulls and Manchester Orchestra and Behemoth could be considered superior, at least), while these two clowns are sharing a 12-pack while listening to, probably, The Vengaboys’ Greatest Hits. Or Billy Ray Cyrus or whatever the fuck he’s called.

The Iceberg.

Let’s face it, languages are far from perfect. Whether countries fuck up their pronunciation, their spelling, or in some instances can’t even come up with words for actual items, it usually becomes a pet peeve of mine.
Mind you, I’m no linguistics expert (can you tell?), but here are a few examples.

ENGLISH
What the hell is the matter with those crazy brits? They get all uppity when it comes to their language, and become aghast when non-native speakers don’t get it right. And don’t even get me started with americans, but since we’ll be discussing the origins of the language, we’ll stick with the poms for now.

Worcestershire
You know that tasty black liquid you use to marinate steaks? For the longest time I pronounced it the way I read it – Wor-Ces-Ter-Shire. Makes sense, no? Well, yes, but that’s not the “proper” way to pronounce it. The correct form would be Woo-Stah-Sher (british pronunciation optional).
Edinburgh
I used to live on a street called Waterloo. To go to work, I always walked or rode my bike all the way up Edinburgh street (road?). I was quite familiar with the street. Then, one day I was talking to a coworker and he said he lived on a street called Edinborough. I assumed it was a completely different street, until during a later conversation said coworker mentioned he saw me walking on Edinborough road (street?).
Huh. Turns out, he was right in his pronunciation and I was wrong.
“Edinburgh” is pronounced “Edinborough” in Scotland. I always went with the americanized version – rhyming Edinburgh with Pittsburgh. Sure, a stupid mistake, but it is confusing. Tecnically speaking, according to the country that invented the damn language, the cigarette label should read “Marlburgh” then…

SPANISH
I was born in Mexico, so I speak “mexican” spanish. And what makes me so special? Or, in other words, what makes mexican spanish more special than the spanish spoken in Spain, where spanish was invented? And why am I typing “spanish” so much?

Z
For one, In Mexico, as well as in many other spanish-speaking countries (and, really, in many different languages), the letter Z is pronounced as a derivative of the “S” sound. In english, for example, it sounds like, well, the buzz of a bee. In regular spanish, it sounds just like S. Unless you’re in Spain, where it happens to sound akin to the english “TH”. So, the spanish word for shoe, in many countries would sound like “Sapato”, while in Spain the word sounds like “THapato”.

Geographical spelling
Say what you will about mexican Spanish, but at least we know our spelling as it pertains to geography. The “X” in the word “Mexico” is there for a reason, and every other country in the world knows it. But the Spaniards still use the spelling they used since the times of the Conquista, which while phonetically correct only shows what could be perceived as a lack of respect. In spanish, the “X” in Mexico sounds like, say, a hard “H” sound in English, or a “J” in spanish. Which is why in Spain they write it as “Méjico”.
The spanish words for “Greater” and “Lesser” are “Mayor” and “Menor”, respectively. That’s Mayor, with a “Y”. When the Spaniards found a couple of islands in the Mediterranean, they observed one was bigger than the other. So, they used the comparative adjectives to name the islands, adding for whatever reason the syllable “ca” at the end. The only problem is that the bigger if the isles isn’t spelled with a “Y”, but with “LL” which in spanish sounds like a “Y”. (why not? Ha!) As such, the islands are called Mallorca and Menorca.
Update: upon viewing of a map of Spain, I realized there are actually three (four, if you want to get technical) islands in that mini-archipielago. The other one is Ibiza. (or, IbiTHa).

FRENCH
Ah, the language of love and romance!
I’ve never had a use for french. I mean, it would come in handy if my fantasy of ever hooking up with news anchor Melissa Theauriau came true, but since it’s doubtful that’ll happen, I’ll have to remain annoyed that it shows up on FUCKING EVERYTHING here in Canada.
See, Canada has two official languages, English and French. And even though french is only spoken in one part of Canada, federal law mandates that even people in Medicine Hat, Alberta have to open up bags of potato chips with a flavour described as Cornichons a láneth. Sounds yummy, huh?
Still, although I don’t speak it, I’m familiar with enough words that I’ve spotted, so far, two words that aren’t even words per se, but descriptive (comparative or quantitative). Why bother learning a language that even came up short when naming things?

Eighty
The french way to refer to eighty of something is “four twenties”. Literally. Quatre-vingts. Why not “eight tens”? Or “Five and a third fifteens”? Or “Two forties”? Ha, the 80’s must’ve been a hell of a decade to be in France (or Quebec, Haiti or Congo).

Potato
No, I’m not talking about “french fries”. I’m talking about how the french never actually came up with a word to describe this tuber. Despite not having anything similar in appearance, taste or texture (well, ok, maybe texture) with apples, it’s still amusing to dream up how the term came to be. A villager suddenly tripped over something that was buried into the ground, and upon further exploration pulled out a potato – an oddly-shaped, brown coloured thing covered in dirt. The first thing that came to mind to said villager was “Oh la la! This certainly looks like an apple!”
And to this day, potatoes are refered to in french as “earth apples”.

Well, I guess that’s the best I could come up with on such short notice. My neighbor just called and asked me to help him out with his computer. Whoop-dee-doo! Thank him for the lack of images, too. If you can find any more examples, please let me know.

The Iceberg

Now that I have hours upon hours of free time upon my hands, not a whole lot of money, and you bet, absolutely no company,  my brain’s been acting weird. OK, OK, more than usual.

With a whooping total of 16 hours a week (of which an average of 10 is spent “just being there”, because there’s not much going on over there either), and sleeping patterns that oscillate between 4 1/2 and 14 hours a night, there are periods of time when my mind is left wondering for upwards of 19 hours at a time.
It’s kind of hard to keep entertained when your TV choices are The Steve Wilkos Show, VH1’s 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs, old Family Matters reruns and political pundits vomiting bullshit on news stations EVERYWHERE.

Let me go off on a little tangent here, since we’re discussing the shittier aspects of cable stations.
What, really, is going on with those “specialty” channels? It seems they’re so lazy and so cheap, that instead of offering their regular fare of somewhat bareable shows, they take $20 dollars out of their budget and go purchase what, 7 DVDs at a pawn shop. The cheap DVDs, at that.
Dudes, I switch to the Comedy Network to watch comedy shows, stand-up comedians… not Eddie Murphy movies from the 1980’s. And don’t even get me started with G4. Seriously, how many times a week must you offer us “Super High Me”, a stupid concept in which the world’s unfunniest comedian spoofs “Super High Me” by smoking weed for 30 days? I’ll admit, it takes some genius to get a movie studio to pay for your weed for a month-long binge.
Hey, I’m currently searching for funding for a mockumentary of my own, “Super Sex Me”, where they’ll pay escort services to send me chicks nonstop for 30 days. Any takers?

Anyway, there’s the internet, magazines, music (of course), the odd book, and ye olde movie collection, and while they do provide the temporary entertainment I require of them, something is amiss. I require output, as well as input. And well, the stress and the depression I’m currently under kind of take big bites out of my creativity.
I have a couple of projects on my mind, I just lack the will to get started. I guess I’ll see what I can come up with as soon as I finish posting on my blogs.

But in the meantime, and the reason I started typing all this into the blog is that my mind sometimes floats a little too far away from me. It comes up with things I cannot comprehend. So, on top of everything else, I have a huge WTF? cloud floating in my noggin. Things like:

You know those laugh tracks from really old shows? I wonder how many of those people we could hear laughing are dead now.

The Iceberg

I promised you a milestone, how’s this for a fucking milestone? This is post number 200. I think a party is in order. You bring the beer, I’ll bring the girls. 20 of them. Let’s celebrate!

And there you have it, folks! What better way to conmemorate 200 posts? Beats whining about the economy, phone companies, and pretty much everything else, wouldn’t you say?
Ladies, fear not. I promise you a gallery soon.

200 posts. Man, what a ride it’s been.

The Iceberg.

Anyone who has read this blog for a while (and I happen to know there’s not many of you – I check my stats constantly) knows how much I love dealing with telecommunication companies. Some of you might even be surprised at the fact that I now hate Rogers even more than Bell Canada. Sure, my dealings with Bell have somewhat of a historical connotation to them, me dedicating a whole saga to them and all, but the thievery that Rogers does is far, far worse.
Anyway, bad things come in threes, they say, so have I got a tale for you.

You might remember how yesterday, while describing how much better my life is with my girlfriend than without her, the fact that she accidentally took my Pay-As-You-Go phone might have slipped by. And how, for a short while in the afternoon, I left the house.

The main reason I left the house was to make a purchase I wouldn’t have had to make if this economy thing wasn’t in the shitter. Since Bell has been expecting my payment for a couple of months (and in this particular instance I can’t blame them), and recently they called me to inform me that continuing my service would be a technical impossibility unless I pay up – and to be honest, I have other priorities, like rent and food – it’s just a matter of time before my service gets suspended, again.
So, with the consent of my landlord, my idea was to buy a USB Wireless adaptor so I can, for the time being, hook up to his internet account. Off I went to the Future Shop, $30 dollars in hand.

While walking about the Future Shop, I noticed a sign that anounced Koodo, which I remembered having been recommended (that’s 4 fucking verbs in a row, for those keeping count) by my sister and my brother in law. It was supposed to be really cheap, contract-free, and well, according to Wikipedia, very lax in its credit checking.
Now, the only reason I stopped to inform myself about said company and its services was because by that time, my Nokia 3200 was inside a purse in Mexico City. Together with the $10 card I had just put into it. God knows I don’t need another monthly expense, or for fuck’s sake, to be dealing with more phone companies. Yet, it’s nice to stay in touch with people.

I realize the two instances that happened have nothing to do directly with Koodo as a company, but yet, one can’t help but wonder WTfuckingF?

Still inside Future Shop, I approached the guy behind the counter, and asked him what I’d need to set up service. “Oh”, he said, “well, your driver’s license and a credit card”.
“Fuck, and fuck”, I thought. “I have neither”. “What if I don’t have a credit card?”, I asked.
“Well, your SIN card will do, for the credit check”, he replied. Since I happen to carry that in my wallet, I was all set. I don’t have a driver’s license, because I don’t have a car, but I’ve never had an instance wherein I can’t flash my passport in lieu of said license. I was all set.
“Well, I’d be interested in signing up”, I said. Not that I was really interested, mind you. Still, the need to text my girlfriend was stronger than my will to hold on to 25 bucks a month. What he said afterwards didn’t shock me, because I’ve grown accustomed to dealing with mediocre people, be them in retail, government, or elsewhere.
“Ha! See, Koodo doesn’t accept the passport as a method of identification”.
I knew right then and there I was dealing with a sub-par human. Maybe his lunch break was up, maybe he really had to take a dump, maybe Fido or Telus slipped him a buck to get him not to sign people on to Koodo. I left, paid for my USB thingamajig, and headed towards the mall in order to grab the bus.

Wouldn’t you know it! There’s a Koodo stall in the mall as well! I had 15 minutes to wait for the bus, so without any expectations, I went over. I just had to know if it was true they wouldn’t take a government-issued fucking PASSPORT as ID.
“Sure, we’ll take your passport”, said the acne-ridden guy. A few questions later, he was already upselling me plastic covers for my phone.

If you’re willing to settle for a really, really crappy phone, you pay $0 up front. Me, being the stylish gentleman I am, I needed something to match my monocle and my top hat, so I’d have to pay $25 for the phone I had selected. I had roughly $35, so I was good. It was just a matter of getting my credit approved. A simple task, since I don’t owe money.

WAIT! I’m the Iceberg, how could I forget? Of course something had to go wrong. Something showed up on my credit check. What, exactly, I don’t know for sure, but I’d double-or-nothing my alcohol intake it had to do with, of course, my other two favorite phone companies, which are the only two places I currently owe money to – unless you count my sister, but I really doubt she’d call collections on me.
“Well”, said pimplefuck, “we’ll gladly give you the service, but you need to pay for the phone up front – $200″.
“Gee!”, I thought. What glee! I had the opportunity to pay $40 less than what I paid for a fucking Iphone, in order to obtain a shitty Samsung phone from 3 years ago, in order to obtain the right to pay $25 a month, in order to type things to my girlfriend! “A damn shame, not to be able to purchase from your fine boutique”.
I collected my documents, rejoicing in the fact that my personal information is now on another fucking database, but in the end it was for the better. Those $25 I’d be giving them each month, I can easily spend on long distance cards. And as for texting, I hear there’s something called Messenger, and something called Facebook. I’ve been told I can access them with the USB Wireless Adaptor I had purchased earlier. So, really, whose loss was it?

Fuck you, Koodo. You’re now a second runner-up in the telecommunications companies I despise oh-so-fucking-much. When I see your posters plastered all over the mall, I’ll no longer be remembered of Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” video. Those distorted happy faces you display will remind me instead of what a crappy business model you pursue.
And since you have my information on your database, I’m sure you’ll be ringing me up for offers, just like those cretins at Capital One. I’ll be sure to have as much fun with your telemarketers.

The Iceberg.

As I mentioned a few days ago, courtesy of some mouth-breathing cocksucker who somehow managed to land a job as an authority figure, my girlfriend had to leave the country on May 20th.

The scene was dramatic, as you might imagine. Being separated again, for who knows how long, in dark economic days… In any case, the taxi service we hired came to pick her up at 4.40 this morning. We said our final goodbyes and she was on her way to the airport. I walked back inside after I caught the last glimpse of the Red Car van, a tear rolling down each cheek and biting deep into my soul, trying to find the validity in the saying that reminds us big boys don’t cry. I don’t know who I was trying to impress, but in the end I didn’t.
I managed to stay awake until she called me from the airport in Toronto. She finally called at around 6. We talked for maybe five minutes, and she told me she had already been through stupid Immigration to show up as she had been “instructed”. Apparently, the person she talked to was nice, and even told her she’d have no problem returning to Canada. So, whatever I might have said about Citizenship and Immigration Canada in general, I take back. Not everybody there is a UFC-watching alpha-male wannabe on a particularly self-important powertrip.
She said she was at the gate, waiting for her 8.15 flight, which set my mind greatly at ease. From there, all she had to do was hop into the plane, and a  few hours later she’d be in Mexico City. I managed to sleep for a few hours.

A few minutes after I had woken up, I got a call from my sister. She had received a text message from my girlfriend, who asked her to call me. She was in Mexico City, and she had her ticket ready for Monterrey. As I’m typing this, she probably just landed there.

Oh! did I forget to mention? The reason she didn’t text ME directly was, well, she took my damn phone! Not my iPhone, for which the service is suspended anyways, but my Pay As You Go one. We had set up both of our phones as alarm clocks so she could sleep for a while before the trip, and when I went to turn them off I threw both of them into her purse.

I left the house for a bit, knowing I wouldn’t hear from her until she arrived in Monterrey. I was wrong. Turns out, she had been able to hook up to the internet with my laptop and left me some messages. UPDATE: She’s in Monterrey now. She made it OK.

In any case, the idea for this post was not to bore you with more of my stupid ramblings, but to show you a contrast between the not-so-slight differences there are in living with her, and by myself.

1. COOKING
With Her: Sometimes she’ll cook, and sometimes I’ll do it. But when she’s here, we both cook for the day. As in, small portions. Variety and all. Plus, we both like to cook, so theres that extra incentive for me. If she goes into that much detail and effort to make sure I eat well, it’s the least I can do for her.
Without Her: I’ll just throw a bunch of stuff into a pot, a bunch of other stuff into the food processor, usually on sundays, estimate it will suffice for seven days and call it a week. That’s what dollar-store containers are for, no?

2. EATING
With her: At least two times a day we go through the ritual (and I say “we” because I help out) of setting the table, placing mats and silverware and this and that, eating whatever we eat accompanied by homemade corn or flour tortillas, or bread.
Without her: I throw whatever glop I can fit into a bowl or a plate into the microwave for a couple of minutes, open the fridge, grab some salsa, and chow it all down with a (hopefully clean) fork, while leaning over the kitchen sink.

3. SLEEPING
With Her: As a responsible boyfriend, I pretty much go to bed whenever she feels like crashing. Unless I’m suffering from insomnia, or feel particularly tired, but in any case a routine is pretty much set.
Without her: As much as I kid myself into believing I have my own routine, there are times when I decide a power nap at 5 PM is the best idea ever. When I wake up at 11:00 PM and can’t go back to sleep until 9 AM the next morning, it becomes clear that said routine is not but a lie.

4. HOUSE CHORES
With Her: She does an amazing job of keeping the house spic-n-span (get it? spic? ’cause we’re mexicans?), usually while I’m at work and she has the place to herself. I’ll give her a hand every now and then, doing the dishes or hauling laundry, or not leaving my dirty underwear in the bathroom. But when it comes to having the house look beautiful, she deserves all the credit.
Without her: I’m what could be described as an organized slob. As a man who tends to prioritize, who has time to sweep the carpet when there’s a new fattie thread on FARK.com? I tend to keep my dishes clean, the toilet free of discernible staining, and, as long as I know where my everyday stuff is, I don’t need a “special place for my iPod”. Unless something particularly disastrous happens in the kitchen (or god forbid, in the bathroom), I never interact with my mop. I do, however, dust my monitor screen and the TV every couple of months.

5. LEAVING THE HOUSE
With her: The odd day will come when she’ll want to go out for a walk. Or visit a park. Or just get out of the house even if it means going to the same shitty mall we’ve visited 100 times (Guelph isn’t exactly L.A.). Even when situations arrive wherein I’m invited to leave the house on my own, she goes beyond my will to stay in and practically begs me to, as has happened for the last couple of weekends, go play soccer. And as much as I enjoy myself doing all that, well, read on…
Without her: Unless I have to go to work, or I’m out of beer, cigarettes, or absolutely anything edible, I’m perfectly fine staying indoors. There’s internet, TV, music, artificially-controlled temperature… Why leave?

6. USING THE INTERNET
With her: I’ll go through my daily rounds of my favorite websites, and then take it from there. But even though she says she’s fine with it, I’m too much of a gentleman to be looking at boobies, for example. Not that that’s all I ever do online, mind you, but if you’re reading this and you’re male, you understand. I’ll have to limit my MSN and Facebook conversation topics to “healthier” subjects, in the off-chance she might read over my shoulder and wonder why I’m discussing, um, feces (it was a joke conversation where a friend and I tried to outgross each other). In other words, even though I’m not doing anything wrong, I have to be more self-aware.
Without her: I can freely look up all the boobies in the world, spend hours at a time reading pointless threads on Fark, stare at the blank screen on my blogs’ “add new post” pages for a good two hours, or, if I so desire, discuss human waste with my friends. But it’s just not the same. When given the option to have my girlfriend by my side or look at Anne Hathaway’s sideboob pic, my natural reply is why not both?

7. WATCHING TV
With her: We have our tv hour in the mornings, in which we watch the same show (for different reasons, but still). After that, we take turns hogging the remote. When nothing’s on, we’ll flick to something inane like Cheaters or Cops (on RealiTV!), and mock the crap out of the shows. Nothing says “quality time” like mocking a wigger who’s crying on TV because he got busted with weed.
Without her: I hardly ever sit down and watch TV. Most of my time I’m listening to music. At night I’ll watch whatever shows are on, like Scrubs or Family Guy, just because my TV has a sleep button and my WinAmp doesn’t. In fact, I hardly give my TV any use, except for when I decide to watch movies on DVD. I’ll turn it on every now and then, just to have it as background. In such cases, whatever is good enough, from CNN to the Food Network to VH1.

8. QUALITY TIME
(I hope you didn’t take my “quality time watching Cops” comment seriously.)
With her: Whether it’s just sitting across the table making silly faces at each other, or having made-up conversations between different characters we create on the spot or “imitate” from movies or TV, or discussing the reality and the future of everything within and around us, every second with her is “quality time”.
Without her: Every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month is just more of the same.

Man, I miss her already.

The Iceberg

PS
Thanks to everyone who stuck with this post because they care. But far be it from me to disappoint the perverts who found this by typing “Anne Hathaway Sideboob” into Google. Here ya go, filthy ones:

I read recently that Yahoo! is getting rid of Geocities. And my first reaction was “well, who cares”. But then, two thoughts crossed my mind. The first one has a direct effect on me, and the second one has sent me down yet another trail of nostalgia.

Before WordPress offered the option to host your images, I used Geocities to host many of the earlier images that appear on this very blog – as well as Iceberglandia En Español.
Yes, I know Geocities sucks, and hence why I didn’t write my blogs there. But as far as image hosting goes, it was much easier than dealing with Flickr, ImageShack, or any of the others.
So, when Yahoo! pulls the plug, I assume anyone looking through my archives will notice emptiness where images used to be. Unless I get off my lazy ass and retrieve said images and fix things up.

On a more nostalgic note, I’ve been reminiscing about my earlier adventures with the internet. I did, back in ‘97, create a Geocities page. My very first one, in fact. I can’t, for fuck’s sake, remember even what it was about, maybe mexican soccer. Sadly, as much as I’ve tried to find it, it doesn’t show up anywhere. Back then there were Geocities Neighborhoods, where you could place your “website” according to its subject.
I really wish I could find it, just to have even a screen capture of it. You know, for memory’s sake.

But Geocities wasn’t the only one of the free hosting sites I used. In fact, I remember having a music site on Tripod (or was it Angelfire?) in which I created images using WordArt (from Word 97) that linked to different bands. See, then I didn’t know much about computers.
I think I had another one which (well, duh!) got banned because I used it to put naked pictures of Cori Nadine.

All in all, I guess I did have quite a few misadventures with free web hosts. I used all the clichés we now laugh at, but at the time seemed cool: the “under construction” gifs, the rotating skulls… I even subscribed to WebRings.

That all changed in 2001-2002, when I went all-out and bought a domain and rented hosting space. “Proyecto Victoria”, my site was called, and the idea was to narrate the goings-on in my village back home, as well as do other kinds of stuff (years later, one of those things would be known as blogging, and I also was an admittedly shitty news aggregator.
I decided to make some cash on the side, and sell advertising. I went around town searching for clients, I created the advertising (ha! remember Macromedia Flash?) and that was that. Other than a couple bucks here and there, free access to the “hip” clubs at the time and the occasional free doctor’s appointment for my daughter, my enterprise wouldn’t make it too far. See, the place that was hosting my site got creative and decided to create their very own village portal – even going as far as stealing from my ideas. Guess who won that battle, the one-man concept, or the group of 10 people, who could get into 7 clubs a night and had the money to sponsor events.

I had a second concept all ready to go, except for the money to register a domain and rent server space. UnLugarFrio, it was called. It never took off.

When I first arrived in Canada, I created a stupid blog on MSN. I then migrated to Bravejournal.net, and soon after I discovered WordPress. The rest, as far as blogging goes, is history.
I did, however, manage to register a new domain (averycoldplace.com) early last year, but when I went back to register it again (I only had a one-year thing) some creative asshole had taken the name, which has left me in website limbo.

I’m toying with a couple of new ideas. Not even to make money out of them, but just because even though nobody gives a crap, I love creating. I love writing, and I love fucking around on Photoshop.

In the meantime, get ready to congratulate me on a new milestone. It’ll roll around maybe as soon as next week.

The Iceberg

I have played soccer for years. Wait, let me rephrase that. I had played soccer for years. And while I’m certainly no Ronaldinho, I’ve always been competent at it.
Quite a decade ago (and my, how time flies!) A bunch of friends and myself would go every sunday to one of the upscale catholic schools in my little village back in Mexico (one of the few schools there to actually have a functional soccer field), where we’d always find dozens upon dozens of people participating of the sport. The fact that I played weekly, and in an actual field (more on that in a moment), I guess, were the main reasons I reached my best playing level.

A few years later I got fat and had distanced myself from the sport. It was surprising that on a couple of pick-up games organized among my then co-workers, I still managed to play decently. The last time I played I managed to score a couple of goals despite playing with a cigarette in my hand and occasional trips to the sidelines, where the lazier co-workers were watching us play while drinking beer. Hey, Popeye had his spinach, I had a couple of chugs off a caguama*. This was in the spring of 2005.

Fast forward to spring of 2009. Last wednesday, my landlord/co-worker/buddy Pedro invited me to play on Sunday. I said I’d play, despite knowing by the time Sunday afternoon rolled by I just might be a little too, um, unfit to play.
I did want to play, but I wasn’t about to go out of my way to prepare for the game. It was just pick-up soccer, not an actual tournament. Besides the personal kind, pride wasn’t an issue.
And I almost cancelled, too. By the time 5:00 rolled around on sunday, I had spent at least three days marinating in beer. Including a pre-game six pack, to put it one way. But no, I was eager to play.

We left the house and arrived at the park. There were three guys kicking a ball around. Then, a friend of Pedro’s arrived. 3 vs. 3, perfect! Plus, according to Pedro, a lot more people were going to show up. In the end, only 3 more people showed up. Which brings me to what I wanted to discuss earlier.
It is, well, stupid, to have 4 vs. 5 soccer on a full field. But hey, we could play on half a field, no? We ended up playing soccer in the way I hate the most. With rocks placed five feet apart, and arbitrary rules such as “the ball must be rolling on the ground in order for it to be a goal”. That’s not soccer, that’s fucking pool. Why not make holes in the ground instead?
I have always contended that I have a “European” style of play, despite never actually having played in Europe, or with Europeans (other than my British side of the family). I say this because hispanic players (the amateur ones, at least) have many annoying habits, such as hogging the ball (they all think they’re Maradona), playing a more “horizontal” game, and not understanding counterattacks and fast ball play. On the other hand, I love playing vertically. I love advancing a pass and expecting the ball to return four or five feet ahead of me. And this kind of play requires a full field, and allowing the ball to bounce and/or soar through the air. I hardly ever experience that. My ex-brother-in-law and myself made a pretty good tag team back in the day, despite not being able to stand each other outside the field.

Anyway, we started playing, and to an extent, I felt I still had “it” in me. I could still pass the ball, I could still block dribbles, and I was running more than a fucking zebra. I attacked, I defended, I blocked, I passed, I kicked, fucking everything. Hey, I even scored the first goal (except that, since the ball had the audacity to lift itself two inches from the ground, it didn’t count).
In one of the instances where I stayed close to my own goal (there were no goalkeepers, but I wanted to catch my breath for a bit) one of the guys from the other team tried to score on me. Since I couldn’t use my hands (arbitrary rules…), I threw my body in front of the goal to block his shot. The ball bounced over my leg, and forgetting their rule from earlier on, this goal did count, apparently. Not only that, but as I threw my legs in front of me at full force, I managed to somehow bang my left knee (the bum one) on the rock that served as a goal post. Talk about adding insult to injury. Or injury to insult, in this case.
A while later, they decided to take a break. As I sat on the sideline and had a cigarette, I inspected my knee. Yup, I was bleeding. I know what you’re thinking: “But, Iceberg, who the fuck smokes during a soccer game?” Me, that’s who.
Thing is, during the stupid little break, my muscles got cold. I just wasn’t the same. When we went back to play, I wasn’t worth much. I felt tired (we all did, in fact), so we just fucked around for a bit more, and then called it a night.
Oh, and we lost, something like 12-7. My “team”, see, was made up of the following: Two half-decent players (one other guy and myself), one “Maradonita” and another guy who did more for the other team than for us. The other team had Pedro, two older guys and an Asian guy. At least they passed the ball around.

What my team may have looked like:

I got home and relaxed for maybe 10 minutes. My legs hurt, but it wasn’t a big deal. It was until I tried to show my girlfriend what had happened to my knee that I felt it: Oh shit! I thought. I had never felt my legs like that. Sure, after biking, after jogging every now and then, I felt the “burn”, but it hadn’t ever incapacitated me. This time, I couldn’t even get up.
Today, Tuesday, my legs still feel like shit. They hurt like hell, and I’m limping all over the place. Yesterday at work, well you know how that goes. When you’re at your most vulnerable is when there is the most to do. Not that I’m complaining. I hate being bored.

Still, I didn’t play as bad as I thought after not playing for four years. I can’t wait for next sunday.

*Caguama: an unusually large bottle of beer. Funny note: Despite it being beer, I remember the bottles reading something to the effect of “family size”.

The Iceberg.

I still have enough things to bitch, complain and whine about to fill the whole internet – now we’re down to two work days a week, the fucking government still can’t get their fists out of their ass and deliver the aid it’s been promising since at least March, my girlfriend having to go back home in less than two weeks is all but inevitable now… the list goes on.
I’m dealing with a pretty unstable mind right now. Depression, rage, anger, frustration, despair, stress… But rather than subject my two or three readers with more of my ongoing dramas, I have something different to offer you.

It’s not that I spend my days surfing for porn on the internet, or anything like that. Not that I never do, I’ll admit to that. Hey, the female body is something to be admired (OK, OK, sometimes). But sometimes you’ll end up looking at “random photo galleries”, and amidst car crashes, seagulls crapping on little kids and older gentlemen dripping snot from their nose, you’ll see a picture that is so worthy of gazing for hours.

I found this picture on TheChive.com, and since then it’s been therapeutical. I could just stare at it for minutes on end. In fact, let me ask my girlfriend (who’s in the kitchen right now making tortillas – hey, I made the food!) what her opinion is of me staring endlessly at the pic.
I promise to deliver an honest translation (since we speak spanish):

ME: “What do you think about me looking at this picture (shows her) all day?
HER: “Um… she does have a big butt… I have nothing to say… I’ll let you watch it, but if you watch too long, I’ll delete it”.

Isn’t she great? Besides, if she deletes it, it’ll already be posted on my blog, so I can just download it again. Win-Win!

Nice, huh?

Apologies to my female readership, but I’d rather apologize to you than to my male readers, if you know what I mean. And, I guess, apologies to TheChive.com for deleting your watermark. But hey, I did credit you!

The Iceberg.

Yes, I’m aware that my last post (and quite possibly this one will, as well) made me seem like a complete loser. A bitchy one, at that. But fear not, I am not a loser, in some aspects anyway. Just a victim of circumstance.

I’ll begin this one by making clearer a couple of things I mentioned in my previous one. Starting with the explanation that when I wrote that, it was one of those days. I was feeling really miserable. Today I feel much better.

The Facebook/MSN thing. It’s not that big a deal as I made it seem through probably a poor choice of words. Perhaps what I meant was that it sucks when people take time to take stupid quizzes and shit, but never have the time to say hi, or post a response to anything I say. It’s not that they have to. I’m just saying it sucks.
That, and when I put something quasi-interesting on my status and it goes by unnoticed, while somebody else will post something inconsequential such as “I’m drinking tea” and everybody else “likes this”.

Maybe I’m just an envious fuck and I wish I had better friends.
The same goes for what I wrote concerning the lack of feedback on my blogs. It’s just a frustration I get every now and then, nothing to really worry about.

The comment my GF said to me – after discussing it, it turns out I misunderstood her. What she meant was that since she can’t work in Canada, she is frustrated that she can’t help out with the things that worry me, and she feels like she’s wasting her time instead of being productive.

Now, on to the second part of this saga.

I was going to mention this on my last post, but didn’t because I had hope things would change this week. They didn’t.
I really miss my daughter. Since returning from Mexico in January I’ve only been able to speak with her once, and that was a good two months ago. Since I didn’t have work on Thursday, and that day was what is known in Mexico as “Día del Niño”, or Children’s Day, I had every intention in the world to call her. Sadly, due to the influenza scare, she stayed with her mother who didn’t work.
She (my ex) is of the idea that in order for me to talk to my daughter (always under her conditions, of course), I must first deposit money. Since that has been kind of impossible for the last couple of months, she threatened me with “you’ll never hear from your daughter again”. Truly, the epitome of class.
So yeah, that’s one of the biggest factors in my current mental state.

At least something good happened last week. I won three gift certificates at work. I chose two for the grocery store and one for the Future Shop. I went to the Future Shop on thursday and walked out with a USB wireless adapter. So, even if Bell cancels my internet, I can still hook up to my neighbor’s internet. All for $29.99!

These times suck, big time. I can’t even make myself compare my paychecks from a year ago to these ones. And the ironic part is that while many people try to cheer me up by saying “well, at least you still have a job”, I’m making less money than those people who were laid off in January and are receiving benefits based on a five-day work week.
But the night is always darkest before sunrise, says Harvey Dent. So it’s just a matter of waiting.
While waiting for thursday to get paid, I had run out of cigarettes. I had two options. I could either buy a new pack with the rolls of nickels and pennies I had left (I used up the quarters and dimes at the grocery store), or I could suck it up and rely on the half-pack of cuban cigarettes a friend gave me over a year ago, which I have on my bookshelf for “decorative” purposes.
And holy shit, are these cigarettes horrible. It’s like smoking a cigar, in cigarette form. But they got the job done, and I made it to thursday.

Finally, I have another frustration. It might not show, but I’m somewhat of a perfectionist. This keeps me from actually finishing up projects. It sucks when you wake up feeling creative, and then knock yourself down because whatever you create won’t be perfect.

Thanks for putting up with me while I vent some of my frustrations. I promise I’m not that big a loser as I make myself seem sometimes. We all have “moments”. I just make mine public. I’ll try to come up with more interesting (non-topical) stuff.

The Iceberg