bored

my counsellor says i need to challenge my brain more. the mind games i like to play are no longer satisfying - they're frustrating me more than amusing me and i find myself getting upset and irritated more often than normal. i need more mental stimulation. and crossword puzzles just aren't doing it for me anymore.

smokin' mad

pun intended.

i went to the Lions game tonight - lots of fun and nothing rowdy happened at the game. i decide to ride the skytrain back a couple of stations so i can get a seat. when it returns to stadium, this kid walks on, cigarette in hand, and stands beside the seat in front of me. i figure he's going to put the cigarette out as the people pile in behind him, but he continues to puff at it while blowing smoke out the window. he's talking to his friend on his cell phone, telling him how wasted he is and how he's smoking on the skytrain. i decide not to say anything - he obviously thinks he's too cool for school and besides, it'll be over soon. it was...until he opens up his pack to light another one, this stranger beside him bums a smoke off him and his friend holds out his cigarette to get him to light it. seeing as everyone around me is just staring at them but not doing anything about it, i finally lose my patience and say, "excuse me but could you please not smoke in here?" he looks down at me with this drunken look and says, "sorry, i'll blow the smoke up through the window." i think the stranger who bummed the smoke was ashamed and threw his out the window. finally the guy two seats in front of me pipes up and says, "yeah, don't light up in here." the kid's friend pulls his cigarette back and decides to wait. meanwhile, i've pressed the silent emergency buzzer. and then, the kids ashes fly down at me and hit my bare shoulder. i yelled, "ow! fuck! your fucking ashes are landing on me!!!" he looks at me and says, "sorry about that", to which i respond, "yeah, i'm sure you are." we are approaching broadway station at this point and the guy beside me stands to get off and says to the kid, "your ashes are landing on her." the kid says, "yeah, no they're not." and i yell, "yes, they are!" he gets off, just as skytrain security comes on to say, "you guys aren't supposed to be smoking in here (thanks for your help). but the kid is off the train by now. his dopey, drunk friends laugh and say, "what a moron. he got off at the wrong stop. this isn't commercial." and i pipe up and say in the most demeaning voice i can muster, "no, he's right. commercial is just on the other side of this station." (i resisted the urge to call him a dumbass). they panic and jump off. i turn to the guy behind me, who is with is young son, and say, "sorry for the bad language!" and he says, "no, it's okay! they're not supposed to be smoking on here."

truth be told, i kind of wish they had been a little more rude. when they left, i was still seething and was only getting sympathetic looks from the people that didn't bother to say anything. the anger that was still bubbling up inside me is still there...it's like feeling like you're going to sneeze but losing it at the last minute. it sucks. i wanted to unleash the Dragon!

then again, i probably would have done something stupid to get myself in trouble. better to have left it up to the good ol' reliable skytrain police. oh wait, they were no where to be found.

it's not easy being green.

gesundheit!

i bless people, even people i don't know, when they sneeze. it's just something i do. i always wonder, then, why i never get blessed. people at work don't do it. my friends don't do it. my family doesn't do it. is it not something that's done anymore?

perhaps it's because of the religious connotation of "bless you" that people don't say it anymore. but they can still say "gesundheit", or any variation of same, when i, or anyone else, sneezes. i've taken to blessing myself instead. can't wait around for someone to do it for me, now can i?

i spent the day at the pool today. i got to Kits at about 10:30 and at about 10:35, my OC phones me. he had just left the pool about half an hour before. back story - he sent me a message on facebook suggesting that it had been a long time since we'd talked and why don't we grab a coffee? it turned into a lot of back and forth about what to do and when to go and we had basically decided to meet at the pool today and hang out. not long after this, he remembers a lunch date he had today and bowed out of the actual pool excursion, but there was an understanding that we would meet up afterwards. and we did. he didn't come into the pool area because he didn't want to pay again but he stood outside the fence and we chatted for 10 or 15 minutes. then he said that if i wanted to continue sunning/drying off, he was going to go grab a coffee and then sit up in the stands on the other side of where we were and read his book until 4pm, at which time he was going to go home if i wasn't ready to leave the comfort of my poolside chair. this was about 2:50. i said okay. i watched him read his book for a good 30 minutes before i finally realized that what he was actually doing was he was waiting for me. so i packed up, got dressed and met back up with him.

we sat in the stands for a good 30 minutes just talking and then he suggested we grab a drink or food because he had a physio appointment at 5:30 but he wanted to go home beforehand so he had to leave by 5. we ended up going for food and chatted away until 5:15, at which time he walked me back to my car and we parted ways.

all in all, a very pleasant day. aside from my sunburn. dang, the sun is not what it used to be.

Telus - our future is bleak

MOTHER FUCKERS! i hate fucking Telus so fucking much. i'm annoyed at their confusing, convoluted monthly statement that i get sent via e-mail. under "Additional Charges and Credits", they have the $400+ credit they owe me and my long distance and under the total, it reads "New Charges" (not New Charges and Credits), so it looks like i owe them another $500, which is not right. no, the bill itself is correct but the way they lay it out is stupid. the fact that they have a section of the website entitled, "How to read your e-bill" is a dead giveaway that how they lay it out is fucking ridiculous. how hard is it to lay out everything in three sections: new charges (internet, phone), credits and amount owing?????? when I cancelled the e-billing option, they asked for feedback as to how Telus could change their e-bill so that I would sign up for it again. i basically told them to make it less confusing, that there are less complicated ways to lay out a monthly statement but that they obviously opted to go for the most complicated. then, i offered to create a new template for their statements because theirs was SO SUPREMELY FUCKED UP.

then, as if i weren't annoyed enough, i looked at my long distance charges and noticed that i am no longer on the plan i was on (basically, i could call anywhere in the world for a low rate - not the lowest rate but it was decent and i had unlimited talk time). i've been switched over to this north american plan that limits my rate to 200 minutes. now, i don't spend a lot of time on long distance calls but the three people i do call that are long distance, if i were to call them all in one month, would most certainly surpass 200, even just for one of them. it just annoys me that they've changed me over (or maybe i changed myself over by agreeing to that Telus TV fiasco) and not sent me anything in writing that my plan had changed. SONS OF BITCHES, MOTHER FUCKING COCKSUCKERS.

and i still don't have the cheque they owe me for the $424 they charged me for that STUPID TELUS TV unit. i've had it. the one guy that helped me (nay, the Telus TV department) will get my praise in the letter I WILL write to the CEO, but the rest of the people i dealt with are getting no praise. neither is the company, for that matter.

i believe a call or e-mail to "Olsen on Your Side" is warranted now too. watch out you fuckers. you've made the wrong person angry.