Berry Pickin'

Whenever I drive across the province lately I notice a trend. There are always people parked on the side of the road selling some form of berries. The Bakeapple being very popular around this time of year. People sit in their car all day, homemade signs placed on the side of the road and their mason jar full of berries laid out on the hood of their car just hoping someone will come by and give them $10 for a bottle. A few things about this make me scratch my head and bother me. The first is how many people are doing this. When I drove to St. John's last Friday I saw at least 7 people between Clarenville and Whitbourne  selling berries. Why is there so much competition in this "business"? Don't these people have better things to do? That's the second thing that boggles my mind. How do these people sit in a car all day on a (normally) hot day and just wait for people to come by? Do they spend all this time listening to the radio? Do they drain their batteries doing so? These are questions I want answered.

Another thing that bothers me is these people are cheating some sort of government system for sure, whether it be the Employment Insurance system or the Social Assistance program. I assume most of these people are getting some sort of government subsidy, and if they are on EI I guarantee they are not reporting their cash only income to the government. If they're on "welfare" or workers compensation, I damn well guarantee they are cheating those systems too because there is an awkwardly large amount of effort needed to climb through the woods and bogs to pick a lot of berries. If they're capable of doing this, they're capable of doing some form of labour intensive work.

Before I end the rant, just wanted to tell you what started this. When I was passing by Norris Arm I saw a straggly man and woman just standing on the road with a white bucket full of berries. No sign, no mason jar, nothing, just an open bucket showing off the berries to passing by cars in hopes someone would stop and want to by them. Why would anyone stop? For all I know there could be cigarette butts mixed in with those berries or anything at all. Why would someone think this approach would work? It just boggled my mind.

I know this was all over the place but yeah I'm not down with the berry picking community.

Urinal Etiquette

Not sure if this is relevant to any of my readers, hopefully they are aware of the protocol, but obviously some people aren't and they have no urinal etiquette.

There aren't a lot of rules for going to the bathroom. If you're at a party, leave the seat down when you leave, always change the toilet paper roll if it runs out while you're in there, and don't pee on the floor. When you're in a single gendered public bathroom, there are even fewer rules, but you need to respect the urinal etiquette, and really there are only two things you need to know.

The first is, conversation is NOT necessary. When you're standing next to another dude and you're just peeing, there is no need to talk to each other. Especially if it is something dumb like "nice day today". No need to force an awkward conversation in this situation. I'm not there to socialize, I'm there to empty the bladder, give it a few shakes, wash my hands and leave again. If someone makes conversation, what do you do? Do you turn your head to make eye contact? Do you just keep looking forward? I take the looking forward option when it happens, but its just socially wrong either way.

The second is more crucial to follow. You ALWAYS leave at least one urinal in between you and the other guy peeing when possible. Yes in some scenarios the bathroom is busy and you have to stand next to each other, for those scenarios you hope the urinals have a divider between them, but nothing is worse than when there is an opportunity for distance between you and the other guy, but he opts to go in the urinal right next to you! Well its worse when he does that AND talks to you, but you get my point. You need to leave that buffer zone! Then of course there is always the really awkward guy who sees a line of 3 urinals, all vacant and opts to go in the middle one, leaving you no choice but to stand next to him. Obviously the guy either wants to see some bird or he has issues and needs to be close to somebody at all times.

Also, what's the deal with drunk guys? I'm sure all us dudes have been to a bar or a trough at a concert at some point and noticed that some of the drunk guys just like to stare at your junk while you're peeing. It's really unsettling, but it happens!

So if you read this and do not have urinal etiquette, please start exercising some. If you do have good pee manners, keep up the good work and spread the word so one day we can finally rid ourselves of this problem!

Listen to the Cone

This is NOT a picture of my cone or hand

I decided to treat myself to some soft serve tonight, and it made me think way more than any dairy based food is supposed to make you think. The conclusion I came to is that all the little decisions we make in the run of a day really define who we are as people, and if you really want to know someone for who they truly are, you need to pay attention to the small and sometimes stupid things.

For example, whenever I go get soft serve, if the option is available I always get a twist, or zebra as I used to call it growing up. The chocolate and vanilla swirl. While eating this cone I began thinking, why do I always get the twist? Most of the time when I'm eating it the taste of the vanilla is far superior to the chocolate, yet I never get just the vanilla. Because I'm in Grand Falls-Windsor and bored, I let me mind jump deeper into the issue and looked within me to see what the ice cream was telling me. What I figured out was a couple of things. When I listened to the cone I discovered that me always getting the twist can mean that maybe I like equality. I like to give each flavour a fair chance and I'm not opposed to compromise. Another possibility is that I'm very selfish. I could just have one falvour, but why settle for one flavour when I can have two? Or perhaps I'm very indecisive. Even when making a decision about what flavour ice cream to get I can't come to a solid conclusion because of my fear or apprehension about making the wrong choice and regretting it later.

Maybe this ice cream cone was a microcosm of my life, or maybe I'm just looking for things that aren't there because I'm bored and its actually just an ice cream cone. Either way I'm gonna start trying to pay attention to the little things from now on and seeing what I can detect, until someone tells me its annoying the bejesus out of them anyway!

Another Not Fit for TV Commercial

Remember how awhile ago I blogged about an Axe commercial that wasn't suitable for TV and how it was a good use of advertising through social media...well Skittles apparently went one further. I'm not even actually convinced this is was really done by Skittles because it is so over the top. Check it out:

Just Put on a Shirt

So its no secret that the Summer so far in Newfoundland has been less than Summery. We have only had a scattered few days where the temperature was above 20C which makes outdoor activities less fun to do. However in one area this piss poor weather is actually a blessing in disguise.

It never fails that every summer when the sun comes out and the temperature starts rising that you see shirtless douchebags walking or jogging around the streets, no matter where you go. With seasonally low temperatures however there seems to be less of this happening which is always a good thing.

People just need to learn to have decency. Just because you're warm doesn't give you the right to go around without a shirt on. Most of us do not want to see it, whether you're in shape or not. Are you really going to be that much cooler with the sun beaming straight down onto your skin as opposed to if you were wearing a light colored t-shirt or sleeveless shirt? Chances are you're not and you're just doing it because you think you're hot shit when you're shirtless or you want to prove that you're comfortable with your body. And if its for the second reason, chances are most other people are not comfortable with your body so you should keep your shirt on!

A prime example of the ultimate shirtless douchebaggery happened during Salmonfest weekend. I wasn't at the concert, and I can only imagine how many topless dudes there were, but the incident I want to refer to happened at a gas bar in Clarenville. I was waiting in line to get a bottle of drink when some tool walks into a public store without a shirt on! Like what the hell? I don't know why this guy thought he could walk into an enclosed area that serves and prepares food without a shirt but it was totally uncalled for. That guy should be pinned down and tattooed with the word "DOUCHE" written on his chest. In fact most people that walk around the roads shirtless should have the same punishment and maybe it will deter them from taking their shirts off next time. There are only a few public places where it's acceptable to go shirtless in my opinion. Beaches and swimming areas qualify as these types of areas, but as far as your trip to or from the beach, shirt should be required!, or else face the punishment of "DOUCHE"!

Finger Nail Clippers

Someone should put a silencer on those things

It's a problem faced in offices everywhere. It's not one a lot of people like to talk about, but its there...almost every day, and it needs to stop. I'm talking about people who clip their finger nails while at work!

How many times have I been working at my desk only to hear the faint clicking noise of someone cutting their fingernails in a nearby office space? A lot is the answer, and it's very irritating. It happened yesterday afternoon as a matter of fact. And I simply ask, why can't this activity wait until you get home?

I know people should feel comfortable at work, but it's still work, not your home. Just because you have an office or a desk to work at doesn't mean its yours. You wouldn't sit in that office or behind the desk with no pants on would you? So why do you think its ok to do other activities that normally should be done at home while at work? There is nothing worse then sitting down at a desk with someone and finding a stray finger nail clipping there. It's just disgusting.

So I say we ban nail clippers from the office environment and try to get rid of this problem once and for all! And if anyone clips their toenails at work, it should be grounds for immediate dismissal!

Memorials on the Highway

This keeps popping into my head when I drive across the province, but I keep forgetting to put it into a blog, and it could be a bit of a touchy subject in a way, but screw it I haven't written anything in 12 days so might as well get a post in.

I think that memorials to people on the side of the highway should be banned. I think they are distracting and as a result are potentially dangerous. Along the TCH you can find headstones, creepy white bicycles and various other monuments that are there to act as memorials to people who lost their life in those spots through some sort of accident. The concept of that is all well and good. If it helps bring peace to people who have lost a love one then great, and if it acts to serve as a reminder to all of us other drivers that tragedy can occur at anytime then also great, but the moment it becomes a distraction, it can cause another tragedy to occur.

About a year ago I was on the Outer Ring Road heading west when randomly this white object on the side of the road comes appears in the corner of my eye, I slammed on my breaks not having a clue what it was, but instinct was to slam on the breaks when I saw an unfamiliar object on the side of the road. This was at night so it wasn't noticeable from a distance, but turns out it was a bicycle chained to the guardrail painted white as a monument to someone who had been hit by a car while riding their bike. When I slammed on my breaks a number of things could have happened. I could have been rear ended for example or worse if it was raining I could have hydroplaned and ended up with a memorial to me at the very same spot. For me, as a person who drives a lot, I don't pay any attention to these monuments anymore, well not as much as I used to, but to a person unfamiliar with them, it might be enough of a distraction that they do not see the moose rapidly coming up from the bank on the side of the road in time to avoid hitting it. Honouring and remembering one tragedy is just not worth the risk of causing another.

So yes I understand why people put them there, I really do, but in my opinion they have to go. All of them. They've just got too much potential for something bad to happen.