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Walmart Sucks
I thought I'd get out of the house for an hour or two today. I was cooped up all day yesterday writing a book I started about six months ago. I hadn't been to the local Walmart yet since I'd moved so I figured, what the hell, I need a phone card, I may as well check it out. Well shit, what a mistake - it stressed me out so bad I wanted to scream the entire time. I think there must have been at least a million people in there, that's how it felt to me anyway. I swear to god every single time I moved some fucker was standing in my way or nearly running me over with a cart. I'd brought a long list of things I needed to get while I was out and ended up only buying three or four things. The entire time I was in Walmart, all I could think about was getting the hell out. On another note, corn season is now ruined for me again. Whilst looking through husks of corn at the local IGA grocery store this afternoon, I found one with a live, wriggling worm inside. I threw it back into the bin, shuddered and decided against corn for dinner tonight. This had happened to me a few years ago while shucking a cob of corn at my ex-boyfriend's place. I was unable to eat corn on the cob again for months. So much for getting out of the house, I'm thinking of becoming a hermit.
Conserve
 Every single day on the news the top story is: Today is the big test - we could run out of power - conserve your energy and water. The Ontario government is freaking people out, saying if we go over a certain limit, we're going to have rolling blackouts. I'm wondering if the government is just trying to save money or if we really could run out of electricity. Since you can't trust politicians, who knows what is truth and what is fiction.
Despite our disdain for Ernie Eves et al, my brother and I are doing our part: we haven't turned on the air conditioning once since the blackout, only one light is allowed on in the house at any time, we haven't used the stove, we're not flushing the toilet every time we use it (implementing the if it's brown flush it down, if it's yellow, let it mellow rule, yuck) and we're washing our clothes in cold water and hanging them throughout the house to dry. In other words, we're living like a couple of hillbilly's. It's working out well though and we're pretty sure we're conserving more power than most Ontarians. On Friday morning, when we were still 12 hours away from getting our own power back, our sister called to tell us her electricity had come on at 4 a.m. Friday and that she and her husband had the air conditioner running. "How can you do that when your brother and sister still have no power at all?" I asked her. "Well, we have a two-year-old," was her reply. Fucking energy hogging bastards. According to the Independent Electricity Marketer, as of 11 a.m., the Ontario demand for electricity was 18,020 MW. Our available supply for the day: 21,743 megawatts. Wish us luck...
Down and out for 28 Hours
First thought in my head when the power went out at 4:12 p.m. EST on August 14th was some grid in the office building I work in must have crashed. Two minutes after it happened my brother, who works for the railroad, called and said: "So you're power's out, right?" I said "How do you know that?" He replied with: "Because it's out in the entire province." That's when I knew this wasn't a tiny annoying little power outage. Word started trickling in that power was out in New York, Michigan and as far as Ohio. It was pretty damn scary. I called Whe to make sure they were all OK and told Mini-Whe I couldn't get home because the lights weren't working. He started crying. I felt so awful. I hung around the office until about 6 p.m. because, looking out the window, one could see that traffic was an absolute disaster. When I finally decided to leave, with my pal Redfehu, we filled our water bottles, checked the level on my gas tank (half a tank, a good thing) and headed out. I got her home by 7:30 and got myself home to Oshawa by 8 p.m. First thing I did was call Mini-Whe to tell him I was home. His response: "YAY!" Suddenly, I realized I only had 13 cigarettes and $10 cash so I went for a quick drive up the street on the hunt for smokes. All the stores were closed. I started smoking half a cigarette at a time. Our neighbours, who own a camper, had a generator with the TV running and also had extra cigarettes. They generously gave me a couple, a can of Pepsi to mix with a bit of rye my brother and I had in the cupboard and barbecued hot dogs for us for dinner. They were awesome. As I tried to sleep, the light of the waning moon poured through my bedroom window, I could see Mars to the right of it, glowing brightly. I knelt on the floor in front of the window, arms on the sill, wondering what the next day would bring. At 6:30 a.m. I could hear my brother outside talking to the neighbours - I looked at my alarm clock, no light was flashing - meaning no power. I yell good morning to them out the window. Our neighbour is making us coffee on his gas stove. I'm told the premiere of the province has declared a state of emergency and all non-essential workers are to stay home - best news I could possibly hear - so we've all got the day off work to sit around and ponder what went wrong and when will it go right again. Much of the day many of us were walking around in a powerless fog. Not only was there no power on, but most people felt powerless to do anything about it. My brother and I drove around looking for cigarettes and gas (a local variety store owner let us give him an IOU for the former, thank god but the lineups for gas were too long), he finally found a bank machine so we managed to get propane for the barbecue, canned goods, bottles of water and yes, more cigarettes! A friend of his called later in the day, offering us a 40 ouncer of rye - we accepted it, of course! By 7 p.m. Friday, we were resigned to another day, or even another week without power - it felt like it was never coming back on - and were barbecuing the rest of the steak and chicken in our freezers. At about 8 o'clock, my brother and I were in the kitchen and we hear our next door neighbour yell "We've got power!" I slammed my hand across our light switch and on it went. Everyone was on their front porches yelling "Woo Hoo!" and giving the thumbs up. What a relief. So there we were with chicken, steak, pepsi, gingerale and a 40 ouncer of rye in our cupboard there was only one thing left to do - make some ice and start drinking heavily. During any type of emergency, not only do you take stock of what you have in your cupboards, you take stock of who and what is really important to you. I realized after all this that I have gained not only a greater appreciation of my brother and my neighbours but I've gained an even greater love of one other thing - cigarettes - I will never be caught shorthanded again!
Telus Mobility Can Kiss My Ass
 Upon awakening on Saturday morning I went through my usual routine: stumble downstairs to turn the coffee on, stumble back up the stairs to take a shower, dry off, pour coffee (with double cream, no sugar), light up smoke and turn on cell phone. After a couple of minutes, I wonder why I don't hear the usual beeping sound when my phone powers up, so I pick it up off the coffee table and all I see on the screen is a frozen hourglass. What the hell? I bought the damn phone less than three months ago so I was kind of surprised. I call their "client care" line and I'm told I'll need to get it repaired. Fuck. What a pain in the ass.
On Sunday I go to the Telus store, show them that my phone is frozen, take out my proof of purchase and I'm told they'll send it for repair but there's a $25 "fee" I have to pay. "But I have a warranty," I explain. "Whether or not you do, there is a $25 fee," the cashier re-iterates. Some warranty. Some service. What a piece of shit company Telus is. Then she asks me if I need a loaner phone as it will take 3-4 weeks to repair my phone. Well yes of course I'd like a loaner phone. "OK," she says. "We need a $75 deposit." Great, so I'm forced to shell out another $75 because I'm a Telus customer. Some warranty. Some service. What a piece of shit company Telus is. Later on in the evening, I dial a number on my lesser-quality loaner phone and get the message "This phone is not activated." ASSHOLES. So I try calling client care and I get the message "We're sorry, Telus Client Care is not available at the moment." What a piece of shit company Telus is. An hour or two later I try client care again and this time I actually get to speak to someone, whereby I am told they have no record of my bringing my phone in for repair and they had no idea I was using a loaner phone. "You people are well worth the $25 service fee," I told the guy, who had the personality of a gnat. Eventually, I get the phone activated. How long it will last before it breaks down is anyone's guess. You know, it just occurred to me that maybe my brain waves fucked up the phone, seeing as I'm a Slider. No matter what the cause, one fact remains - What a piece of shit company Telus is.
I Like Pee:
 Here's a Sarah Silverman bit, brought to you by our friends David and Bob:
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