Holidays | Piss and Moan

O Canada…

Posted on September 13, 2018 by backuphill

Photo by Daniel Joseph Petty on Pexels.com

Our neighbors from the northern land!

Improve your driving we shall command.

Your lack of skill comes as no surprise,

Violate the laws and you won’t be free!

From the border you come,

O Canada, you speed on the freeway.

God you’re rude and pushy too!

O Canada, we won’t stand to let you speed.

O Canada, we won’t let you speed for free.

A little ode for our Canadian neighbors, sung to the tune of their national anthem. If you live in the upper left corner of the United States, you can totally relate to this little ditty. Shoot, if you live anywhere within reach of the Canadian border, you can probably relate. Am I wrong?

Total generalization here, but the general consensus (or commonly held stereotype) is that Canadians are generally a docile and friendly people. If you are actually IN Canada, I have found this to be true for the most part. They are nice people. However, in my experience, the are not great drivers.

Once they cross that border in the US, that stereotype goes away and another becomes the reality. They apparently forget all rules of the road and all manners while shopping. If you live within 200 miles of the border in Washington, this is a well known fact.

Reality is that Canadians are rude and self-absorbed. Two areas this is blatantly obvious: driving and shopping. This is displayed in driving because they speed, weave in and out of traffic, cut people off, tailgate, and otherwise display poor behavior with abandon because there is apparently no consequence for it, even when they get pulled over. The other area is shopping. The clog up our stores (especially close to the border) and purchase weird amounts of milk and gas (can we thank socialism and price controls for that?). They are pushy. They are usually very loud. They sometimes appear to not even understand the purchasing process…I mean, really?

So, how about we try this? Shop online and we’ll ship it too you. We want your money, but we can do without the bad driving and invasion of our stores every time you have a holiday in the land of maple syrup and Mounties.

How do stupid people live so long?

Posted on July 22, 2018 by backuphill

Photo by Jared Lung on Pexels.com

I was on vacation this last week and went fishing off the northern reaches of Vancouver Island. There was a lot of boat travel involved, including the very large ferry boat to get to the island.

In the adventures of a ferry line, there are all sorts of people. I happened to be in line behind the biggest idiot on the boat. Let me set the scene…

We arrived at the ferry an hour before the appointed sailing time. There were already nine or so cars in the line (including said idiot directly in front of me). We killed time in the shops and grabbed some coffee and then with about 25 minutes before sailing time we headed back to our vehicle so we were ready for the loading announcement (typically they load the boat 15 minutes before sailing). The idiot in front of me had the back of his vehicle open and the bikes that were on the back of the vehicle were propped up next to the vehicle.

The first announcement to return to your vehicles came and people began loading back into their cars. Idiot? Well, he just stood there looking at his phone.

The second announcement to return to your vehicles came and, again, idiot just stood there fumbling around with his phone. Now people’s cars were starting and people were prepared to board the boat.

Cars in the line ahead are now moving and beginning to load onto the boat. Idiot, looks up, sees that cars are moving and finally begins to move. He closes the back of his vehicle, no urgency involved, then proceeds to load the first bike back onto the rack on the back of his car. The cars in the front of the line are now gone and he is holding up the entire line…and now he can’t figure out how to secure the bike. So he fumbles around trying to make it happen. He wife now jumps out of the car, puts here coffee on the top of the car, and tries to help him – only it appears she is just getting in the way rather than helping.

We sit. We can’t move. We can’t go around and neither can the cars behind us, because when you line up at the ferry line you park close enough the to car in front of you that you can’t escape. We sit some more.

Finally, the guy decides that he can’t take any more time (now at 5 minutes since the car in front of him moved) and he just throws the second bike onto the rack and jumps into the car. He wife jumps in and closes here door, only to jump back out and grab her coffee off the top of the car. They are finally moving…

Good grief…the two loading messages 10 minutes before loading were apparently not enough to get this idiot moving.

All I could do was shake my head and wonder how stupid people survive so long.

#smh

Freedom requires responsibility

Posted on July 5, 2018 by backuphill

Well, it was July 4th yesterday, as most of you are aware I am sure (at least my U.S. readers). That’s right, a celebration of our independence and freedom. However, the independence and freedom we were celebrating yesterday also comes with some responsibility.

I am generally not opposed to freedom, though I also am a believer that if you allow people to be stupid by choice, well, they’ll take advantage of it. I mean, most people have common sense but there are way more people out there that lack it and, quite frankly, probably run from it. That is a discussion for another day…

Anyway, we did something out of the ordinary and didn’t stay close to home. Instead, we went to a big city, with lots of people. I like to people watch and my general sense that people are dumb was confirmed, as usual.

In Washington, pot (weed, marijuana, ganja, whatever you wanna call it) is legal. Not only is it legal, but if you are 21 you can pretty much smoke it openly (though technically it is illegal in public, no one enforces it). As such, people use their freedom (or is it take advantage of their freedom?). Yesterday was no exception.

The sad part is that it was in the open, with lots of people (many of whom by the looks on their faces) who didn’t smoke, AND with children in close proximity. When I say children, I mean from infant to teens. Not just their own kids, but other families’ also. When I say close proximity, I mean within 2 feet all the way up to 30. Needless to say, there were lots of people getting the second-hand smoke and many were not pleased about it.

I am not on board with smoking, anything, but I recognize people will do what they want to do if allowed to. I am sure these people light up often in their own personal space, where it should be kept. BUT, if you have children or there are children around then you should refrain. PERIOD. If you choose to do it to your own body, fine. Secondary smoke is not acceptable, especially if the littlest are exposed and they have no say in the matter at all. Yes, I could have gotten up and moved. I get it. However, I am sure the children of these particular people are subjected to that second-hand smoke on a regular basis, especially since they so boldly and openly smoked right there with hundreds of others who were not smoking.

It makes me sad, really. Thoughtlessness prevails, again. Responsibility fails, again. Freedom isn’t always a good thing and stupid people prove it, again.

**Trigger warning: This post may cause rage. Best solution, common sense. If you have it, then the rage is probably appropriately place. If you don’t have it, then you are probably part of the problem.**

Keep it down!

Posted on July 4, 2018 by backuphill

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Photo by Brett Sayles on Pexels.com

Happy 4th of July. Happy Independence Day. Happy “we gave the Brits a middle finger” day. Whatever you call, it should be happy.

Let’s chat about this holiday for a second. Well, two things on this holiday. It is such a contradictory holiday in the US these days (and I am not even talking about the political stuff).

First, we, the people, are supposed to be free and have independence, right? Yet, on this holiday you can’t hardly “blow crap up” because everything is banned and illegal. That’s right, I live in one of THOSE communities that say, basically, “if it leaves the ground, it’s illegal.” WTH? Independence Day and I can’t celebrate the hell out of it by blowing crap up the way I want to??? How is that independence? No one really enjoys sparklers (unless you tape the together and make a big explosion out of them) and no one really likes those fountain things that spew bright colors. People want big booms, I cannot lie.

Second, can we keep it to just one day? For all the holy hell, can we keep the loud noises and disruption of sleep to just one day and night? It’s not Independence Week or Independence Month. It is a day! Let’s just do it for the dogs…it scares the heck outta them. It is hard to put the dog out into the yard so it can take care of business only to have random explosions and loud noises going of for a week before and after the holiday. I guess we probably should do it for the vets too (thought I never heard anyone from the Greatest Generation complain about the holiday before. But really, let’s just do it for the dogs. Well, and me because I am tired of finding the dog cowering behind the toilet in the bathroom.

Happy Independence Day!

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