Hooker Habits

Last week, Holly and I were driving home from Swans and I was taking my usual shortcuts. There's a five-way intersection that can take awhile if you (invariably) get there at the wrong time. There's a network of side streets leading up to the five-way and I used to usually take the side street immediately before the intersection. A left turn, down a block, right at the stop sign, then left and I'm back to the 'normal', non-shortcut route. Now, what makes this route interesting is the number of hooker hangouts I drive past.

The first hangout is along Government Street. That one is fine, since it's a wide street and they're easy to ignore. (Though, I've made the mistake of glancing over before and regretting it; some of them are just nasty ugly.) Driving along Government can be amusing because once in awhile you see a vehicle stopped, their intentions obvious.

The next hangout is along the shortcut mentioned above. This one's a little more iffy, since it involves a stop sign. That's the reason I said I 'used to' usually take the street immediately before the five-way intersection. There have been times where I've waited at the stop sign to turn right, and a hooker popped out of her spot and started meandering towards me. Umm, no. Damn car, hurry up so I can turn! I started taking a new shortcut that starts sooner, after observing a few other people do the same. The good thing about this new shortcut is that it doesn't involve any stopping in the Hookers' Zone of Attraction.

Anyway, last week, I was driving along this shortcut and following a guy also taking the shortcut... or so I assumed. A little before the hooker hangout, he slowed down and cruised until he passed. When he got to the post-shortcut turn, instead of continuing on the normal route, he turned onto another side street that would let him circle back. I looked over at Holly and mentioned this and we both laughed. I wondered if he didn't stop earlier because I was behind him or because he didn't see his favourite girl? Maybe he didn't want to make it too obvious? I briefly contemplated following him around to see what he did. Either that or stop at the corner and wait to see if he circled around. The only problem with the latter is that a hooker might get the wrong impression.

This then inspired the following conversation, which may or may not be exactly as written. Actually, I'd be very surprised if it was anything close to what was written.

Holly: I wonder how hookers get to work? I mean, do they take the bus or drive or what?
me: Well, I'd probably say their pimp. In a pimp-mobile or something.
H: But then what if they don't have a pimp.
me: You mean like freelance hookers? I don't think they stay that way for long. Maybe they commute with other hookers, like a carpool? Carpooling hookers!
H: Haha! They could start a union!
me: Hehe, unionized hookers.
H: Carpooling Unionized Hookers!
me: Then they could go on strike.
H: Do you think they'd strike during the day or night?
me: Well, I'd think during the night, since that would most affect their clients. That would be funny, hookers standing on the street corner with signs, NOT soliciting.

It kind of degenerated after that, not that it could really degenerate very far...

WARNING: The preceding post may offend some people. You have been warned.

Oh wait, was the warning supposed to come before the post?

That is all.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

A little late, but I was busy all weekend and spent about five minutes total on a computer. It was a triple-threat weekend, with Chinese New Year, my brother's birthday, and Holly and my anniversary (shy one month ) all falling on Saturday and Sunday. We headed to Vancouver bright and early Saturday morning, after a late Friday night Swing City. The plan in a nutshell was to meet up with my brother and family, celebrate, do some stuff, then rush back on Sunday to teach Swing 3. In theory, sleep was supposed to happen somewhere in there... I'm just not sure where exactly.

Saturday night, we went out for a big dinner for a combination birthday/Chinese New Year celebration. It was a standard Big Chinese Banquet. The restaurant was crazy packed (reservations, of course) with it being Saturday night AND Chinese New Year's eve. We later found out that they wouldn't have taken our reservation had they realized it was for Saturday, not Friday, because of all the other business. Service was slow, as you might expect. It sometimes literally took an hour for the next course to come out. Our reservation was for 5:30PM. We finished eating and left at around 10:30PM. It was almost as slow as Swans service... At least the food was pretty good and the waitstaff and floor manager(?) were always pleasant and accommodating, except for all the waiting. Well, the waiting and the fact that they thought we had already been served one of the courses when we inquired about it.

On a different note, I resurrected a 'tradition' I had of buying VCDs and/or DVDs anytime I went to Vancouver. It's been a few trips since I did, but this time around I came back with 5 VCDs for $22. Not bad, as usual.

That is all.

Happy What?

Happy VD, everybody!

With it being Valentine's Day, and me saying this would come, I thought I'd present an update to my search keywords. And to tie it in with VD, there are a few searches looking for porn. As for my comments, you know the drill.

Circus swirlies
circus courtenay
circus swirl decals

Clothed swirlies
normal jeans
measurements of a swirlie skirt

More swinging swirlies
knicker aerial swing

Funny swirlies
funny swirlies
blockbuster comical

Very specific swirlies
women with nausea and uneasy stomach in the afternoon
lcd monitor burnt smell and display for few seconds before going black

Little Shop of Swirlies
rare plastic plants audrey II

Lego swirlies
lego decals samples

Random swirlies
Heidi Hovers [I'm 2nd on Google! This matches two of my Choose Your Own Adventure story posts.]
blue swirlie
Swirlies building
comments Braefoot Elementary
FIRETRUCK SHOWS

Finding swirlies
swirlies blog
swinginswirlie msn spaces
swirlies house of pancake blog ['Swirlies' is apparently the name of a band and 'House of Pancake' is the title of one of their songs.]

And now...
Porn swirlies
swirlies porn [#5 result!]
porn swirlies [#5 result!]
lesbian swirlies [#2 result!]
swirlies lesbian [#2 result!]
swirlie lesbian [TOP result! Again, thanks Sara.]
arlanda pole dancing [#6 result!]


And now for something completely different...
This morning on my drive to work, I saw three school busses in the span of about ten seconds, one of which I followed briefly. I read the back, as I've done often enough, and read the standard "DO NOT PASS WHEN RED LIGHTS FLASHING" text. Now, this is what doesn't make sense to me. The red lights are meant to keep drivers from passing a school bus because kids will be crossing the road in front of the bus. This is just stupid. We've always taught people NOT to cross in front of a bus because you can't see what might be coming. By having these flashing warning lights and telling kids to cross, you're basically teaching them that it's OK to cross in front of a bus. wtf?! Not to mention the part about teaching them to jaywalk, since school busses never pick up or drop off at a crosswalk. "OK kids, let's cross in front of the bus in the middle of the block. But remember, never ever cross in front of busses and only cross at intersections and crosswalks!" *shakes head*

That is all.

Geekery follows...

First, a warning. What follows involves geekery; more so than usual. You have been warned.


In the TG Daily news today is an opinion piece entitled Is Apple lying?. With the recent launch of Vista (and all the problems one expects from any major launch like this), Apple has been running an ad campaign that basically amounts to (not surprisingly) a smear/slander campaign. Bill Gates reacted by calling Steve Jobs a liar. Finally, the thoughts of many have been vocalized.

The campaign (as well as their previous Mac vs PC campaigns) is amusing in some ways, but not in the ways intended. At best, they were misguided and not entirely correct. In a lot of ways, they parallel presidential/political campaigns in that it's more about throwing mud at your opponents than anything else. The only difference is, is that Apple has been the only one doing the throwing. And as the article says (emphasis is my own):

I also wonder if these are really selling the Mac as much as they are scaring folks away from Vista. These spots, while fun, don't really showcase the Mac much at all and seem to simply focus on contrived Windows shortcomings. Where is iLife, or iMovie, or Garageband, or FinalCut? There is a little bit of that in an occasional iLife mention, but mostly this campaign seems to be taking shots at Windows and if the Mac truly is better why would Apple have to lie, and why would they avoid any details on why the Mac is better?

Why, indeed?

That is all.

Ridiculous news

I was reading some news on Monday and came across a couple interesting articles.

The first article talks about some (let's be nice here) unthinking fool who decided to wait in line overnight for the PS3 launch to buy one or two to sell for profit. This profit was to be used to buy an engagement ring for his girlfriend. He bought one (~$700CAD!) at the store and another ($1800CAD!!!) from a scalper AT the store. He wanted to wait a couple months until the big 'Christmas rush' to sell, but by that time, demand for the PS3 had all but disappeared.

Ok, there are a couple things he did wrong here. First, he waited too long to sell them. More shipments were made and all the idiot-adopters (can't call them early-adopters in this case) had gotten what they wanted. Second, and this is the big one, he assumed that people actually wanted the PS3. If you can't tell, I have no sympathies for this guy, as he brought this upon himself. I won't get into what I think about all the people that spent waaaaay too much money to buy the PS3 in the store first thing (and didn't sell it), or the people that spent waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much money buying it from people who bought it from the store (some upwards of $5000USD). You can probably guess fairly accurately, though.

The second article states that four in ten kids have seen, accidentally or otherwise, some kind of porn online. Bear (bare! hoho) in mind that their definition of 'porn' is pretty broad and includes simple nudity.

This raises one question, though: So few? I mean, seriously. I'm guessing a lot of these kids are just too embarrassed/ashamed to admit to it. But this reminds me of a couple things. First is the Internet is for Porn video. Second is a clip from Scrubs in which Dr. Cox is delivering one of his famous rants, Perry's Perspective. (This one is, in fact, one of my favourite rants.) Now, before you label me as a porn freak, let me say that I don't necessarily believe that the Internet is purely for porn; just mostly. Besides, it's funnier this way. Speaking of porn, remember this when I next write about my search keyword hits.

That is all.

Friday night business plans...

Friday night at Swing City, I was talking with Julia. I think I should back up for a minute, first. Thursday night I dropped by Bootleg Boogie to pick up the wireless microphone headset from sav, as I was teaching the beginner lesson on Friday. I was only planning on staying a short time; get in, get the mic, chat a little bit, and go. As Holly and I walked up the stairs, the first thing that struck us was the glowing Tina. She was wearing all white. Combine that with a blacklight and she glowed. The second thing that struck us was the lack of people. Odd. Lack of leads, in particular. I was lead #3 (with sav not counting since he was DJ). When I was trying to say my goodbyes, Sara stopped me, stripped me, and pulled me to the dancefloor. Attempted exit number two was just as successful. This time, Tina, Christabel, and Julia all teamed up to strip me. All this time, Holly was watching, amused. I danced with each of them in turn. Exit attempt number three was actually successful. Stripped by four girls while my girlfriend watched. How's THAT for an enticement to go dancing?

But apparently that wasn't the only interesting thing that happened that night. Now back to Friday. I was talking with Julia, and she was telling me about one drunk guy that was at Bootleg Boogie at various points through the night. He was probably reaching for his twenties, but looked about a decade shy. Drunk plus dancing equals amusing situations. Anyway, his friends came by to collect him. Later, they came by to collect him again, as he had escaped their 'watchful eyes'. That led me to seize on a new business idea and a range of products.

Imagine the scenario: You're out for a night of partying, dancing, what have you, with your friends and with that comes the drinking. Some of your friends partake a little too much and are soon imbibed with the spirits of drink. Over-imbibed, actually. It's always a chore keeping track of your drunken comrades, as they tend to wander from you if you let them out of your sight for even a second. They're like untrained children or pets, only worse. Baby-proofing, pet-proofing, and drunk-proofing require the same techniques; as they all spit up, urinate, and play with and eat everything when you least expect it. There must be an easier way to keep track of your drunken friends. There are numerous products for pets and babies/toddlers, such as leashes (both pet and toddler), electric/invisible fences, and proximity alarms. It's time to adapt and market these for the drunk demographic!

Drunk leashes to keep your drunks close. Imagine attaching one of those retractable leashes to your drunken friend. If he gets a little too far, just reel him in! The electric/invisible fences and proximity alarms could be used in several ways. You can setup a perimeter around your table to administer a mild shock if your drunk attempts to leave his area. Proximity alarms could be used in a similar way, but with a roaming area. They could also be used to keep them from pestering innocent women, a la restraining orders.

On the business side of things, drunk-tending services can be made available. Don't want to deal with your drunks, instead of having fun yourself? Hire a Drunk Walker. It's like hiring a Dog Walker, but for your drunks. Imagine seeing somebody in a club, holding onto ten leashes, all connected to drunken clubbers, none of them creeping out/bothering/pestering others! How much would you pay for that service? $75/hour? $100/hour? $250/hour? No, for a limited time only, you pay only five easy installments of $24.99 each*! But wait, there's more! If you order now, you get a free Drunkie Bag! And if you call in the next 15 minutes, we'll even make your last payment for you! That's right, instead of paying five easy installments of $24.99, you only pay four easy installments of $24.99, INTEREST FREE**! What a deal! Call now! Operators are standing by.

* Applicable taxes and $19.99 shipping and handling charges extra.
** O.A.C. only.
*** No C.O.D.s accepted.

That is all.

Which Eight? The 51st!

The 51st Eight were back in town on Saturday, playing at Hermann's Jazz Club. As usual, the performance was great and included two guests that joined them for a few songs each. The dance floor was big enough for all of us dancing and we put it to good use. I'm now down another $30, but I'm up two more 51st Eight CDs.

On a more serious note, after 51st Eight, we were driving home and Hillside Ave. was blocked off by police between Quadra St.(?) and Cook St. Apparently, there had been a high-speed chase that ended in a fatal shooting. A Victoria man had been driving a stolen GMC Jimmy and had tried to run down a group of officers. More details can be found in these articles from the Times Colonist and the Vancouver Sun.

That is all.