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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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A couple of weeks ago, paranoid, I'd be pulled over by the cops (and there were lots), it'd be a shit night at work, something always goes wrong...
And trying to root out the source of the superstition, I remembered first hearing of it when I was a kid, maybe 6 or 7, my mom was reading to me "Tom Sawyer", and it came down to that scene where Tom and Huck are digging for buried treasure, only they realize that it's Friday the 13th, and so give up and reschedule. No spoilers here. But an amusing recollection...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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I remembered this the other day, a conversation about banks and deposit slips, and I remembered how when I was young a friend of mine and I would pop over to the local bank and while making our own withdrawals or deposits would fill in the back of the deposit slips with notes like "This is a stickup. This is not a joke. Put the money into a bag..." or some such, return the deposit slips to the unused pile, and laugh and joke and imagine what would happen if somehow one suddenly slipped past, a customer didn't check the back of a slip...
...and one day it did happen, our bank, surrounded, they determined it to be a "hoax" but we got wise, stopped doing it, it was a lot less funny when there was a chance someone might get hurt...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Another unique local custom here is the "Kootenay Cleanse". There are any number of variations, the point being to "Detox" and to prove to friends that you're not an addict.
Usually it involves giving up solid food, cigarettes, alcohol, Cocaine, LSD and MDMA for a week. But oddly enough you're still allowed to smoke weed, because, well, it's the Kootenays after all.
If you're thinking of trying it, try and get as many of your friends on board as possible, because, truthfully, it won't be possible if they're not...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Every day, an hour at least, on the internet, looking for something to inspire me, something of interest, anything...
The news. I've become a bit of a news junkie, the days headlines (condensed, as it were, to reduce the boredom):
Another schoolyard shooting, police cower outside behind their cars waiting for shooter to give himself up. President says he would have run in and subdue shooter with his bare hands.
And it's boring, just another fucking day, and then I reflect upon it, and all the other non-events that I've read about, and I realize that I'm becoming just a bit Jaded.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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It's a different place, for sure.
I mean, there are people that have lived here 30 years and don't have winter tires or four wheel drive. It's insane. There are few places on earth where it would be more important, yet they still don't, haven't gotten around to it, can't afford to, other priorities...
Crazy.
And there are people that hold down regular jobs by hitchhiking the 20 or 30 KM to work a day. Hitchhiking is considered a reliable means of transport.
Crazy.
If you own land and have a bunch of abandoned trailers or school buses you're a fucking landlord.
Crazy.
But this is the best, and the one that I hear most often (and am frequently guilty of myself, showing a dire acclimatization...) -
"What day is it?"
Meaning what day of the week of it is it. If you were to do a Kootenay-Styled "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" you'd open with that question.
Then you'd follow it with "What's the date?" and I can tell you there's nobody here that would get the answer to that question without checking at least one or two of their lifelines.
Then, finally, for a million dollars, you'd ask them the year. Because, hell, if they knew the day, date and year they'd let you keep your million dollars, out here, if they could answer all three of those questions on their own they'd be millionaires on their own initiative...