Catpaw – diary of an angry cat

Oh life can be good. It’s strawberry season here in Ontario. Mmmmmm….

Also picked up some nice kabobs for the BBQ, local grown green onions, radishes hmmmm… put the onions around the potatoes and on the grill they go. Yum. Along with some great local asparagus and there you go.

Strawberries for desert. Nice cool breeze just starting up.Good night to sit around watching the sun go down.

Sorry – no more time to write, times awasting. Need to go and sit outside for awhile. No complaints, no rants, no problems. Can’t be bothered with annoyances today – maybe tomorrow. Fresh Ontario strawberries have that effect on me.

Oh my, what a nasty kettle of fish this story has opened. Ontario is pondering a ban on cell phone use while driving. Hurray – it’s long overdue. The local paper, The Toronto Star, ran an article last week that, I suppose, was supposed to drum up support for cab drivers here in the city. Seems cabbies want to fight the ban because they
… say a behind-the-wheel cellphone ban, … impact[s] them more than most.

Further they say “Cabbies, … have become very skilled at driving while talking on the phone. “With a very high usage of cellphones we’ve not seen a correlating increase in accidents,” he argues.

Well, with that said, let’s put all our lives at risk and let the phone calls begin! If anything, this story has me hopping mad. Cab drivers in this city are some of the most irresponsible drivers I have ever seen. AND THAT IS SAYING A LOT! Toronto seems to excel at horrific near misses, arrogant driving, obnoxious behaviour and aggressiveness pushed to the nth level. There may not be a REPORTED correlation in increased accidents, but there sure are a lot of near misses.

Quite frankly I don’t give a rat’s ass about their complaint. Normally, I try to see both sides of the argument, but in this case you are talking about public safety – my safety. And just because they are cab drivers, doesn’t make them any better at driving. On the contrary, many of the drivers seem to treat the streets of Toronto as a some sort of demented speedway. I’ve been nearly clipped twice by cabs running through crosswalks – that dent in the side of the Becks cab last month? That was my foot hitting the side panel as it played beat the pedestrian through the LEGAL crosswalk. How about the nifty, and illegal U turns that go on all the time? Again, how many times do I have to be honked at, while crossing safely, by some jackass in a cab who wants to finish his U turn in the middle of an intersection. The unsafe lane changes are legendary – zipping in and out at high speeds, rushing lights, crowding cars that are too slow. Nice. Oh and suddenly shifting from a north bound lane to a south bound lane (in the middle of a traffic jam) was a sight to behold, especially when the cabbie started to push his way into our lane, blocking traffic coming both ways. His rude gestures to us were very appreciated by the way.

Let’s look at the cabs from a passenger’s point of view – something I only do in an emergency now. I’ve been treated to trips that make Mr Toad’s wild ride look tediously boring. They can be hair raising, often for the unsafe lane changes, abrupt stops and lack of attention by the driver. But what really ticks me off is the lack of knowledge some of the drivers display about the city itself. I had one driver not even know where St. Mike’s hospital is. Now how in hell can you be a cab driver in this city and not know a major downtown landmark? This is not unusual either. I often print off a map of where I’m going before getting into a cab or I’ll get taken for a real ride. I’ve had cabbies so interested in their phone calls, they’ve completely missed where they are taking me.  I had one driver, so intent on his conversation, he went West instead of South East. When I pointed out to him he was going the wrong way, he kept saying he was taking a shortcut. No sorry pal, West never gets you East. Get the f’n phone out of your ear and pay attention. I’ve actually insisted the cab pull over so I can get out because of the driver’s attitude – I know when I’m being taken for a ride. I know this city very well. I get hot under the collar when someone tries to tell me I’m ignorant about the traffic (his words, not mine by the way). No matter how hard the cab driver tries, I know you cannot get to Union Station by going West on Bloor street to Spadina. It is not a shortcut. Trust me.  When I get a good cabbie, I tip very well. That used to be quite often. Now it seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

I’m all for having the phones for safety or for use while NOT driving. But this idea of being exempt from the ban is ludicrious. Cabbies, if anyone, should adhere to the ban because they are playing with the lives of their passengers, not just their own. Call home when you don’t have a passenger and are pulled over.  Leave the line open when you have a passenger, but take the phone away from your ear and pay attention to your job.

I’ll be able to laugh at all the saggy, baggy tattooed and pierced seniors for a long, long time. Guess why? Coffee is good for me:

Drinking copious amounts of coffee is not harmful to your health, … protect you from heart disease, new research suggests. [http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/06/16/coffee-habitsstudy.html?ref=rss]

Guess I’ll just double my morning latte. Hey what the hell make it a triple – before a new study comes out and says coffee will make my fur drop off. I’m not sure, but not long ago didn’t research try to link coffee to cancer risks?

Know what the real problem is? Not the research, but the donut heads that take each and every study as a new gospel and push it to the extreme. This is a preliminary study but it will be seen as definitive and new diets will crop up everywhere.

That being said, allow me to take the reigns of the band wagon and help steer you over the nearest cliff. Try the Catpaw Caffeine Overdrive Weight-loss and Long Life Diet. Here’s my remedy for all your woes:

Start the day with 1 Tim Horton’s extra large coffee – double double for breakfast. Hmm hmmm good. Let’s start the caffeine jitters now. Tim Horton’s coffee always gives me a bad case of the jitters for some reason. Never touch the stuff personally because of that – and I have a high coffee tolerance. Go figure.

Finished the coffee? Then slide on down the street – must get your exercise in – down to Starbucks for a triple Venti latte. You might need a bit of something to coat your stomach so while sipping your venti latte hop on down to the bagel store and get a little something there. While waiting in line for your bagel (don’t forget the extra dolup of cream cheese, oh and butter that bagel too!) order another quick cup of their bitter brew. Best ask them if it’s been sitting on the burner for an hour or more – tastes great that way.

Remember – no tea substitutes. Drop into the local mattress store and order a dozen extra thick mattresses.

Time for more exercise – off home double quick. You should be able to hit at least 3 more coffee shops on the way home. Don’t be a wimp. By now the caffeine will be coursing through your veins so you’ll be home in no time at all. Dig out the coffee pot and make a BIG pot of coffee. Pour another mug, extra large and go out onto the balcony (or back yard) and eat your bagel while sipping more coffee. I’m suggesting you do this outdoors, because by now you’ll have such a massive case of the caffeine shakes you’ll need the space to run up off some of it.

OH LOOK IT’S LUNCH TIME! Guess what? More coffee. That’s right. By now the coffee you made earlier will be cool. Plunk a couple of ice cubes into it and voila iced coffee. Yummy. Who needs food? You won’t be able to settle long enough to chew food by now anyway. If you really feel the need for something then throw a bit of coffee ice cream into your glass. Make another pot of coffee and fill a thermos up.

Let’s put those sneakers on. Exercise time. Gotta move. Keep going until the thermos is empty, you feel your jitters settle down or you have to pee.

Snack time! Oh YEA! Where to go? Where to go? By this time you should have walked to a different town so you might have to ask around for a coffee shop. Someone will know where a good one is. In the meantime, stop at any gas station and purchase a quick cup of the local sludge. Yum. Drink it down double quick. That will keep you going until you find a quality coffee shop. When you find one – order a sandwich (must keep up your nutrition) and a 3 extra large, double coffee to go. Oh and fill your thermos as well. Now go find the bus station and buy a ticket and go home. Make sure the bus has a toilet.

By the time you get home, you’ll be ready to crash. Don’t give in to temptation – ignore those heart palpitations. Only the weak will take them seriously, go top up that coffee level. Doesn’t matter where, by this time you won’t be able to taste anything anyway. If you want, make pot at home instead of going out. Forget the mug just suck it straight from the pot. Go eat the stuffing in the couch and wash it down with more coffee. You will be so irrational by this point in time it won’t matter what the hell you eat.

Remember those mattresses you ordered earlier in the day? Unbox them (lord knows you’ll have enough energy to do this on your own) and fling them around the walls of your bedroom. You are going to need them. Not only is bouncing off the walls hard on the body, it’s noisy. You’ll need the mattresses to muffle the sound as you ping off the walls all night. Lock yourself in the room and start bouncing. Have fun! By morning you will be so exhausted you’ll need a large cup of coffee just to kick start your system.

Oh did I say long life? I doubt you will live longer, one day on this diet will just seem so terribly long.

I want to live to be very, very old.

I want to live long enough to watch all the people with tattoos grow old. Ever wonder what some of these tattoos will look like on senior citizens? I’m going to laugh myself to death as the tattoos fade and wrinkle.

“Grandma? Why do you have a tattoo that says F*ck Authority?”
“Grandpa? What is that strange splotching all over your skin?”

Oh and the piercings are going to be a bonus! Can’t wait to see some those start to sag! I can’t help but think all those holes may not heal over completely – especially the one’s in (eww, ick!) the eyebrow.

I’m gonna have fun when I’m a senior – I’m going to laugh myself to death.

Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) down in Oshawa are blockading their soon to be defunct GM truck plant. GM recently announced they are closing the gas guzzler plant in 2009 and gave layoff notices to all the workers. Seems the economy won’t support these behemoths anymore, and the public is telling GM with it’s wallet – the trucks just don’t sell in the numbers they used to. I read sales are down as much as 39% in the last year – this was BEFORE the huge gas price hikes here in Ontario. The truck/SUV crunch is so bad, GM is closing not just the Canadian plant but the ones in the US and Mexico. So what are the workers doing? Saving their pennies in anticipation of layoffs? Looking for employment? Pressuring for aid in creating new jobs? Going to work so they can save their pennies? Not on your Nellie! They are blockading the plant so no work can occur. Bright bulbs down there eh? The CAW wants GM to keep the plant open to 2011 and are using strong arm tactics to make this happen, there was even talk of a strike (oh wouldn’t that make the GM management happy, fewer pay-cheques!) and now the union is promising “We’ve got all kinds of things up our sleeves”. My mind shutters at such nonsense talk. The plant is losing a ton of money, and there is no market for the product, so let’s keep making the trucks so they can sit on a lot, rusting in the Canadian weather. Good plan there folks. Lots of forward thinking.

The time of the big truck has passed. All this stupidity being spewed about forcing the company to keep the plant open won’t help. The jobs are gone, it’s time to move into another sector. Yes I realize your next job won’t pay as well. I had a hard time pinning down how much the workers were making down there – anywhere from $35 for entry level jobs to $70hr for experienced workers. All I know is this is way too much money for unskilled labour. Nurses get paid less than CAW members get paid – to me that is just nuts. I got into an argument with a CAW supporter last week, and he kept saying well they work hard for their money. And the rest of the world doesn’t? Are you telling me a night shift nurse doesn’t work hard? Tell that to them at 7am after a full night. I think the average nurse might just want to rip you a new one. You want to work hard? Go work in a restaurant waiting tables – you don’t even get paid minimum wage and the tips often don’t bridge the gap. Let’s not even discuss the level of abuse you take as a waiter/waitress. THAT’S HARD WORK! This argument makes me see red. CAW members were grossly overpaid, and while that is not the driving reason for the truck sales drops, it sure hasn’t helped.

I feel for the families that are going to be out of work in a year. I also feel for the spin off job loss that will happen. BUT, the writing was on the wall a long time ago. These big, inefficient vehicles, manufactured by the same company that thought the HUMMER, Civilian Crusher Version, was a great idea, are too expensive to run, and chuck way too much pollution into the air. Do you really need a 1/2 ton truck to go pick up milk and cookies at the store? People are concerned about pollution and gas prices. As someone who has suffered through many pollution alerts, I am not shedding a tear for this change in the public attitude. It has been too long in coming. Either we change our habits, or we die. Smaller, more fuel efficient cars that don’t send as much pollution into the air will only benefit us, not hurt us. GM didn’t listen and now it’s paying the piper.

I’ve been reading the editorials and am fed up with the whining and complaining about people buying “crap foreign, Asian cars” instead of Canadian trucks. Wake up you jackasses! GM is not a Canadian company, nor is Ford or any of the rest of them. As for crap? I think the little cars won the battle because the companies LISTENED TO THE BLOODY MARKET! Instead of being inflexible and saying Americans won’t buy small, the Japanese car makers set up car plants here in Canada and have been slowly expanding ever since. Their marketing people looked at the same stats that the Big 3 American car makers looked at and interpreted them correctly. They saw a need for fuel efficient cars and filled that need. What did GM and the rest do? Kept churning out gas guzzlers. Big, dangerous gas, guzzlers. Not hard to guess who is winning the battle?

So CAW, don’t even think of trying to get the Ontario government to strong arm GM into keeping a money losing plant open. This will be a huge waste of tax payers money. Money better spent elsewhere, like on our struggling farmers, poor working class, hungry children in low income families, FLIPPING SCHOOL BOOKS, anything but a damned bunch of trucks that shouldn’t be on the road to begin with. How about being creative instead? Ask for funds to set up alternative employment – oh yes and this also means no more big pay cheques, and welcome back into the real world. Stop screaming for an unrealistic goal and plan now for the future, cause it’s roaring up in your rear view mirror right now.

I like to troll through the info on how people landed on my site. I find it illuminating as to how people find me. The key words used are amazing sometimes… which brings me to the most amusing key word search to date. Actually it’s a combination of key words and the location. Someone from Fort Meade in Maryland came to my site through Google. Did they search the Internet for guns? Nope. Iran? Nope. Iraq? Nope. Soldiering? Nope… you’ll never guess so why don’t I just tell you. He or she searched for a pox on you insults. Is that great or what? Is this a soldier looking for creative ways of insulting his drill sergeant? Or is it the mess cook trying to brush up on his/her vocabulary? Bravo to the person down at Fort Meade! Welcome and I hope you come back often. I’ll see if I can dig up some great pox filled insults for you if you like.