johnrobe

Originally uploaded by puuikibeach

I live with a wonderful woman who goes into a freaky rage at the sight of an apostrophe in the wrong place. I admit that I react with emotions ranging from amusement to mild anger whenever I see a grocer’s apostrophe myself, but my reaction is nothing like Timmi’s.

So it’s a good thing we’ve never been to the Grand Canyon!

Two people were just convicted and sentenced for correcting the grammar on two signs in the Grand Canyon National Park. They were sentenced to a year’s probation and banned from US National Parks for a year. I suppose it’s not a huge sentence, but it’s still injustice, if you ask me.

Photo credits as noted. Found in the the (awesome) Atrocious Apostrophe’s Flickr group.

And now … the same post, apostrophe-gone-mad style!

I live with a wonderful woman who goe’s into a freaky rage at the sight of an apostrophe in the wrong place. I admit that I react with emotions’ ranging from amusement to mild anger whenever I see a grocers’ apostrophe myself, but my reaction is nothing like Timmis.

So its a good thing weve never been to the Grand Canyon!

Two people were just convicted and sentenced for correcting the grammar on two sign’s in the Grand Canyon National Park. They were sentenced to a years’ probation and banned from US National Park’s for a year. I suppose its’ not a huge sentence, but its still injustice, if you ask me.

Photo credit’s as noted. Found in the the (awesome) Atrocious’ Apostrophes’ Flickr group.

John Photo Snarkiness, Politics, Rants

Is there anything that makes you more comfortable when using the restroom than the idea that there’s a burly fellow nearby in the bushes making a gesture that is either the thumbs up or a Frenchman’s “magnifique!” as he looks at you? Heck, I’m not even sure on the scale of the thing … maybe he’s REALLY close and about to reach out and make a grab for it.

Then again, maybe I’m wrong about how people feel when seeing signs like this. The woman in the picture certainly doesn’t seem to mind it. It’s like she’s doing the tush push on purpose to try and entice the fellow. “Oh yes, here I am looking at flowers, all alone. There’s certainly nobody watching me, over there, in the bushes, where my butt is pointing and wiggling.”

And then there’s the words painted over on the bottom of the picture that say “There’s no use knocking, you can’t come in.” That just makes it creepier.

Honestly, I long for the simpler days of stick figures on washroom doors, or doors that played the synonym game, like “Guys” and “Dolls”, or “Rooster” and “Hen”. They made you think, but not in a questioning the state of society way.

John Photo Snarkiness

I saw something on Facebook that made me laugh today. My friend Matt appeared not only in his own photo, but also seemingly snuck into his fiancee Kate’s photo next to it.

I’m not entirely certain who Warren on the other side is snuggling (the pic is rather small) but Matt could be in there too!

John General, Photo Snarkiness

The first of two weird photos I took downstairs at the weird but delicious Ajuker Chicken. This one is a 1-800 number for…. something.

I think I originally took it to submit to the “Quotation Mark Abuse” group on Flickr, but the more I look at it, the more amused and confused I get. Obviously, there’s some useful instruction in Korean at the bottom (or at least I hope it’s useful), but right now all I know as a Canadian round-eye is that it’s a touch touch collect call.

I guess it has something to do with numbers … there sure are a lot of them.

John Food, Photo Snarkiness

Yep, there’s no argument out there in magazine land, the original and still the best carp-fishing related carp magazine is, you guessed it, Carpworld.

Walking through a large magazine store is always an eye-opener to me. Fishing magazines, sure, I can imagine a need for those, even things like, “Pike and Pickerel Monthly” or “Trout Quarterly” … but are there really enough people in the world who love fishing for carp to need a specific magazine for it? One that stays in business? Amazing.

Back when I fished, and admittedly, it was a long time ago, carp was not something that you actually looked forward to catching. But look at that guy on the cover — look how happy he looks to have that giant disgusting carp! I bet he’s a subscriber.

John Photo Snarkiness

The other day Timmi and I were in Chinatown, having some pho, and afterward, we stopped at a store to look at their vast selection of ceramic spoons and pirated dvds. I love browsing around stores in other countries and places like Chinatown give you the opportunity to do that without leaving town.

Let me tell you, this place was a gold mine.

Among the many treasures we found was a toothpaste section with a wide variety of Chinese toothpastes. The one that caught my eye was a Chinese version of Crest with a dazzlingly shiny box. I knew were just about out of toothpaste anyway, and this stuff was pretty cheap, so I figured why not use this exotic Chinese version of Crest instead?

When I got home that night and prepared for bed, I have to be honest, I was pretty excited. It wasn’t going to taste any different from normal Crest, but it was going to be exotic and exciting because it came from a different tube, a tube covered with letters that were unknown to me.

At least, that’s what I thought.

Reality went something a little like this:

I opened the box, slide out the tube and admired how slick and shiny the new tube was.

I opened the lid and squeezed some toothpaste onto my brush. “Ah, it’s a gel,” I thought, “And sort of a different colour than I was expecting. Sort of a bluish grey.”

Then I put it in my mouth and started brushing. That’s when I realized, this wasn’t like normal Crest.

You know that tea you get in Chinese restaurants? Sometimes called “Jasmine tea”, sometimes called “Green tea”, sometimes called “Chinese tea”? I have a new name for it — “Crest flavoured tea”.

It just goes to show how important context is. I like tea. I love tea actually. I especially like green/jasmine tea. And you know what? I DON’T actually like the taste of most toothpaste. I see it as a necessary evil that tastes better than what my mouth usually tastes like when I’m using toothpaste. That being said, I’m used to toothpaste tasting like toothpaste. Toothpaste tasting like tea? NASTY!

Even so, you know what? I’m still using that weird Chinese tea tasting Crest, despite the fact that Timmi won’t kiss me afterward because I “just taste weird”. Will the taste grow on me? Will I eventually snap and switch back? Why am I so odd?

I’ll keep you posted.

John Photo Snarkiness, Shameless Consumerism

People have been asking me where I’ve been and why I haven’t updated the blog.

Well, it’s been a combination of two things really. The first, is that I re-injured my rib that I broke last fall, and spent several days pretty much completely immobile.

The slightly more fun reason was that I was in Vancouver for 2 days for work.

I haven’t been to Vancouver since 1986, and I was really looking forward to it. Unfortunately, I basically had no time at all to explore the city other than at lunch, but I still had a pretty good time.

Most amazing was my hotel room, pictured at right, which was HUGE. Seriously, it was bigger than many condos and apartments I’ve seen. It was at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, which I have to say, was pretty darn nice.

Check the room out though … the thing to the left is not a chair, it’s a sofa, and you’re barely seeing half of it. Beside the sofa, also not seen, is about a 4 foot end table. There was room for another 2 king sized beds in the room, easily. I’m also not showing the entry way, which was larger than some hotel rooms I’ve had.

Only two major problems with the room, other than I kept getting tired trying to walk from the bed to the bathroom:

1) The pink chair. Seriously — a pink chair? Don’t get me wrong, if the pink chair is the price I have to pay to get this room el gigante, then I’ll pay it, but who actually upholsters a chair in pink?

2) The approximately 18 inch ethernet cable. Honestly, I’m not making this up … the room is like 50 feet wide (slight exagerration there maybe) but the ethernet cable that I had to plug my computer into was less than 2 feet long, and it plugged into the FRONT of the desk. I couldn’t even plug the computer in without having the laptop hanging off the front of the desk. Great for easily plugging the tiny cable in, terrible for then actually using the computer afterward, unless you’re sitting behind the desk. That’s my excuse for not blogging from B.C., ergonomics!

Ahh, human factors.

Anyway, that’s where I’ve been. More later!

John General, Photo Snarkiness

Riding the subway home today, I finished the book I was reading (rating: major disappointment), put it in my bag, and looked up into the eyes of a man with the most glorious mullet I had ever seen.

It was kind of like the one pictured to the right, but only in the same way that my kittens are kind of like the of lions of the veldt.

This mullet was huge, mellifluous and flowing. It went up for about 8 inches before arching back over his ears and cascading down over his shoulders halfway down his chest and back.

The moment I saw it, I was entranced. I have seen many a mullet in my day (I grew up in Woodstock after all), but never in all my life have I seen one like it. I simply had to take a picture so I could share it with the world. I was pondering what the etiquette of the situation was, did I need to get his permission to take a photo and put it on the blog? I’ve put pictures of people on the blog before, but this one clearly showed his face, and really, out of common courtesy I should get his permission right?

And then he smiled at me.

It wasn’t the type of smile that makes you calm down, or feel better, or smile back. It was the smile of a man who is just crazy enough to think that you’re staring at him because his hair is gorgeous and irresistible. In a way, he was right — in a very macabre sort of way. It was the type of smile found on the face of a child you just can’t bear to disappoint, or in my case, dare to disappoint.

Quite seriously, the smile scared the hell out of me. I was too paralyzed to do anything before the next stop came and he stood up and left with a quick “Go ahead and admire me from the back, I know you want to” glance from him.

So I’m sad to report, I don’t have a photo, all due to my own fear. I’m scared to think what will happen to me someday if something REALLY scary happens. Judging from my reaction when presented with a bad hairdo, I don’t like my chances.

To try and make up for the lack of picture, I offer you a bunch of mullets set to the late but immortal Wesley Willis classic “Cut the Mullet”. There are some glorious mullets in there, but none are as glorious as the mullet that passed me by tonight.

Rock over London, rock on Chicago! Insure What — it’s the insurance superstore!

John Photo Snarkiness

Remember back when a screwcap was a sign that a wine sucked? It was helpful in a way, you could immediately know that anything that had a screw top or appeared in a bag, box or tetra pack was a crappy wine and go from there.

Now, it’s not so easy, thanks to those damn Australians and French.

Let’s face it, despite the fine tradition, a cork in a bottle is a pretty old technology solution. All the science in the world isn’t going to improve the fact that a cork is essentially bark from a tree ground into a cylinder and jammed into the neck of a bottle.

Now screwcaps, boxes with foil linings and tetra packs? Those are “science” as well as easier to manufacture than tree bark, so there’s room for improvement, and in the last couple of years, French and Australian winemakers have taken the stand that they’re actually better than the bottle + cork solution and are daring the rest of the world to agree or disagree.

Today in the LCBO, I saw an Italian wine that has kicked it up a whole other notch and based their entire product around the concept of “screw caps don’t suck anymore — in fact, they are so committed to not sucking that we’re not just using a screw cap, we’re naming the wine screw cap!” Aside from the taking the picture to prove it exists, I have no intention of doing anything to confirm or deny their bold stance, but hey, if any of you are adventurous enough to give it a try, I’d be interested in knowing the results.

John Food, Photo Snarkiness

I’ve recently been walking through Toronto’s Chinese and Korean sections lately and admiring their signs.

Here are a few of my favourites!

It’s not a great discount centre, it’s just okay. Yet oddly, their modesty ends once they start describing their products and prices. Full points for the Canadian spelling of centre though!

Wa! Good picture!!!

I assume that it’s warning people not to steal because they’re on camera, but they’re sort of overdoing it at the expense of actually selling things aren’t they? If you went by the picture and prominence of text, I think you’d have to assume they’re selling pictures. Of babies. Who are crying? Wa!

I admit, this one is a little hard to make out. The bright bright neon sign says “Vegetarian Cuisine”. Beyond it through the window, you’ll see several recently prepared chickens, ducks and other slabs of meat. Finally!

A vegetarian restaurant who specializes in meat! Something for everyone!

Mmmm… Mook Bap!

Look at the second item down on the list. Aside from the adorable name, this thing has a lot going for it.

Is there anything better than mixed rice, fresh veggies and "our sauce"?

Yes! All that with jelly beans! I hope they’re green and red for the holiday season!

John Photo Snarkiness