JoeyMoggie

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When we moved to Montreal, it was the first time I had actually lived right in “the big city”. Originally I’m from a small town just outside of Toronto, and later in a commuter town just on the outskirts of the the M25 in London England after I got married.

Needless to say part of me is thankful that I don’t have to have day to day dealings with the squeegee kids and homeless anymore here in Quebec since moving “off the island” unfortuntatly it leaves the other part of me being a tad blase about it, I blame that on having always lived so close to the big city. In the past (specifically on this blog) I’ve admited to pretty much being a snot-nosed stuck up holy-ier than thou heartless bitch. And heck I’m not afraid or ashamed to admit it again.

The downtown core of Montreal, espeically near the latin quarter (Think St Catherine and St Laurent) There are a ton of squeegee kids. In your face and abrassive squeegee kids. I’ve found that the random times I need to go right down town to pick up or drop off Colin as soon as I get off the highway I lock my doors, and make sure my windows are rolled up. Why? Not so much out of fear, more because I’d prefer not to have any confrontation.

I believe there is a big difference between homeless people and squeegee kids. The main difference, is obviously where they dwell. So many of these squeegee kids are young people looking to make some cash, most have a place with mommy and daddy to go home to. I’m not saying this as gospel, I’m saying this out of experience.

Recently, on one of my last jaunts to the city to get my husband I got stopped at the corner of Sherbrooke and St Laurent - right by the Just for Laughs theatre. There to my ammusement was a very clean shaven, newly hair dyed squeegee kid with a brand new squeegee, expensive trainers and designer jeans. He got to the window of my car and I flagged him away. He wiped the car windshield anyways and stood waiting to be paid for an job I didn’t want him to do. I watched him wipe his wet hands on his designer jeans. I sighed, thinking about my sister who had saved to buy the same pair of jeans a few months eariler for a friend who was a boy or a boyfriend of hers. I remembered my sister, who is a tad bit more into the label scene of fashion, and I as we stood motionless, heads pressed back stared up at the denim wall for a short eternity. humming and hawwing, and then finally a decision was made and a pair of jeans was purchased. At the till the friendly wrurrring of the register alerted my sister to her total, $257.45. Why does this squeegee kid need the coffee and tea soaked rusted pennies inside the drink holders of my car, heck I can’t afford designer jeans, I should have asked him to spot me a tenner.

Then there are the homeless, in major cities like Montreal - and especially in Canadian cities, there isn’t much reason for one to be actually on the street. Without a home of your own, sure. But on the streets, no.I watched a show on the news last year talking about how only half of the beds in shelters are used.I find it difficult to be sensitive to street people for that reason. Get yourselves off the street, get a good meal, get some training, get a job. . . . There is no overnight solution for homlessness - and they’ll have to work on it, but the services are there, they just aren’t making use of them.

I also think there are two tiers of homeless people, people down on their luck who have the motivation to make change. And then secondly, the people who abuse whats given to them, and berrate those who have better than them.

An example of the later is the one-armed, one-legged homesless man in Montreal. Montrealers know the guy by face. He is one of the most imfamous homesless people in Montreal, next to the Spoonman in front of Oglives. During the evenings he stands outside the exit doors of the Paramount movie theatre downtown near Peel metro. He stands close enough to the doors to be hit or nudged, so you have to as a polite human say ‘excuse me’ or ‘pardon me’ or sorry if you hit him. He has perfected his stance and stare and gives you a burning look if you don’t drop toonies and loonies into his worn hat. I suspect in a night he gets $100 or more. Maybe I should ask him for a tenner!

A little over a year ago, in one of my quests to ‘pay it forward’ I decided to give the homeless young people at the park at the corner of St Catherine and Berri, near Place Dupuis, a couple coupons for free bags of dog food for their dogs. (All of them had at least one dog!). The head of this group looked at the coupon for one of those grocery store dog foods and said to me in a crossed voice “We don’t feed that crap to our dogs”. This bothered me for a slew of reasons 1) Beggers can’t be choosers, if they were homeless, they really did need that food 2) If they were homeless, they would have though about the fact they could have returned the food for cash! 3) What the heck were they feeding these dog in the first place if the “best” grocery store food was considered crap? Perhaps they to have a secret stash of cash, maybe I should have asked them for a tenner.

Now all that being said, you can obviously see that I don’t give money to homeless kids with dogs, homesless people in general, and most definalty not to the squeegee kids. I do however quiet often throw a few tuppances into the boxes of street performers and buskers. Why? Because they have a skill and are doing something for the money, and most do it out of love of their hobby and not of of spite or just for the heck of it. . . I might even be inclined to give them a tenner!

Today I got SPAMMED on my Blackberry.  I never get spammed on my Blackberry. I received 657 copies of the same email from “Tom Flores” about getting cheap Cialis and Lunesta.

Well, I appreicate that Tom felt it was so important that I know about this fabulous deal of only $4.99 per 200mg!!!!!!  Isn’t that a bargin!

 The only thing that concerns me about this great deal (besides the fact that in truth the Cialis is wasted on me, as I don’t have the equipment or the dysfunction to warrant its use) is the fact that if I did need it, and I was also using the Lunesta as well- I might be too tired or even alseep to even enjoy the Cialis. . . .what a shame!

Don’t you just love opening your mailbox seeing all the brightly coloured envelopes, fancied with stickers and other glitter. . . . .I love getting mail!

I’ve been quite disapointed this year with the number of Christmas cards I’ve received. . . .but for the record, its not that I have been forgotten. . . .

I have gotten a HUGE number of ‘Email Greeting Cards’ this year. . . .

WTF!

Do people just not have the time, the money, the resources? Man, if I can find the time to do them, it should be easy-peasy for anyone really. . . .Or should I be proud that the special ‘older’ people in my life choosing to embrase the internet revolution?

I pride myself on having personalized Christmas cards made, (with pictures of the moggies of course) each with a quick little handwritten message.

Each card stamped, sealed, stickered. . . . I even have Colin sign them. (I sign for the cats)

My opinion is that email Greeting Cards are an “extra” you send your family or friends, or something you send to your ‘cyber’ friends. . . .They shouldn’t be sent in lieu of a card to your family and friends . . . . .

I’m going to get all controversal for this posting. And I believe I have more right to have this opinion because I have been an “Immigrant” myself.

Canada is too lax. Canada lets too many people into the country.

I moved to England when I got married. I was an immigrant in a ‘forgien country’. Now granted I had an advantage that most immigrants don’t have - I spoke the countries native language as my own first language.

Now that being said, I had to make a VERY conscience choice on the wording I used, and had to change many saying I said so that people understood what I was saying. I also needed to learn how to pronounce things out, again, so the natives understood me.

I went to great lengths to make sure I was not making communicating with me difficult for anyone.

The first place I lived in when I was in England was a primarily Muslim community (In fact, I lived less than 3 minutes from the largest Mosque in Europe), and although I did have issues with the neigbourhood, let me first start off by praising a few things I loved about it. The weddings, everyone looked so gleeful and the celebrations were very lavish, up and down the streets with everyone following like a parade. Lots of fireworks. They were all very devout, the community as a whole really did work hard at their spirtual lives.

The negatives, because I am a ‘white person’ in their ‘neigbourhood’ they would not look at me in the face, nor would they move aside on the sidewide when I passed them. They also would not speak English to me in the convienence stores.

In retrospect, if Colin and I had know that about the area before we moved in, we might have looked elsewhere to live.

As an immigrant in the UK I had to wait in huge lines to get visas. (I believe by my calculations I spent a total of 20 hours in lines waiting at customs over the few visits I had to make) . I was also treated in some instances like a second class citizen because I was not British. . . even to the end of my time there, with a steady paycheque.. . . they still held all my cheques for 10 business days to clear.

Now back to Canada.

I am totally frustrated at the lack of respect these people have for this country.

Canada is very respectful to their native culture and customs, and very generous rules have been created to allow these people to keep an identity.

I think its important to always remember where you came from, but its VERY important that you make things easier for the people who are actually from that Country.

The language divide is bar-none the thing that frustrates me the most. Canada even gives you two options for language. . . .

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My beef with Spam is not that I receive it. Believe it or not.

I work in customer service and some of the addresses for CS for our various products are set to go to my inbox, and many of those addresses are available right online and because of that I get on average 500 emails a day, I’m not complaining, its a nessasary evil. Honestly I don’t mind.

What I do hate, or perhaps what I don’t understand, is why I get hundreds of emails about Viagra, Hoodia, Cilalis or penis englargments and no way of contacting said company if I am trying interested in getting the product.

No links or Phone numbers and of course the reply email doesn’t work. How do people buy their stuff?

What about the emails just don’t make sense. . . three lines of jibberish key tapping, followed by something about a blue monkey, dishsoap and a bent spoke from a bike.

What do these type of Spam messages mean? Who is gathering information? Should I be wearing a helmet made of tinfoil?

The other one that gets my goat are those ones where they have discovered I’m a long lost decendant of some prince in a African country, and they need to me to basically SMUGGLE money into my country.

I’ve actually emailed several of these back, telling them to remove my F*&#ING email address from their lists. Little did I know that would make them spam me more. Once, someone replied to me saying I didn’t need to be so rude and I could have simply just ignored the email. The nerve.

Anyways, I’m off to make a SPAM burger.

Ok, I know its poor Blogging ettiquette to blog about work on a personal blog, but I’m already guilty of it, so why stop now??

I got my Christmas bonus today.  And it blows.

For anyone who knows me, my work ethic, the amount of time I’m at the office (I work 9-5, but I generally hold hours of 8-6 at least),  the weekends I’ve come in to get extra work done, the times I front calls at home from my warehouses (weekends, 11 o’clock at night) and my general need to produce good work - I think you’ll agree that $127.84  is an absolute kick in the teeth . . . . .

Perhaps I should mention this is after the bloody taxes have been taken off . . . or does it really matter in this case?

I’m very disapointed and speechless I have nothing I can say.  So I’ll leave it as that.

I’ve been mulling this idea in my head for a while, trying to figure out how I wanted to branch it for my Blog.? In the end the ever popular mantra of “just wing it” took hold.

I think there should be more things that we have manditory training, testing and licences for.

Serveral examples are:

• Driving - any vehicule (Training should be manditory, same with repeat testing)
• Parenting
• Pet Ownership
• Marriage/Committed Relationship
• Citizenship

Although I agree that some testing might become subjective - such as “disipline” if that was a testing item for parenting - these aren’t the types of things I mean.? I’m thinking more along the lines of common sense.

I can hear you now saying if its common sense then why bother?? Simple, people commonly don’t use their common sense.

I believe that if they were trained in these nessasary “life” things,? then tested (and perhaps re-tested as a refresher later on), and given?a certified licence to do said life thing, I think we would have a heck of a lot less “Jerry Springer” moments.? There are enough Jerry Springer episodes on TV to last a life time.

Imagine training people to have a dog, or a cat.? I bet the amount of puppy mills? and back yard breeders would drop as well as the overpopulation crisis.? How about the number of abandoned pets?

I’m sure the number of marriages that fail would be way less if you have periodic tests about relationships.? The Catholics have got that one right, making parishioners do “marriage classes” before their wedding.

I think people who immigrate to other countries should be re-tested for their citizenship, and quizes given to people who are naturalized to the country.? I bet patriotism would go up, people’s knowledge of history would increase and the hangers-on who truly don’t deserve to take comfort in another country would be returned to where they came from.

How about having a licence to procreate.? Only people who meet a certain test score on the “common senses” of parenting would be granted a licence to make babies.? If we only screened all parents like we do would-be adoptive parents!!

Because you’ve been granted a licence to do these things, of course there would be a chance that by breaking the laws that governed? that licence you could have it stripped away, or have fines/other punishments put onto you.?

I know there would be skeptics to this idea, citing this is another bid for a “big brother” society, but I believe that if you live well and as virtuous as you can, then you really have nothing to hide or fear about this idea. . .? . .

I make make some enemies for this theory. But bear with me, I’m not all cold-hearted.

This is my rule for donations: If I make a donation to a charity, I don’t donate directly to ‘dieases’, and I much prefer local charities to national/international charities.

The reason why? I like to have some control of where my hard-earned money goes, and (the part people will hate me for) I believe there are already cures for all these diseases. (That would be the conspiracy theory part)

What if someone like Sir Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Sir Paul McCartney or any of the 48 Saudi Princes got AIDS or Cancer. How quickly do you think they would be ‘cured’?

These diseases are almost ‘natural selection’ weeding out people and controlling populations.

And then there are the jobs. Millions of people around the world make their lively hood by working in Research and Development of drugs and treatments. The doctors, nurses and therapist who deal with the sick. There are a thousand different sectors who work directly or indirectly with these diseases.

Then there is this very cynical & skeptical part of me that questions if this charity is in fact who they say they are. Think about all the ‘charities’ that popped up after the Tsunami in Thailand, or after Katrina. They say over 9 million dollars was raised by false charities after Katrina alone. And what about all the people who took advantage of the Red Cross ‘debit cards’ at the same time??

This time of year is especially rampant for charities collecting. . . my pointers are

• Donate locally whenever you can. You’ll be able to see your money at work.
• Donate to charities that your friends or family work directly with.
• Always get a receipt for your donation. Many ‘true’ charities will provide you with one, even if it cannot be used for tax purposes (usually only donations over $25.00 can be used for tax purposes)
• Donate ’stuff’ rather than money. Clean out your cupboards of food you don’t need, clean out your closet of un-wanted clothes (launder first), shoes, books, media, old cell phones can all be donated)
• Choose a charity that is important to you and your family. Perhaps one that directly helped your family.
• Donate your TIME rather than your money. Volunteer.
• Pick a set amount you will donate for the year, choose a limited number of charities to donate to, and stick to your guns about it.

My main yearly donation is to Ronald MacDonald Houses of Canada (A House where families of terminally ill children can stay while their child is in hospital). I also donate small amounts to Children’s Wish Foundation of Canada, Children’s Literacy, Animatch Animal Rescue, and I alway buy a Poppy every year.

Wikipedia says that THANKSGIVING is:\par

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Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is an annual one-day holiday to give thanks (traditionally to a God), for the things one has at the close of the harvest season.

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Wikipedia saya that BLACK FRIDAY is:\par

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Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the United States, is historically one of the busiest retail shopping days of the year. Many consider it the “official” beginning to the Christmas season. Most retailers will open very early and usually provide massive discounts on their products, and offer doorbuster deals to draw people to their stores.

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Let me start off by saying Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, and Happy Black Friday shopping.\par
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Ok. . . .\par
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I find Thanksgiving a hipocracy in the USA. It is nothing more that a day you get off work, and I’m embarrased for all Americans. All Americans.\par
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Thanksgiving in its most tradtional sense doesn’t really apply to the average American anymore, unless you are a farmer, but the underlying theme of the original Thanksgiving meals was to give. . . . .*gasp*. . . . thanks. Heck, they built the darn work into the name of the holiday - this isn’t a hard one folks.\par
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I watch the antics of shoppers on Black Friday on CNN and other news channels on and off every year. The profanities being shouted, the little old ladies who drop their shoulders and line drive into crowds like a defensive lineman in football scrimage, the herds of people willing to trample over their own if they lag behind. Only the strong survive!!!\par
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Its a very very sad state of affairs. And why?\par
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So this is what I propose. Switching the days of these two ‘holidays’. Americans would now adopt “Black Thursday” and have turkey on Friday, this would mean no break in the work week and truly a ‘long weekend’.\par
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This would also mean that when you are sitting around your table, now nursing your ‘battle war wounds’ from a day of shopping, you can truly be THANKFUL for something. . . . . .\par
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. . . . . Thankful you didn’t get runover, punched, kicked, knifed, shot, or simply verbally abused. Or perhaps you are thankful that you survived any/some/all of the before mentioned.\par
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This would litterally mean putting the “THANK” back into Thanksgiving.\par
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Its my opinion that the only people this would really throw off is Macy’s, who will now have to put their parade on one day later. . . . .\par
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Sources:\par
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving\par
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http://www.cnn.com\par
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_%28shopping%29

I’m very happy that this darn mid-term election fiasco is almost up. (What the heck are the mid-term elections for anyways?? Is that like a mid-term exam? Do they want to see how they are doing??)

Anyways, I was sitting in front of the tube with Manny doing some emailing and no word of a lie there was 10 minutes straight of elections commercials. . . .

How do Americans make an educated decision about who they elect with all that horrible drivel?

I think I’d vote for Martha Rainville. For no other reason than no one has made the Dorothy Hamill hair cut look good since, well, I suppose Dorothy Hamill. . . . .