Dispatches from No Fun City

It's time I came out and said it: I don't have a driver's license. It took me two tries to even spell it correctly.

I have heard countless times someone say "Oh..." when I tell them I do not drive. I have
stood at the bus stop as an endless line of single-occupancy vehicles inch past me, and I can feel the eyes of each motorist look me over with measured scorn. they KNOW. They know I am one of the Unworthy. One of the Unfit. If I were to sit behind the wheel of an automobile, I would undoubtedly KILL SOMEONE. I try to avoid eye contact with these Chosen people. Their scorn washes over me, and I know I deserve it.



In this age of Peak Oil, aging Baby Boomers, and lowered expectations, it's difficult to gauge
what makes a person a failure. A person who moves back in with parents is called a "boomerang kid." They are looked down on to be sure, but as their numbers expand, they are gaining grudging acceptance. CEOs of multinational companies can lose millions and millions of dollars and ruin the reputation of their corporations, but they receive enormous compensation packages and are quickly hired by another company.

There is one failure, however, that is unacceptable for a man in his 30s to admit to: failure to gain a driver's license.

I am uncertain how it came to pass that being permitted to operate a motor vehicle became a Measure of a Man, but for all of my adult life I have lived with the stigma.

I won't trouble you with a recounting of all of my aborted and half-assed attempts to gain my license in my younger years. it is suffice to say I did not get one.

But recently I have tried, and tried... and again tried to get my license. I have for the past year made more progress towards my license than the previous 32 combined. It's embarrassing to admit it, but it is only last year that I finally passed the Learners' exam.

Seems the best way to pass the vision test is to have good eyesight. My previous methods of guessing, lying and attempting to bribe the invigilator came up fruitless, so I relented and bought prescription eyewear. And let me be the first to say it: these "glasses" really do improve your vision. Go figure.

But I digress. Now that I had in my possession a laminated picture of me and a bunch or numbers and shit, I now was on the road to getting my license. Only one thing was holding me back:

I had no idea how to drive.

To be continued...

Labels: driving failure

And today, I discovered that my lovely girlfriend's lovely Mac is confused by my HP All-In-One Printer.
I foolishly thought that a printer that boasted being 1,000,000% Mac compatible would be able to print Acrobat PDFs. Silly me.

Well, I assumed it was something I did wrong, so I went to the incredibly helpful HP online technician chat to find out the answer.
Here is the text in its entirety:

Rumer: Hello Patrick,
Rumer: Welcome to HP Total Care for All-in-One products. My name is Rumer. How may I assist you today?
Rumer: What is the nature of your problem?
Rumer: What is the nature of your problem?
Rumer: What is the nature of your problem?

You see, unfortunately the All-In-One may be compatible with Macs, but apparently their online help can only be used on Microsoft Explorer.

So, I moved to the other room, and to my PC. The following help helped me thus:

Rave: Hello Patrick,
Rave: Welcome to HP Total Care for All-in-One products. My name is Rave. How may I assist you today?
Patrick Allain: Hello. I had tried to connect from my Mac, but I could not, so now I have moved to my PC.
Patrick Allain: Now then, my problem is that my all in one cannot print Acrobat 6.0 pdfs on my Mac. Why?
Rave: Could you provide me a detailed description of the issue, which would allow me to understand the issue better?
Rave: May I know the version of Operating System ( Windows 98/Me/XP ) you are using?
Patrick Allain: OS X
Patrick Allain: A Mac operating system.
Rave: I understand that you want to print Acrobat 6.0 pdfs on my Mac Operating System. Am I correct?
Patrick Allain: ...
Patrick Allain: Yes
Patrick Allain: The operating system is OS X.
Rave: Patrick, could please let me know on which Operating System you want to print Acrobat 6.0 pdfs?
Patrick Allain: Mac OS X. Operating System 10.
Patrick Allain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X
Rave: I would be glad to help you. However,we do not have chat support for Mac users. HP only offers phone support for Macintosh environment. I am sure you understand our limitations.
Rave: Moreover, the service engineers with phone support team are Macintosh OS specialists and have the expertise to assist you in this regard. You can call at 800-HP-INVENT or 800-474-6836. This support is available at the following timings:
Rave: -- Monday through Friday: 8am-midnight EST
-- Saturday: 10am-6pm EST
-- Sunday: No support
Rave: We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your cooperation.
Rave: Here is the link to contact the e-mail specialist:
Rave: http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/contact/email_1.html
Patrick Allain: Is there a Canadian help link?
Rave: Yes.
Patrick Allain: And it is?
Rave: Here is the link:
Rave: http://welcome.hp.com/country/ca/en/contact_us.html
Patrick Allain: Thank You. Goodbye.

In the end, I just dusted off my old dot matrix printer and let it shit out a spotty reproduction. It just goes to show you: Macs may be the best thing since Jesus invented ice cream, but the world is run by PCs.

-30-

I just spent 40 minutes writing a long, clever, pithy blog entry, and this site went and broke down and would not let me recover the lost text.

So, instead, here's a cut-and-pasted curry recipe.

Squash Korma Curry
Ingredients
1 kg of firm textured squash, deseeded, skinned and cubed (Butternut, Acorn, Pumpkin)
1.75ml whole-milk natural yoghurt
100ml of water
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tablespoons of cooking oil
1 large onion, finely sliced
2 chopped red peppers
1 chopped green pepper
1 tsp ginger
Patak® Korma Paste
2 tablespoons of toasted almonds
Water as needed

Method
• Heat the oil on a medium heat in a pan and fry off the onion, garlic and peppers for 2-3 minutes. Add the curry paste and fry for a further 1-2 minutes.
• Then add the Squash and fry for 3-4 minutes to brown a little and coat in all the flavours. At this stage add 100ml of water and stir in until half has evaporated
• Now chop your almonds and mix with the ginger and yoghurt. Stir this mixture into the pan and bring to a gentle simmer.
• Put the lid on and cook till the squash is soft, about 40 minutes.
• Serve with rice
• Eat.

Peace, out.

We are moving, Rachel & I at the end of this week.

We are selling a futon & frame

http://vancouver.craigslist.org/fur/278659639.html
and a bunk bed

http://vancouver.craigslist.org/fur/278659785.html
for $50 each, no reasonable offer refused.

So that said, here is the link to the craisglist ads. Please reply through them if you are interested.

If you use the Greater Vancouver Transit Authority, better known as TransLink (which in turn is also known as Coast Mountain Bus Company which used to be called BC Transit, but they changed the name to avoid confusion), then you may already be familiar with "Chris."
For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, Chris is TransLink's automated customer telephone automaton. When a human operator is busy or off duty, you get this maddeningly polite, infuriatingly useless machine to "help" you find bus routes and timetables.

I have tried to get information from this Borg Queen several times, all to no avail. Although, it's true that my girlfriend's son has learned all sorts of useful profanities listening to my conversations with Chris, ultimately, Chris is only slightly less helpful than a waterproof tea bag. Here is a brief transcript of a conversation between me and "her":



*BING BING BONG*

Chris: I'm CHRIS! All of my colleagues are busy with other customers right now, but I can help you!

Me: Hi, I need a bus to the air...

C: You can help me out by saying what you want! For example: If you need help with trip planning, say "trip planning"!

Me: I said I need to get a bus to the airport.

C: I think you said... "get schedules." Is that correct?

Me: I don't know the bus, so how can I get its schedule?

C: I'm sorry, I don't understand.

Me: Fine! No, it's not correct!

C: I'm sorry, I don't understand.

Me: (The first of my many expletives.) I need a bus. A bus to the airport.

C: I think you said... "trip times." Is this correct?

Me: No. I did not say...

C: I'm sorry. You can help me out by saying what you want.

Me: I already said that I need a bus to the airport!

C: I think you said... "trip planning." Is that correct?

Me: No! A. Bus. To. The. Aitport.

C: ... "trip planning." Is that correct?

Me: Forget it. I'll just call a cab.

C: I think you said... "trip times." Is that...

*click*

Labels: TransLink

Soon you all shall thrill to the exciting new cooking show Cooking With Patrick!

Here's a brief preview...



If it didn't work, just go to youtube and search for the user name cleverpatrick.

Kisses.

Hello and wlecome once again to my thrice-yearly addition to my blog. This time I'll introduce you to my new little buddy, Sam Hain the Hallowe'en mascot!


Rrrrr... Sam Hain hungry!!


Grrr... Sam Hain hate having to refer to self in third-person!


And name should be spelled Samhain! Illiterate blog writer make Sam Hain ANGRY!


Grrr,,, Sam Hain will make hurt puny blog writer!








Now Sam Hain relax with exciting episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation!

Happy Hallowe'en everybody!