theblogofthehandoftamm

Do you know what the difference between an American election and a Canadian election is? Optimism.

Whether you are happy with the results of yesterday’s election in the United States or no, one can’t help but feel an overriding sense of optimism, of a hope for a better future. That country (or a decent-sized portion of it) has given the signal that they’re looking forward to meeting the challenges of today and tomorrow with enthusiasm and a sense of purpose. How long that lasts and if it will come to pass is another matter, of course.

Whether you are happy with the results of last month’s Canadian federal election or no, one can’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of frustration, malaise, cynicism, and fear. The few Canadians who made it out to the polls were not inspired by the promise of a new day but rather the pessimism of a dark tomorrow and who they wanted to avoid having as leader. The votes cast were surely more often than not the meek attempt at staving off a lesser-liked candidate or party. We had nobody to vote for and voted for ‘anybody but him/her’. (This is how jumped-up little tyrants like Harper get into office. Next thing you know, he’ll be talking about lebensraum.)

Where will our Canadian visionary leaders come from? Who will rise from among us, causing this nation’s citizenry to leap up off the couch, appeal to their neighbours to hear the call, and march to the polls as though something were at stake? I don’t think many Canadians have a faith in our system or in our politicians and, as there’s precious little to choose between them, really, there isn’t a compelling reason to go to the polling station, is there? Nope.

Ah, what the hell. There’s Champions League matches on today so look for me at the Proddy Arms, watching United grind Celtic into a fine powder. That’s a race that provides a modicum of passion for a jaded Canuck.

Days go by and no news from thehandoftamm. They’re braying in the streets that I’ve given up after the typical 3-4 months of more regular entries before a blogger loses interest. This is not the case at tbothot, I assure you. What can I tell you of my life?

Let us begin with Thanksgiving weekend. Plan A was to go to the rural retreat and spend a day lakeside. This got switched minutes before packing the car and Plan B became sending my familyoftamm away and me staying in town for working on the house. Working on the house, in my version, means going to the lumber yard and then having the lads over for ale, meat, and ale. And gin. And then going to play music. Playing music while half in the bag sounds terrible. That’s why all the hard-partying rock bands are total phonies. Party during or after the show, not before. There will be no posted audio from the weekend, like I did that other time. Sorry.

The rest of the weekend was unremarkable but I did get my reno work done amidst a lot of sweating out toxins and using the saltiest language possible. I also killed a mouse and that was satisfying in one sense, as I had been tracking that littlepieceofshitmotherfucker for weeks already but my camera was out of town so there’s no blood-soaked evidence with accompanying poetry here. Sorry.

The weekend ended harmoniously and then our civic obligations kicked in. Once everyone was over their turkey hangovers, they were asked to go out and cast ballots for politicians. I guess those turkeys were really weighing people down because more than 40% of the eligible electorate couldn’t be bothered to vote. While I can’t blame them for apathy when our menu of choice was so poor on all fronts, there is still a duty to at least go out and spoil your ballot if everyone is too horrible to contemplate voting for. Only losers don’t bother going to the polls. And, it would seem, other losers actually go to the polls as well. My idiotic countrymen voted in Adolf Harper and his Unprogressive Conservatives again, albeit for another minority mandate. These are the same kind of right wing pigeons that handed the keys over to George W twice. The more people I meet, I become only increasingly convinced that most people are imbeciles. I’m little better, admittedly, so shouldn’t be pointing fingers but come on! The alternatives weren’t very good but THE CONSERVATIVES? I guess there’s some solace to be taken in the knowledge that Little Stephen will throw temper tantrums again and again until he calls another useless, nothing changes election in another 18 months or so. Let’s hope any other party can get their asses together between now and then.

While I’m at it, how about we eliminate parties altogether? You vote in your local representative and then, when they’re all gathered in Ottawa, they elect a PM from amongst themselves. And if that PM is crap (coz the chances are very, very good) then they all vote that person out and try another, because everything has to be done with some kind of non-partisan consensus. Yeah! That’s the way it’s going to work. I take back what I said about me being little better than an imbecile. I’m a certified genius, based on this idea.

Also, the Olympic Games need to work like jury selection: you get notice in the mail that you have four years to train because, baby, unless you can prove why you can’t be available, you’re doing the 100m hurdles at the 2012 games. Start doing laps, tubby.

Speaking of tubby, I joined a gym today. Mrs. Thehandoftamm said if I didn’t lose 20 pounds by Christmas, I was going to be served papers by the lawyer. I offered to lose the weight by cutting off my nuts and giving them to her. She could then make change for my 50 off her ample buttocks. I’m sleeping in the car again for the rest of this week. Nobody can take a joke anymore. Sorry.

This morning I took up the mantle of representing myself in matters legal and went to my local court offices to follow up on my intention to contest the ticket I received two weeks ago in that outrageously corrupt sting operation.

Having been advised that wait times can be ridiculous for those who wish to have their day in court, I got myself to the place of proletarian protest for 8:30, a half-hour prior to opening. Not surprisingly, the line-up was about 40 people long, because other people must have received the same advice as myself. Or it was simply a matter of experience; I hate to seem judgmental, based solely on appearances, but the look of many of the assembled left me with the impression that they have more regular dealings with the court system than little ol’ innocent me.

This was soon deepened as I stood in line and overheard strangers take up conversation with one another and discussing the finer points of their cases, gambits that had proved successful in the past, and obscure points of law that might serve their needs. I was a total amateur in a group of experts in the field of delaying, reducing, or obliterating convictions. Many of those with traffic-related charges struck me as potentially cab drivers and contractors, who probably rack up minor infractions as part of the job. Still others conveyed more a sense of danger, and that their charges were likely more serious in nature. Perhaps failure to muzzle a pitbull, falling behind in restitution payments, or ignoring restraining orders. All walks of humanity and transgressors of the law were represented first thing of a raining Tuesday morning.

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Another posting to chronicle another weekend of suffering for you.

Friday night’s experiment with testing the bonds of friendship yielded interesting, if predictable, results. Firstly, do not play whist whilst imbibing of gin and mead. Second, do not suspend said game of cards so that you can switch to vodka and currant liqueur. Thirdly, do not allow the vodka to stop flowing so that rye might make its feelings known. Once the rye is at an end, this is not the time to return to vodka. Lastly, once your guests have left, do not don the headphones and slake the thirst that is to come with beer while listening to tender ballads of revenge until dawn.

This, my friends, is a recipe for how to be a grumpy bear when it’s time to take the children to kindergarten in the morning. The homeopathic cure for which is to be found in watching a movie, going to a wretched TFC match where a hopelessly cliché-loving cavalier proposes to his girlfriend in front of 20,000 loogans, going to a stratospherically chic furniture gallery opening where you can’t afford the ermine skin table leg pads, before finally finding yourself at a teenager’s birthday party where, unsurprisingly, everybody dances waaaay better than you, old fat man.

Learn from my mistakes. Go out and find more seemly forms of merriment.

You may have noticed there are circuses being held in China right now. I shan’t cloud my opinion in elaborate verbiage, reader; the Olympics can piss off today and come back never. We’ve outgrown them.

Maybe you’ve heard enough about the Olympics already and don’t need an opinion from me. Perhaps you love the Olympics and the bi-annual meetings of nations in the pursuit of sporting excellence inspires your passion. Maybe you’ve already become an armchair expert on China in the past months, as so many surely have, and don’t need my Sinositis. Maybe I should make good on the promise I made to myself weeks ago that I wouldn’t discuss the Olympic games here because there’s already such a wealth of informed commentary out there. I should really stick to illuminating the subtleties within versions of WordPress and their comparative merits when not photographing dead rodents. As a reader remarked to me over the weekend, he hopes that former thread has at last been cut and I have no photo of a fresh kill to offer today so I guess Olympics it must be.

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Today Facebook took down Scrabulous and put up a beta of EA’s Scrabble, which doesn’t actually work and is already down. This freed up untold hours of my time, so I thought I would fix my comments problem at this alternative media organ you’re presently navigating (accidentally, I’m sure). I will now do my best to make a tedious story sound like it’s chock-a-block with tension.

I figured I would simply reinstall all the files for WordPress 2.3.3. Of course, my removing and subsequent restoring of directories took the site down for a short period. Given that my normal morning traffic without an update is negligible (actually, my afternoon traffic with updates is nearly identical), I figured this was a safe time for tinkering. Not so! In no time at all I had an irate reader on my phone, telling me that my blog was down. Nothing could have given me greater pleasure than to have taken on the role of my own Reader Services representative for a few minutes, which I cheerfully fulfilled with my expressed wish that he go and perform an autoerotic act. I also made assurances that the site was close to working again, for all the good that would do.

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Years ago I did a bit of sports reportage for the Bayer Lagerkusen News Service, as acting undersecretary of their domestic league desk. Allow me to return to the rusty form for the purposes of chronicling the on-and-off-field activities of last night’s fixture of the MLS All-Stars versus West Ham United.

There was a heightened sense of anticipation with this match which was reflected in a heightened presence of security and an expansion of their procedures. Line-ups to get in the stadium were encumbered by a longer-than-usual delay at the gates where everyone had their bags searched and their scrotums inspected prior to entry. Being a bachelor this week, the extra fondling was welcomed by me but I would have preferred that it was done with greater enthusiasm on the part of the security detail.

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It’s a delicate balance, deciding whether or not to blog regularly without becoming monotonous. Last night a dedicated reader suggested this outlet needs a little more heart. Haven’t got a clue what he was on about, but I’m buying longer sleeves just in case. I may try a little tenderness if and when I manage to chisel through my veneer.

While not fixing my ever-present comments problem, here’s what rises to the surface of my fertilized mind. Maybe there’s some soul to be mined here.

First is that I need sleep. Not getting any, because I’m running about like crazy while the house starts to look like that of a crazy person’s, with trenches through the newspaper mountains one needs to navigate. In the last couple of days I’ve been anywhere but home, nailing 2×4s, helping with pocket doors, and eating d’oeuvres hors. There has been some beer involved and nights that ended on the wrong side of 1:00, making 6:30s all the more gruesome. There’s at least another two days of same ahead and then my inevitable coronary. As long as I get the laundry done I may pass with dignity.

There’s little else in the news locally but for these tidbits, which I’m moved to comment on.
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As I type this I sit in the car dealership, where my wallet helps keep the very patient people’s car in fighting trim. Thankfully they also boast free wireless so I can share the trials and small victories with you.

As always happens when I’m sitting in the service lounge, the desk manager comes over to tell me what extra deficiencies the technician has noticed. Today I’m here for a coolant flush and a oil change but I haven’t been in my seat for ten minutes before I’m advised that the air filter, pollen filter (hunh?), brake fluid, and spark plugs also need to be done. The shop asks if I had the 64k overhaul on this car, which I dutifully did do some 18 months ago at another dealership. They seem suspicious.

Does this mean that the other shop did a half-assed job or that I’ve just been really hard on my brake fluid, filters, and plugs? Like everything car-related, I’m convinced it’s a scam. The machines are so beyond my understanding that I can be easily taken advantage of. Is this my fault? Kinda like computers where I’m concerned: just make the thing work for me without my needing to know what I’m doing!

So I’m getting plugged again.

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There’s nearly nothing in the tank today. Why should that be? Let’s explore together.

Yesterday afternoon was spent in the playing of games, this somehow in pursuit of collegial oneness through fierce competition. The method was bordering on madness, with obstacle courses, other obstacle courses, human foosball, and further obstacle courses. A hot lunch was served and, thankfully, cold beer. A little late with the latter but better than never.

After this I hitched the chariot to the bicycle and wheeled the lads over to our friends’ house for dinner. (Because I’m in that solo parenting state spoken of recently.) There was cold beer, hot cheese fondue, Croatian herb brandy, and heated debate about the nature of corporations and their overwhelming tendency to evildoing. Well, it wasn’t really debate but it was passionate. A recent conclusion for me is that no place on earth has good governance. Heads of state are unanimously tyrants of one kind or another. It’s not just Myanmar or Zimbabwe or the United States that has odious leadership, it’s in every country in the world. What’s more, most of these tyrants must in turn lick the heel of the multinationals that hold governments hostage. How is it that these entities turn their backs on the citizenry that support them? How is it that citizens have relinquished so much power? Short-sightedness, in short. Give me something now and I’ll trade away all tomorrow’s parties.

Are you getting the picture about what kind of high-minded oratory was released by the fermented yeast? Here’s a quote that struck me some years ago and I often refer back to for perspective.

“…this material economic life of ours, this production of goods, this buying, selling, and getting gain, it must ever be remembered, is not an end in itself. It is but a means to an end. It is the basis of our higher life, and is to be valued merely as such. The noblest development of our being, the grandest triumphs of freedom, must be sought in other domains.”
Richard T Ely, from The Growth of Corporations
Harper’s, June 1887

Once we had our fill of perspective and mutual proselytizing, I took the chocoholics home for bed and met with surprisingly little resistance. I myself showed little resolve when a pal turned up at the door past 10:00 and, once more, the corks were popping and the jowls resumed wagging. Thankfully the topics weren’t quite as bloated this time around and revolved around camping with children and becoming lost, doing damage to rental cars, and comparing the relative merits of Nick Cave, The Wedding Present, The Ukrainians, and Primal Scream. Some time after midnight I finally shut up and shut down, only to be summoned at 3:15 and 4:00 by the smallest handoftamm.

The morning ritual was a tough one this time ‘round, with a couple of hours’ worth of arguments, pleading, tears, tantrums, threats, bribes, and too little coffee. Lesson learned, I’m back to ace parenting starting tonight. Unless the opportunity once more presents itself for staying up late and fomenting positive change accompanied by the consumption of fermented yeast.

How would you choose between the hairbrush and the tank?