City Made of Smoke

Calgary has its problems. When you live there, it can be easy to point out the areas of improvement. But once you leave, chances are where you end up will make you forget all the things you once considered flaws. It will also make you appreciate what you did have.

Case in point: Nicotine addiction. People smoke cigarettes. They have for centuries and will continue to do so until the human race develops a universal common sense...or more likely renders itself extinct. Like taxes, it's inevitable. But I didn't realise that the frequency of indulgance and percentage of population that sucks at the teet of cancer itself would vary so dramatically.

You see, in Calgary, smoking is something of a vice of the past. Many people kicked the habit or never started in the first place. Smoker is a dirty word and we kept their kind restricted to small outdoor enclosures to be observed and tested. There is a culture of health in cowtown that supersedes the need to suck poison into your lungs, and so smokers have to engage in their life-shortening pastime in prohibition-level secret. There are a few rebels that will light up outside a mall door or in the washroom, but for the most part, smokers keep to themselves and in exchange we don't beat them to death with clubs constructed of cigar rings and stale filters. It. Is. Great!

But London. Oh my god. What foul, twisted hole this is! Gone were the neither seen nor heard minority of tar-chompping Neanderthals that kept to the shadows like mice during panther season. Instead, I stepped forth onto filthy streets only to be met by a slough of nightmarish, smouldering creatures, each with a curious white coloured extra digit on one hand that they flick and  watch as it disintegrates away to ashes.

They ALL smoke here! I'm sure there's a few people who don't touch cigarettes and are thus hidden away in fear of being cast out for differing views. But easily over half the population of this toilet of a town puffs back a pack a day.  Maybe I should be looking at the positives. Smoking brings people together. It's how coworkers connect. It's how shop workers and the homeless can get along after the shoplifting fiasco concludes. It's how babies wean around this dump! However, there isn't an actual good reason to smoke, so I digress. Instead, I literally have to hold my breath for long stretches of walking downtown because the building fronts are lined with puffing morons. In my ideal world, they'd be lined up for a firing squad, but in the real world they're simply protecting their "right" to inflict health problems on anyone who steps outside. 

I think this is one of the biggest reasons I loathe London Ontario and am homesick and missing Calgary. It is a picture-perfect depiction of how poor this city is compared to home. But fear not...this does not mark the end of my rants, for it is only one of MANY reasons that make London Ontario the armpit of Ontario. Stay tuned!

London: The City That Always Sleeps

Okay, let's clarify something right off the bat. I'm talking about London, Ontario. Not the real London. I'm referring to the terrible little bootleg of that great United Kingdom city. I'm about to go off about the little pisshole town along the Quebec City-Windsor corridor. The town that shares none of the history, the wonder, the reputation, or even...dare I say...the cleanliness of London, England. London, Ontario would be hell on earth if it wasn't for the constant bombardment of freezing rain and snow. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself. What fun would it be to rant about London, Ontario in one entry? How could I possibly get across to my dear reader just how much of an abortion this city really is in just a single explosion of rage and pain? As you may have realized, I like to take my time and carefully explain myself. Showing my work does wonders to defend my ultimate thesis that London, Ontario is the Thundercunt of cities. 

My discussion today is by no means reflecting London's greatest failing. It's just one of the more recent examples of how shamefully outdated this city really is. I come from a city. A REAL city. A city that seems to understand that people live within it 24 hours a day every day. And as a result, there are always services available to the population. Need some food on New Year's Day? No problem. Every bloody supermarket and "superstore" department store is open to serve you. Need an inflatable mattress and some fucking pop rock candy as your way of giving thanks or observing the return of Zombie Jesus? It's cool. Wal-Mart's got your back. Unless you want to take a shopping trip on December 25, you can bet that stores will be open year round. 

And then there's London. Maybe you knew this. Maybe you didn't. But either way, you're going to hear about it. This cocknugget little town, laced with old money and obsessed with the past, chooses to enforce store closures on holidays. Even the mighty Wal-Mart closes its doors on every statutory holiday that comes along. Just a few days ago was Family Day...well colour me pissed the fuck off to discover that the almighty Wallyworld was shut down for the day. WTF?

I understand the reasoning...in theory. Everyone deserves the day off. That' what holidays are for, aren't they? But what is ignored is that there are many people who don't want the day off. Many people who would much rather be raking in time-and-a-half or double-time to be trudging through a workday while others are at home regretting their lives. But the city doesn't care about that. The city only cares about measuring dicks with every business in town...and winning. City says close and stores say okay. Meanwhile, in real cities, these places are open and available. 

You may be wondering why I even care. I don't need to be doing rounds at Toys R Us or purchasing a China hutch from The Brick (note: There is no Brick out here in the city that sanity forgot) on a holiday when I could do so the next day. Well, let me tell you why I care. We ran out of Children's Advil for a teething baby. We weren't expecting to do so...My child didn't begin to even have problems until the holiday was here. We also ran out of diapers. And milk. And the other kind of milk. 

Two hours later, we finally tracked down a store that was open. Across the city, but open. And sold out of half the shit people want because everyone else in London already went there that day. 

It's ludicrous to shut down every non essential business on the holidays, but leave open other things like restaurants and drop-in injection clinics. But that's London in a nutshell. Nonsensical, insane, and smelling like a rotting maggot's ass. 

Fuck London, Ontario.

There has been an Awakening...

...have you read it?

I'm resurrecting this thing. But not so much to tell tales from my childhood or terrible dates, but to vent. My life is unrecognizable to what it was a few years ago, and I am going to talk about it.

Indeed, there has been an awakening. And I've woken up angry.