Canada : Topless lesbians and Asians without rythym

I'm not exactly what one would call a "well-traveled" individual. When people my age come into the pharmacy looking for a vacation supply of their OrthoCyclen and brag about going off to Italy for two weeks, I generally give them my stock rebuttal, "I went to Ohio once!"

It serves many purposes. One, it allows me to subtly show them that I hate them because I'm probably 50-60X better than them, yet THEY get to go somewhere cool because of mommy and daddy. Two, it allows me to malliciously use them to fuel my dry sense of humor. And, three, it makes them shut up in a haze of confusion and general discomfort.

The sad thing is that I REALLY HAVEN'T been anywhere, ever. I went to Austin, TX and Columbus, OH to visit real family. I've been to Philadelphia to visit fake family (in-laws.) And I went to Atlanta to see WVU kick the crap out of Georgia in the Sugar Bowl back in January. So to recap, I've been to a quasi Mexican city with a giant Golden Buddha, a town with....crime, a town with good cheesesteaks, and a hub for Delta Airlines. Woohoo.

Recently, I have been blessed by the Gods. As a result of my own stupidity and the natural manifestation of a couple of anal-retentive professors with nothing better to do than stir up trouble, I don't have to go to school and I don't get too many hours at work due to the hiring of people to replace me. As a result, I have free time. For the first month of said free time, I just kinda did nothing. It was beautiful. Like going back to Junior High. No job, no school, just TV and and playing outside. I love it. And then I think to myself...instead of living at home..I'm in a podunt trailer park...so..I'm not accountable to anything...so...what the hell I'm I doing here? F' it, I'm leaving the country. My anniversary ( 1 year without divorce!!!) was also the 24th, so the trip was easy to sell to the old lady.

So I did.

Apparently in order to take a spur of the moment trip to another country, you need a "passport." Damned gov't assholes. Long story short, I did some anger-fueled reading and I realized that Canada, our frozen neighbors to the North, let you in to their country with a birth certificate and a photo ID. Woohoo.

So right after hearing about the travel situation as regulated by the asshat bureaucrats, I pricelined a hotel in downtown Toronto for $70/night and I left.

The trip up was filled with intrigue. We stopped at the Grove City, PA outlet malls so the old woman could buy some MAC cosmetics. Of course I tried to convince her to NOT stop, but 5 hours of nagging ain't worth the $150 out of my wallet. About 10 miles down the interstate after the outlet exit, we noticed about 3 cars on the side of the road and a guy waving traffic toward the left lane. There was a girl laying on the ground with blood GUSHING all around her and a bunch of confused-looking people surrounding her. So I go into quasi-health professional mode.

I park and jog with the wife over to the victim. The image is seriously burned into my memory like it just happened. She's lying there, face covered in blood, a chunk of skin removed from her forehead exposing skull about 1.5" in diameter. Her eye had already swollen and was quite puffy. She was wearing men's boxers and a Hanes wifebeater that was white at some point. Blood over everything. We ID'd ourselves as a pharmacy students, first aid certified, blah, blah. Then the most frightening thing EVER happened. I found out I was the most formally trained person there. Three people were first aid trained and that's it. Zero health professionals. AHHHH! Thankfully, I didn't actually have to do much. They had her held down, they called 911, and they were following the standard Heart Association procedure. The bleeding had stopped. She was somehow conscious..well, kinda, she was disoriented. She knew her name, Amy, how old she was, but she had no idea what day it was or where she was. Thankfully about 2 minutes later an off duty EMT showed up and about 10 minutes later the ambulance showed up....and took the rear view mirror of the off duty EMT. After they showed up, I took off. I guess she "jumped out of a car." Don't know the story beyond that.

Great way to start vacation, eh?

Upstate Pennsylvania is boring. It's like driving through a cardboard box. And what the reward? You end up in Buffalo, NY. I'm pretty sure Buffalo is the dirtiest town in existence outside of New Jersey and Wheeling, WV. It made me want to stare at the dust on my dashboard for amusement. So after ignoring my environment, we arrived at whatever Great Lake it was that I had to cross to get into Canada. The customs/border security dude was easy to get by. I drive up, he asks me my nationality, my reason for coming to Canada, and how long I'm going to be there. That's it. He didn't even ask for ID. Canada rocks. The way back in the US homeland security people were way more strict. People in front of me were getting searched, annoyed, etc.

Toronto itself was awesome. By chance I happened to come on gay pride week. Coolest thing EVER. Why? In Toronto it is legal for women to go topless. For some damned reason lesbians think walking around without a bra is some sort of meditative act. The result? Hot, topless lesbians making out in the street all over town. Viva, Canada.

What really surprised me about Toronto was how racially diverse it was. There were more Asians and Indians (dots, not feathers) than this redneck white boy has ever seen before. I was also amazed with how in shape Torontonians were. There were no fat people. ANYWHERE. In WV, I'm scrawny, in Toronto I'm "thick." All of the women from age 15 all wear little black dresses EVERYWHERE, too. Few jeans wearers.

As tradition dictates, entering a town that has a Dave & Busters means I must go. The Toronto D&B was nice. Better than the ones in Pittsburgh and Austin. It was like frickin' Tokyo. 500 Asians and me. What amazed me is that these Asians could dominate the dancing game Dance Dance Revolution, yet have absolutely no rhythm at all. They have these stupid games that require timing to win and none of them won all night. then I would try the game and win within 5 tries. An an example, there is a game that involves a clock that counts upwards and you have to press a button and stop the clock at 1000. I did it on my 3rd try or so. All of these Asians surrounded me in awe wondering HOW I did it. It was odd.

I'm tired of typing.

Victoria's Secret: Semi-annual United Mens' Conference

I used to have this theory.

There's this thing called the "Victoria's Secret Semi-Annual Sale" where women rush to various malls under the facade of clearence shopping in an effort to stymie the morale of men in committed relationships. I've been known to call it the "Semi-annual man torturing event" Why do I say this? Because for the third time now with the one I'm with now, and for the fourth time ever, I've been dragged to the mall to sit outside the Victoria's Secret, playing Tetris on my Kyocera cell phone in complete bordom for about an hour. Myself nor any other male on the planet can quite fathom what the hell is going on in there. Maybe they have a magician or a free bar, who knows, all I know is that something keeps them in there forever. Personally, it takes me all of 5 minutes to walk into KMART and pick a pack of size medium boxers. Boom, done. Inside of that red-tinted store must be an entire congess that votes and debates over which pair of discount bras a woman should get. Or maybe they have to solve some sort of hard brain-twister before they get the discount. Or maybe the area outside of the store is some sort of bizzare space-time-continuum interfering wormhole. God himself is confused and baffled.

So I'm sitting outside of the store, with about 10 other guys. The mall people astutely decided to put about 8 benches outside of the store. The manager of the joint must have a wife. We look like holocaust victims. Sad, desperate, no zest for life. Then the most amazing thing ever happened. Me and this black guy lock eyes. He goes, "Man, this is bullshit! How the hell long does it take to pick out some damned underwear." Long story short, we, as men, went on a 20 minute bitchfest about how annoying this sale is. The beautiful thing is that represented were all walkes of life. A fat black guy, an Asian dude, a guy from the Czech Republic, a guy in flannel and a "Chevy Trucks" cap, a guy that looked like a CEO in an Armani suit, and a pathetic wiseass (me). Yet through our differences we came together against a common foe. The stupid ass semi annual sale. "Vhat deed I do to deserf these?" says the Czech phonetically. We all knew what he felt. Sorrow. Then the black guy's wife came out, he stands up, and says "Free at last, free at last, thank God ALMIGHTY! Free at last!" And together, as men, we cheered (kinda, we were actually jealous of the guy.) One by one, they were set free until I'm the last one standing. Then she comes. I tasted freedom. It's kinda like a creme brulee.

I'm not sure if we are sexist or not, but it was hilarious. So try all you want women, you have only made us stronger.

What's wrong with the entire universe? I know.

1) Insurance companies.

So you have the Medicare D fiasco making people all over the independent pharmacy world get pissed the hell off. What's really fun to watch is how pissed off independents got after Walgreen's, the company in charge of the AARP card, screwed the lot of them over in claim payments, then had the gull to ask to buy their pharmacies after months of non payment. That's one thing.

Then you have the whole fact that there is no reason why private plan D providers should exist. It's one thing to be a little socialist. Every strong economy is a mixed economy. Yeehaw. What's f'd up is when you are going to be half-assed socialist and decide to farm out the civil services you are going to provide to private companies. Either read Marx or read Mussolini, folks, not both. How much of my tax money could be saved if the retards running the country just set up the same infrastructure that processes the part B claims for tests strips and expanded it to Rx drugs. Then these worthless asshats like Humana and AARP who are doing a shitty job as a third party won't be a parasite on my tax money by making profits.

Then there is the thing that pisses me off more than anything about insurance companies, and it isn't exclusive to medicare D. And anyone with a pharmacy background knows what I'm going to say. NONE OF THE PHARMACY CARDS EVER MAKE ANY SENSE. EVER. It becomes ridiculous. Here's an example of a card you might see. And, actually, this is a GOOD example because it tells you what rediculous things you have to do to get the information needed to submit a claim in the end. A lot of the time the card is just crap with no useful info at all.



How hard can it really be to put a bin#, the ID needed to submit, and the proper group number on an insurance card? I have a retarded redneck friend that goes around making designs in corn crops that look like aliens in a UFO making some sort of postmodern minimalist art piece, yet you bastards can't unambiguously put the 3 things on an insurance card whose only purpose in the universe is to give me the 3 pieces of information I need to submit a claim? Did the insurance card's parents drink vodka during all nine month's of it's pregnancy?



Why are there so many mentally challenged insurance cards? To hell with you, insurance companies, to hell with you.

2) People

Why the hell do people think I am a fast food worker. The thing that irritates me the most is when people just say the words, "How long?" Not "How much time do you think processing that will take", or "My mom is in pain, how long will it be until I can get some Lortab in her so she will shut up?", but, just "How long?" I'm not even worth a complete sentence? I usually just tell them something ridiculous like "5-30 minutes, give or take 10 minutes." Then I hate it when they bitch about how long it takes me to fill something. I've noticed, and this usually works, if you say "Because I'm trying to not kill you." as a response to "why is this taking so long?" it works 99.9% of the time. The 0.01% is that asshole physician that thinks he knows everything, yet writes for Xopenex after finding out a patient is allergic to albuterol. (Really happened.) This is a good segway to my next hate:

3) House, MD

Ok, I'll admit it, I love this show. It's hilarious. But ever since it went on air, it seems like every physician on Earth has started to believe that it's ok to act like an asshole in an effort to pad their internal cult of personality. Remember when the kids back in the 90s started wearing their pants backwards because of those two rapping-kids-band-thing Kris-Kros? It's the same deal.

Ok, I'm done.

Random musings.

I feel like making a non-pharmacy post. You know. I'm just gonna start babbling and see where it takes me.


First and foremost, I'd like to give what I believe the kids call a "shout-out" to my new favorite composers Helmut and Franz Vonlichten of ES Posthumus. They put their entire album online for free listening. Everyone likes free stuff. If you like neo-classical music, I highly recommend it. Each song is an homage to an ancient city, and it holds true rather well. Estremoz is strong with Spanish guitar, Harappa is filled with Middle Eastern strings, and Pompeii is filled with faced paced action from electric guitar and a crazy-fast string section, you know, kinda like a city being destroyed by a volcano. Beautiful stuff.

Second, I'd like to announce that I am making a catchphrase for myself. Why? Everyone that's ever been anything has had some sort of catchy phrase that people remember them by, ergo, a catchphrase. (Duh.) Bogart had "here's lookin' at you, kid", Bush I had "Read my lips...", the crazy Scientologist that knocked up Katie Holmes wanted us to "Show ME the money!!" So in the tradition of random people being catagorized via single sentences, I announce that my official catchphrase is "I am the most humble man ALIVE!" It's just dripping with self-serving irony. I am so enamoured with how little I think of my greatness that I must proclaim that I am the greatest on Earth at not proclaiming how great I truely am. My clothing line is soon to follow. Just think of how well others could have used the catchphrase:







Lastly, I have a the one year memorial to my status as a bachelor coming up 24 June. Where should I take the wife? I have 4 days off in a row and a 4 days, 3 night getaway would be great. Anyone have suggestions?