Labor and equipment costs? Didn't know you could get physical chemists to work for free? I should use high school kids to make my medicines!
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Xmas 2016
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1878
Bloggin with my thumbs here so posts will be short...
The Xmas plan to return to Nelson thwarted by the weather, road conditions throughout Alberta being treacherous, I resign myself to Xmas Eve dinner at the bosses. The day, busy with the daughter, last minute shopping, lunch, then head over.
Theee are only a few guests, the owner, his girlfriend, the nephew, J***, D***, retired cop, a few others...
The dinner, assorted crab legs an inch thick, lobster tails, prawns, calamari and mussels, saffron risotto, he's outdone himself. But it's what he does. And sitting next to the nephew, the nephew, 7:00 PM and he's already drunk, going off on tangents, wanting to search through my phone, inventing lurid affairs that he suspects me of, telling tales of the gay bar, showing inappropriate videos.
We retire to the garage for a cigarette, D***, the ex cop, rolls a joint for the nephew, the nephew's the only one smoking, nobody seems to mind...he tries to get me to smoke, tells everyone that I smoke, all the time, he's making it up and these little tirades are losing their amusement value...
..Back inside the night is fast degenerating, the nephew, now fully incapacitated, is laughing hysterically to himself, the owner is argueing qith everyone at the table over a bottle of Amarone that was uncorked and drank without his permission, he's blaming the nephew's friend, also Italian, but not as pale skinned as he would have liked him to be...
It's turning fast into a shitshow. The owner's girlfriend is yelling across the table "We're just white trash", he's not listening, it's time to go...
I'm giving a ride to A****, the nephew's friend, the nephew comes out, he wants to find a party, go to the gay bar, wants to escape the shitshow as well, chanting in the seat beside me as we drive into calgary "GAY BAR! GAY BAR! GAY BAR!...."
The gay bar isn't open, closed, it's Xmas Eve after all, we head down 17th, surprisingly there are bars open, Watchman's, Ming, I find it a bit sad, I'm a firm believer the world should close on Christmas, The European and Christian world at least...
He's been texting away the qhole while, the demon wants out, he's.looking for a party, for him it's been a long 7 weeks, for.me.only 2, but long as well. He has a couple of nibbles, G*** almost invites him to his father in laws place, then thinks better of it, texts him a withdrawel of his offer. But he finds another offer, Alesshandro, house party full of Italians, deep in the northwest, another 30 minutes driving...
All the way he's reminding us to behave, these are nice Italians, they felt sorry for him, we'll just stop by for a drink...
...It'a traditional family Xmas, 4 couples, 40's, a dozen or so children, 4 bottles of liqueur on the table, lemocella, herbal liqueurs, they're sipping them from 1 oz. shot glasses, all together they've drunk maybe 5 ounces out of all the bottles...it's clearly not the party he was looking for...
He begins be regaling them with tales of Alesshandro's misadventures at the Filipino house party they were invited to after the gay bar, predictable, funny, but maybe not.so much for Alesshandro...
They're very politely tolerating us.
I'm trying to leave, get the nephew out of here, he's hit their bar harder in 5 minutes than the 8 of them have managed in 4 hours, he's loudly yelling that we have weed, they probably guessed, the smell has clung to us, advertising us as degenerates of the worst sort, time to leave now before they throw us out, finally, finally...
...in the car the nephew "Can you imagine me there, sober, all night? my god...", and it does seem a fate worse than death...he continues..."Did yoh see Alesshandro...in that paper crown...he wasn't even drunk...if my father saw me in a paper crown...sober...40 years old...on Xmas Eve he'd kill me..."
I get it, completely, this railing against the middle class, the oblivious, wilfully ignorant and blind, "little boxes", but it's Xmas and we'll leave them be. Doubtless they breathed a heavy sigh of relief...
Back on his phone, it's midnight now, or close enough, and he's texting everyone, looking for a party, nobody's replying, even the junkies got family, and we find our way eventually to the Ship and Wanker.
It's busy. Packed with the orphans of Calgary, those without family or friends, the dedicated social and career alcoholics, I'm far too sober for this...
We share a booth with a celebratory group, boyfriend, telling me stories of every time he's been drunk here, every time he's been here, it's his second home...
...and his girlfriend, cozying in beside me, suggestive tongue in cheek, I'm not drunk, could never be drunk enough for this...
The night, it careens along, there are girls at the bar shamelessly working it, Xmas day, wake up with a stranger, charming...
And the nephew, ever drunker, ordering rounds of shots, dozens at a tim7e, chatting now to a.5' 300 lb bbw, distinct "Blame Betty" style, showing pictures of his dog, the "sensitive" him...she's not buying it, declines his advances...
The night ends at my place, my housesitting gig in the far NE of Calgary, Xmas day, crisp, beautiful, driving them both home, 2 PM and I am free...
...In which I get conned into staying for the holiday rush...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1909
Packed for three days and ending up here for a couple of weeks...helping out at the restaurant over the holidays.
A con job, they're not so busy, but I needed new winter tires on the jeep, other expenses, the money, however trifling, is desperately needed. A single night in the jeep, -26, I swallow my pride and find a couch..."yeah, I'll keep it warm for you...just this once...don't ask me again...".
This year, the worst ever in memory, ...but it's something. I'll resume blogging whenI'm back in the Kootenays with a computer, it's impossible on the phone, all in all I'm rather liking this abstinence from technology...
Snow
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2389
And the first snowfall, below the highway, flurries, figures, I've a three or four day visit to Calgary, visit son, daughter, do some banking, and you could predict the weather would plan accordingly...
Snow, more, flurries, the passes, inaccessible without chains or better winter tires, via the ferry I'll only have to do the Crowsnest Pass, that's never too bad.
But the two or three nights in the back of the jeep (shoulda cleaned it, really), well, Calgary's now due for minus 20-26.
Like so many things I console myself, it'll be an adventure...
Martin Shkreli
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Rants
- Hits: 2966
Capitalism rum Amok, or the logical extension of values that put profits ahead of people. There is, of course, the fine example of Mylan's EpiPen, a medication to curb severe aniaphylactic shock, which, despite being out of patent, has experienced numerous price increases - to the point where a 2 pack costs in excess of $600 US - principally because it's the company's chief "earner".
And then there's the fine example of Martin Shkreli - American born psychopath/CEO/entrepreneur, who as CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals. upon obtained the manufacturing license for the antiparasitic drug Daraprim raised its price by a factor of 56 (from US$13.5 to US$750 per pill). This despite the fact that most people requiring this drug live in 3rd world countries where $750 per pill is simply impossible (as if it isn't here, but we have healthcare...). Greed conquers all. While widely criticized and condemned, in the capitalist system he was simply "playing the game", looking to maximize profits with a minimal of investment.
Recently a group of Australian High School students synthesized the same drug for an average cost of $2.00 per pill, his response was to issue a series of tweets which ran, more or less, as follows:
Now it seems pretty clear that he rather singlehandedly embodies the worst of capitalism, and, in a fair and just world, would acquire an illness, perhaps bio-engineered and synthesized in a lab by someone a little bitter by his own (former) companies approach to medicine, and upon researching the cure find that it cost, oh, say, X Billion per pill....and after much soul searching and the selling of his company and assets afford the single pill, custom made to cure his illness, only to perhaps drop it down the sink...
An episode of Black Mirror.
Seriously, people, what will it take for you to realize these people are not like us, and that if you would cure cancer you must kill some cells...these people, they are the cancer that's devouring our society, and it's time, if it's not already too late...
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