Stop That Addictive Behaviour!

Take the poll on the right. I put alcohol, but take it as if it's asking you about some substance (cocaine, marijuana, tobacco, gambling etc.) that might be YOUR bag of troubles. What I'm trying to do here is to see if there would be any interest in putting together a totally anonymous blog that is not accessible to anyone except members and unsearchable by any search engine, ie., totally ANONYMOUS to whatever degree you want to be.

This wouldn't be a forum-type thing with a bunch of strangers joining at random and chiming in to discussions, but a full-on blog with you being able to post whatever you wish (within reason).

Its goal would be to help YOU tackle your addiction and either stop completely or modify, and would be a source of support by others either going through what you are, or have been there, done that, and can offer advice.

You would preferably be on the intelligent side, know how to spell to a certain degree unless English is not your first language, and above all, be upbeat with a good sense of humor. Posting would not necessarily be limited to talking about addictions -- no subject would be off limits, as we'd all be a community -- but the overall goal would be to help you an support you through your journey in either stopping or staying stopped.

Anyone who is already in a program, especially AA, would probably not be welcome. We don't want any 12-step-type advice or how God will solve all our problems for us.

If you want to pass Go and apply directly, email me at tonbo at montrealfood.com and we can talk. Even if you don't want to do anything like joining a blog, take the poll! I'd be fascinated to see what the results are.

Dear Leader

North Korea could not have produced as bombastic an introductory video for Kim Jong Il than this one if they tried for a million years (do not skip the intro!)

De Nile

Denial seems, after all, to be a river. Just ask John Travolta and Lance Armstrong.

I really think they should give all those nice people who've been "entertained" by their exploits over all these years all their money back. Isn't that what normally happens to frauds?

Something You Really Ought to Know

Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, the second man on the moon's mother's maiden name, was Marion Moon.

Life just does not get any better than that, does it, Flock? Right, and Neil Armstrong's grandfather's name was God P. Christ.

Dot-Gones

God, do you remember that time? It was around 1999. All around me, it seemed the world was going mad. Microsoft was in some monopoly suit. Dot Coms were sprouting like mushrooms. A good friend of mine came to me and asked me to design a business plan for his mother's idea for a website, notjustthekitchen.com. It was going to be a site for busy Canadian women, a la Chatelaine -- some site with weekly advice columns blah blah blah.

He provided me with these figures that showed how much the company had as funding money, and a report from Deloitte & Touche, or whatever the hell they are. In this report he said that they had millions in funding and potential funding. I knew that was a total crock of shit. He didn't even have enough money to pay for the printing of the business plan -- we had two dummy copies printed (I kept one) and as far as I know that's where the whole thing ended.

I mean, just the name was ridiculous, but I couldn't tell him that. He was just riding the dotcom wave, like everyone else.

I remember going to a trendy restaurant in San Francisco called Flying Saucer (it might still be there). All around me, and I mean at EVERY TABLE, were these young dudes in the dotcom uniform of the time: a navy blue cotton shirt opened at the collar, and probably jeans. You could just smell the dotcomness in the room, it was so thick.

I was blown away at some of the things I was reading. I remember I kept thinking: how on God's earth can this company make any money (pick a company -- any company. They were all around and they all had.com at the end of their names)? It was like a giant Pet Rock craze gone mad.

I wanted in. I asked my broker (I had a broker!!!! Me! I had a broker! And an accountant!!!) to buy tech stocks. I had no idea what that meant, but he wisely talked me out of any such idiocy. The only thing I regret I didn't buy was Apple, but at the time the grave was five feet deep and Apple was all but embalmed.

And now, look . . . look at the graveyard strewn with the rubble of hundreds of thousands of dot-gones . . . pets.com, webvan.com, the list goes on and on. Free deliveries of groceries to your home, and the driver even puts them away for you? How can that company make any money? HOW?

Well, there's one dot-gone that's already six feet under and you don't need a time machine to know who that is. Facebook is going to be the subject of one of my blog posts in ten years or so with the title: Remember Facebook? It's lying next to MySpace and Friendster in that grave over there . . .

Letter From The FBI!

I've received this letter from the FBI in my email, and I'm terrified! What should I do? Looks like I'm in big trouble.
===================================================
Anti-Terrorist and Monetary Crimes Division

Fbi Headquarters In Washington, D.C.
Federal Bureau Of Investigation
J. Edgar Hoover Building
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20535-0001 

Attention: Beneficiary

This is the final warning you are going to receive from me do you get me? I hope you understand how many times this message has been sent to you. 

We have warned you so many times and you have decided to ignore our e-mails or because you believe we have not been instructed to get you arrested and today if you fail to respond back to us with the payment details below,then we would first send a letter to the MAYOR of the city where you reside and direct them to close your bank account until you have been jailed and all your properties will be confiscated by the FBI,CIA and other enforcement agency. We would also send a letter to the company/agency that you are working for so that they could get you fired until we are through with our investigations because a suspect is not suppose to be working for the government or any private organization.


Your ID which we have in our database have been sent to all the crimes agencies in America for them to inset you in their website as an internet fraudsters and to warn people from having any deals with you. This would have been solved all this while if you had gotten the CERTIFICATE ENDORSED AND STAMPED as you were instructed in the e-mail below. This is the federal bureau of investigation (FBI) am writing in response to the e-mail you sent to us and am using this medium to inform you that there is no more time left to waste because you have been given a mandate. As stated earlier to have the document endorsed, signed and stamped without failure and you must adhere to this directives to avoid you blaming yourself at last when we must have arrested and jailed you for life and all your properties will be seized and bank account will be confiscated too.


You failed to comply with our directives/instruction and that was the reason why we didn't hear from you, as our director has already been notified about you get the process completed yesterday and right now the WARRANT OF ARREST has been signed against you and it will be carried out in the next 48hours as strictly signed by the FBI director. We have investigated and found out that you didn't have any idea when the fraudulent deal was committed with your information's/identity and right now your ID is placed on our website as a wanted person, I believe you know that it will be a shame to you and your entire family because after then it will be announce in all the local channels that you are wanted by the FBI.

As a good Christian and a Honest man, I decided to see how i could be of help to you because i would not be happy to see you end up in jail and all your properties confiscated all because your information's was used to carry out a fraudulent transactions, i called the EFCC and they directed me to a private attorney who can help you get the process done and he stated that he will endorse and stamp the document at the sum of $90 usd only and i believe this process is cheaper for you.

You need to do every possible thing today and tomorrow to get this process done because our director has called to inform me that the warrant of arrest has been signed against you and once it has been approved, then the arrest will be carried out, and from our investigations we learnt that you were the person that forwarded your identity to one impostor/fraudsters in Nigeria when he had a deal with you about the transfer of some illegal funds into your bank account which is valued at the sum of $10,500,000.00 only.

I pleaded on your behalf so that this agency could give you till 6/30/2012 so that you could get this process done because i learnt that you were sent several e-mail without getting a response from you, Bear it in mind that this is the only way that i can be able to help you at this moment or you would have to face the law and its consequences once it has befall on you. You would make the payment through western union money transfer with the below details.

NAME: VINCE DURU
ADDRESS: ABUJA, NIGERIA
TEXT QUESTION: BETTER
ANSWER: BEST
AMOUNT: $90
Senders Full Name======
Sender Full Address:====
Direct Phone Number:==================
MTCN:=========

Send the payment details to me as stated above and make sure that you didn't hesitate making the payment down to the agency by today so that they could have the certificate endorsed, signed and stamped immediately without any further delay. After all this process has been carried out, then we would have to proceed to the bank for the transfer of your compensation funds which is valued at the sum of $10.500,000.00 usd which was suppose to have been transferred to you all this while.

Note: All the crimes agencies have been contacted on this regards and we shall trace and arrest you if you disregard this instructions. You are given a grace today to make the payment for the document after which your failure to do that will attract a maximum arrest and finally you will be appearing in court for act of terrorism,money laundering and drug trafficking charges, so be warned not to try any thing funny because you are been watched.

EXPECTING YOUR KIND ANTICIPATED CO-OPERATION.

ROBERT S. MUELLER
FBI DIRECTOR

The Dot Com Scam

Why is it that since the beginning of the Internet, a handful of idiots have had control over the way we name websites? Why are we all forced to "take a number," when the deck is stacked in favor of whoever has the most money? And why is ".com" the most sought-after domain-name suffix?

Why can't I register my website under the name "montrealfood.chefnick?" Admittedly it would sound pretty stupid, but at the same time, perfectly logical. Then I could have all my email addresses end in "@chefnick." But noooooooo.

Things may be about to change, however. If you're interested in getting that .com address you've always been denied, check this out.

Sleep

I just posted this over at my non-drinking blog, which you will never see unless you write to me and join. It's a great blog -- a lot more lively than this one. And who the hell are all you people "following" me? What exactly are you following? I haven't posted a recipe in six months. It can't be my good looks. Besides, 90% of you seem to be from Venezuela. What, is this a tele-novela there? Well, bienvendos à tous, as they say around here.

Sleep. What a fuss we make over that simple thing. But if you've ever heard of Fatal Familial Insomnia you wouldn't look at a lack of sleep as a particularly gruesome way to die. But it is, by far one of the worst.

We all need it . . . sometimes I'm deathly afraid of it -- the lack of it, I mean. Not being able to sleep is one of the worst feelings in the world. It's a real biggie in why I've never been able to get an office job. When I had one, I was sometimes so anxious about not waking up in time to go to work that it became a huge dilemma -- worrying about it would keep me awake, which would make me worry more, etc. etc.

It's also why I began to drink. A couple or more well-placed martinis or a liter of wine was practically guaranteed to knock me out. No worries about falling aslep. Then the alcohol would wake me up nice and early and I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, so it was a built-in alarm clock.

So I think that I can point to fear of not being able to sleep as a major factor in my becoming an alcoholic. My mother used to worry about my scotch drinking when I was 18 or 19, but she quickly calmed down when I told her I drank it so I could get to sleep. That was something she seemed to well understand.

Flash forward to today: since I rarely have anything pressing to have to do in the morning I no longer have that added pressure of having to make sure I get to sleep, so it's a mighty nice weight off my mind to know that if I somehow can't sleep, I won't be a wreck having to do what I have to do the next day.

I wonder how many wrecks are stumbling around doing exactly that, day in, day out. People with hangovers coming to work, who have weighty jobs that affect thousands of other people.

I once had a good friend back in the 80s. He was an air traffic controller. I was approaching 30, and was astonished to find out that my possibilities of becoming an ATC were very, very slim. Even if I passed all the tests, they could only station me at some remote waypost somewhere -- I was literally TOO OLD to work a regular ATC post such as Approach or Ground. Too fucking old at 30!

Jeff was way younger than me -- maybe 23 or 24. A fucking LITTLE KID! Yet he was juggling jumbo jets at one of the busiest ATC centers in the world -- Oakland Center in Fremont, California -- responsible for everything from LA to Oregon.

He gave me the tour at Fremont. It was mind-boggling. I got to sit at an empty station next to a guy who was really controlling jumbo jets. I could see them with my very own eyes!

And Jeff was a firebrand. He told me stories -- MANY stories -- about all-night parties after which controllers would go straight to work -- high on cocaine and rum, and begin shuffling planes full of thousands of passengers all over the crowded sky. It was the norm, not the exception, he told me. Stories of ATCs hooked on coke or speed who'd be making trips to the bathroom all day or night. Oh, trust me, I believed him. See, I'd see HIM just before he was about to go to work, hungover as a skunk.

You know the rule of being under thirty? It was because only when you're under thirty can you still summon the wherewithal to fight through a hangover and do the work at hand . . . after that it just becomes too overwhelming for the older mind. They . . . know . . . that. Before you're thirty, lack of sleep is just never an issue, anywhere.

There's a theory -- a goofy one but an interesting one -- that when you wake up you're a completely different person than the one who went to sleep. A different person with a different life. The only transition is your dreams. Haven't you ever closed your eyes and the next thing you were aware of, it was four hours later? You can't remember a single thing in between, all that's different is that the clock has advanced by four hours compared to what you . . . or who you think is you -- remembers.

How do you know that you're the same person who went to sleep? You can't prove it. Everyone around you in your new world would never believe you.

Think about it. Every time you go to sleep you're replaced with someone else who seems to have the same thoughts and experiences as you. But how do you know that when you went to sleep last night you weren't actually a 50-year-old arc-welder living in a suburb of Bucharest, Rumania, with three kids and a dog named Bandi? Can you prove that you weren't?

Case closed. I think I'll take a nap now. See all you Russians later.

You're Lying

If I put a little button next to this box asking you: Do you like this blog? Yes or No, you'd probably be honest. Why? Because I'd have no way of telling who you are and thus you'd have no reason to lie. So, there would be a fair number of Nos.

But what if I asked you the same question and said that each respondent who answered, whether it be yes or no, might win a free montrealfood.com T-shirt just for participating? Of course, in order to get the shirt, I'd need to know who you were. Guess what? The responses would shoot up to 100% yes.

So are you at heart a lying dirtbag or someone who'd automatically choose the truth. or rather, someone, when the time came, would make eat the cookie now instead of waiting for two cookies later?

Ask a real lying dirtbag.

The Hour of the Zombie is Nigh

And that's no joke.

Zombie #1 (a quiet, unassuming guy)
Zombie #2 (a quiet, unassuming zombie)
Zombie #3 (a quiet, unassuming gay dismemberer)

They say bad things happen in threes. I say bad things happen when Zombie Season begins.