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RANT/RAVE (Week of Nov. 19)
“Axe” to grind
I just want to say I hear a lot of people mispronouncing the word ask. There’s no ‘X’ in the word ask. Say it as it’s [spelled]: “ask,” not “axe.” Axe is A-X-E; ask is A-S-K. Wow. Brilliant.
Anonymous Rantline caller
Career advice
Oh, yeah, hi there. My name is Brent. I’m a sous chef; I work at the Eldorado. Today we’ve got stew on for four dollars, Greek lasagna for $7.50. And, anyways, um, a friend of mine, Diane, was in one of Ashton Kutcher’s movies — I think Marrying the Boss’s Daughter [My Boss’s Daughter, actually —Googling Ed.], and we went to cooking school together, and I worked on lots of films myself. But anyways, I’m phoning to bitch about Ashton Kutcher, and it’s really hard to because, you know, we work in the industry and you’re not supposed to complain about their movies. But he makes great TV — I love That ’70s Show, love Punk’d — but his movies, those romantic comedies or whatever they are, stink. Stinkbombs. All of them. Terrible, terrible. He needs to do some serious big-budget drama or war movies... Of course, co-starring me.
Rantline caller
Customer disservice
Davie and Denman. An elderly South Asian lady is booting it up the hill as fast as her stooped posture and walker will allow. She is determined to catch the first of three buses idling in front of Tim Hortons. She arrives, asks the driver to open the door, he looks at her, shakes his head, and points to the bus behind his. Several more seconds elapse. He drives off as I curse him loudly. I complain to the next driver, who witnessed this. He says, unsympathetically, that as a driver with 20 years’ experience, he has seen this often. I say, “So have I, and I’m sick of it.” Driverless trains? No problem. Driverless buses? Not possible. Too damn bad. In Sicily they say, “The fish rots from the head first.” TransLink is one rotten fish from head to assholes.
Anonymous Rantline caller
Dying to give
Vancouver does not support artists. Here is an idea for you to help. If you have no family or heirs, leave your estate and money to a number of different artists. They might actually be able to pay the rent, buy some food, turn on the heat, etc. Thank you from artists everywhere.
Anonymous Rantline caller
License to offend
What’s the deal with these vanity license plates? Do they actually still exist? I don’t care what you put on your plate — all I see is DOUCHEBAG!
Anonymous Rantline caller
Aloha, suckers
Regarding “broken-record anti-Olympics cancers” [“Damned if we do,” Nov. 12]: Let me feed you some common sense, Chris. I am a white male in his forties who is proud to be born and raised, as my father was, in British Columbia. I own guns, fishing rods, a pick-up truck, have several tattoos, and have worked hard all my life to now consistently make over $100,000 a year. I loathe vegans even more than beggars and born-again Christians, but I digress. I’m just trying to put across the idea that it’s not only the career protesters and the dirty hippies that hate the thought of these inevitable Olympics. It’s also the average hard-working BC’er who has just enough spark left in their brain to not be bowled over by the media spin and Gordo’s propaganda machine, [and] to see the lack of common sense being perpetuated by our greedy little government full of corporate whores. I don’t want to be part of a society that closes schools, fucks over its paramedics, and lets children starve while planning and executing a two-week party for the rich, mostly out of my pocket. So, I’ll be in Hawaii for all of February while you watch the Olympics on TV.
Scott
Crossing paths
My wife and I were walking west on the sidewalk along Beach Avenue, and a man on a bicycle came whizzing past, forcing us to jump out of the way. He shouted at us, “Get the fuck off the pathway,” to which we immediately yelled back, “Fuck you.” It was a nice sunny day, and I can’t imagine why the cyclist would not swerve around us. It’s called a sidewalk for a reason. The next time you try that, bub, you’re getting a straight-arm and you’re going down. Unbelievable! And we’re “welcoming the world” in a few months ?
Robert
Original soundtrack
There’s only one thing more annoying than going to a bar and listening to their bullshit Top 40 lame-ass satellite station they have on, and that’s when the bartenders take it upon themselves to bring in their own iPods with their dumb-ass playlists. It wouldn’t be so bad, but if you’re gonna do that, make a playlist that suits the room, y’know? I don’t want to go to some European-style bistro and listen to fuckin’ Bob Marley!
Anonymous Rantline caller
Stop or go?
I live down on Alberni Street, around the Denman area. There was a new light put in, down at Alberni and Denman, right before the summer. The question I have for the city is, do you plan on turning it on anytime soon? Thank you.
Anonymous Rantline caller
I know what you ate
Will people please stop opening pizza-slice places on Granville Street? There are enough already, and the amount of pepperoni-flecked vomit on the street on Saturday and Sunday mornings is really unappetizing.
Bob
One angry f—ing rant
This is a note to all those young women walking down the sidewalk, eyes glues to their stupid texting gadgets, not looking where they are going:
F— you. F— you and your trendy boots. F— you and your vapid, angst-ridden blank stares, F— you for bashing into me because you’re texting your BFF about your latest vaginal infection. F— you and the BlackBerry you rode into town on. And f— you and your empty little heads, replete with catchy, meaningless phrases you gleaned from whatever the latest stupid, trendy show is nowadays. F— you and your f—tard texting friends who are single-handedly destroying what’s left of an already culturally bereft society. F— you and your inability to make even the faintest attempt at making human contact. F— you and your blank, insipid, dour, “I’m trying to be a model, so I can’t smile at you or make eye contact because I’m a soulless, succubus, banshee from hell who has got only fashion to look forward to” expression on your face. Just f— you all to hell, because that’s what you’re creating here for the rest of us. Think about it: Where does it all end? Your life is a fad — that’s it! That’s as deep as it goes. “Cool” is an unending variable that will never have a nice tidy sum at the end of it all. It’s all meaningless, because you don’t have a clue who you are and why you’re here. Life isn’t a beer commercial; life isn’t about how cool your clothes are, you superficial twat, or how you look, act, and talk just like all the rest of the sheeple. Argh! You are so boring! It’s about love, you f—ing retards! Wake up!
Tough Love Gord
The end
When I read the rants, it just leaves me with one conclusion: that Vancouver is possibly the most hateful city I’ve ever lived in.
Anonymous Rantline caller
Oh please Anonymous Rantline Caller; get real. Any city that offers a venue for ranting will get the same number and kind of rants you’re seeing here. Do you really believe everyone in every other city is completely happy with their city and the people in it? Sure, there are some hateful people here. There are hateful people EVERYWHERE. People here are only writing and saying what a lot of other people are thinking but not saying.
Thank you Tough Love Gord. I consider myself fairly eloquent, but at times maybe too PC. You said it better than anyone so far! Thank you, thank you, thank you.
To the obviously disturbed person who ranted about vanity plates: HUH?
Why do personalized plates bother you? Do you think you need therapy? Are you jealous? “Douchebag”. Kind of harsh, don’t you think?
No, I don’t have personalized plates; they don’t interest me.
I’ve read all kinds of rants on this site, but yours has to win some kind of prize for making many people all shake their heads in disbelief at the same time, or something like that.
Why don’t you tell us why you have such negative thoughts when you see a personalized plate? This I have to hear.
I read a particularly angry rant today, in your paper, sitting at my favourite coffee shop. “Wow”, I thought, “this guy’s got problems! What a victim!”, only to realize, halfway down, that I was the one who wrote it....seems I had a little bit too much to drink after girlfriend left me last week (for obvious reasons), and I went online looking to vent some pent up, impotent rage on the innocent people of Vancouver.
I apologize to those i offended - hell, I was offended myself! Don’t type angry, is my advice - it only led me toward more misery than anything else.
I guess under all that anger lies a heart filled with sadness. I try so hard to make eye contact and to smile and say “hello”; it hurts when it isn’t reciprocated; it’s so hard to make even the simplest human connection....
All this technology - it seems to me, anyways - has served us only in becoming more disconnected from each other, where will it all end? When will we wake up, and see that we only have each other, and it’s time to start recognizing this fact. No more media induced germ paranoia, or Stranger Danger, just mutual love, and respect....
I feel better now. Nary a swear word in sight! Peace.
YES! People, put down the fucking iphones and blackberries and start watching where you’re going.
Tough Love Part II: We understand your frustration and why you wrote the rant in the first place. Lots of people feel the same about how people are zoning out and missing out on what’s going on around them. Unfortunately, this translates into a large segment of society that is so preoccupied with whatever gadget they are using at that moment that they are not living in the moment and they are unaware of what is going on right in front of them.
At the very least, they are missing etiquette cues on the sidewalk and causing dangerous situations with traffic. At the other end of the scale, there is a huge disconnect with society that has far-reaching effects that are already rearing their ugly heads. Try smiling and saying hello to some of the people on the sidewalk today; many of them look at you like you’re crazy--and that’s just a start.
I know attractive and otherwise intelligent females of all ages who think they are “dating” or “having a relationship” with someone ON THEIR COMPUTER. These people are not going out with friends on Saturday night. They are home in their sweats getting all excited about “chatting” with someone they’ve never met. They even tell prospective dates they are “in a relationship”. ...WHAT?
When I suggest going out they say “Oh, I never meet anyone honest or funny or good-looking in person.” Does anyone see the irony in that?
Your apology wasn’t necessary. I said it before and I’ll say it again...thank you.
Thanks Yvette. I see that you see, and that is encouraging to say the least. My apology was a way to say what I wanted to say in a way that could be heard. Let’s face it: no one wants to own up to be a walking somnambulist. Besides, the ones who need to see are too busy walking down the street with there heads bowed to the New God: technology.
I meant what I said in the angry rant, but know enough to realize that I can only preach to the converted, which, in my estimation, is about 2 percent of the world’s population - everyone else seems to be sound asleep, and totally willing to go along with whatever the media feeds them as truth: how to live, what to wear, what to think...look at the cover of every “News” magazine, we’re always being given the answer so we don’t have to strain ourselves and think for ourselves: “The Meaning of This, or What this Means”, like they are pandering to mental incompetents....we’ve replaced any sense of a connection to a higher power (don’t want to say the word “God” anymore, might get crucified for it!!!) with technology. What do you have when you take, again, my term: God out of the picture? You have hell on Earth. You have the walking talking dead. You have a lack of care for one another and a disaffected youth who truly believes life is about the external.
This is darkness; this is ignorance, and you see how the world outside reflects the internal poverty of the ones who refuse to wake up and see the Truth as it Is...what is The Truth? Look within and you tell me. Take your eyes off your precious gadgets, and stop fetishizing and idolizing your own image, and get your attention on the REAL prize of life: Self Love, and the love of others: for in this eternal Truth, is the New World born anew. And, for all those that have judged me as being a religious nut: think again: God and religion are two mutually exclusive entities. i know Heaven is here and now. “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you...” Dare to ignore the programing, and be an individual!!! I dare you all.
Namaste.
This goes out to the two bitches that chose to have a conversation in an alley under my window at 5:00AM Saturday morning.I just wanted you to move up the alley so your voices weren’t echoing off the two buildings you were standing between.As far as screaming out ‘ASSHOLE’ when you finally left,well,you must be familiar with them being such a CUNT an’ all.
On the same note as Dan, thank you to the inconsiderate assholes who stood outside at 6:00 AM today (Sunday) having a lengthy, full-volume conversation. You fucked up the one morning a lot of us can sleep in, you selfish, thoughtless worms. (Yes, the world is all about you, you self-centred jerks).
Although I’m sure this happened at countless locations, this one took place in the 8600 block of Heather St in Vancouver.
I had to beg my husband not to go out and snap your necks, so I don’t recommend a repeat performance.
KEVINJ, I agree with the vanity plate rant. They are really lame. Why do YOU take such offense to someone condemning vanity plates. Admit it you secretly fantasize about putting that KEVINJ1 or K DOG plate on your “ride” so you can make all the ladies swoon while you play Dr Dre music at top volume on your stereo. Get a grip dude.