I was reading the June enRoute magazine on my Air Canada flight into Toronto. I enjoy the magazine, but the editorial written by (or on behalf of) the President and CEO Robert Milton, was disturbing.

I don't have an MBA, but I think I can tell why Air Canada is going bankrupt: they're spending millions of dollars to do things like offering "sports briefs, and airport maps beamed directly into your Palm hand-held computer. And there's more to come."

Oh goody. I mean, I'm a BELEIVER in technology, but COME ON! This is just plain stupid. How introverted and gear-depended does the average business traveller need to be before you'll leave him alone and spend money on something else?

The most terrifying suggestion in Mr. Milton's article was the upcoming ability for travellers to use the Express Kiosks to "print and attach your own baggage tags and respond to standard baggage security questions."

What?!? If the head of a major international airline has already forgotten about the most devastating act of terrorism of our generation, less than two years after it has occurred, we should all be afraid to get on a plane.

They don't x-ray all the stowed baggage. They are no longer cracking down on blades and pointy things in your carry-ons. And now you will be able to sidestep talking to a security person, whose sixth sense about a traveller's behaviour may be the last barrier to a major act of terrorism.

C'mon Bobby, get your priorities straight.

After the brouhaha at the Bank of Montreal yesterday, I needed to find a new place to make cash withdrawals. After some poking around on the web, I discovered that VanCity Credit Union (CU) has some ATMs nearby, and I thought I'd give them a shot.

I found two ATMs about the same distance from my apartment as the evil, evil, stinky-pants Bank of Montreal. After a short walk, I determined that the supposed location of the first ATM is a large open construction pit, and the other, if it exists at all, is somewhere in the Telus office tower behind a plexiglassed security counter where burly men check your ID badge.

Well that was frustrating.

A call to VanCity (after hours, too) was quickly answered by a pleasant woman who didn't make fun of my difficulty in finding their ATMs. She understood my frustration about the convenience fees, and agreed that it was a problem that their website listed ATMs that didn't exist. She said she would contact the person in charge and have it fixed.

That was good enough, actually, as far as customer service goes: Our list is wrong? You had to hike around town looking for imaginary ATMs? Wow, our bad. Sorry about that. We'll fix it right away.

But she went further. To avoid the convenience fees, she said, I could use any bank machine in town that had the Exchange logo on it. In fact, there was an HSBC branch nearby that should work fine. Wow. Pleasant phone manner, good listener, problem solver. Almost enough to make me think about cheating on my own CU.

The HSBC is five blocks further than the Bank of Montreal, but I'd rather walk than give those BMO cretons a cent of my money.

Today I went to withdraw some cash from the Bank of Montreal near my apartment. In a society gone mad with "convenience fees," this was the only bank in town that I knew of that still allowed me the privilege of getting my money for free.

But not today:
Oh boy. So I go over to the financial services counter to find out what's up. There is a peon sitting behind the desk, and a bankhead in trendy clothes and heels leaning over the counter discussing something with her. I stood nearby, and when they finished talking, tried to get an answer to a simple question.

Me:

Excuse me?

Bankhead In Trendy Clothes and Heels (BITCH):

(walking away, looking back over her shoulder) Mm-hmm?

Me:

I've been withdrawing money here for months, and today your machine is trying to charge me a convenience fee because I'm with another bank. I'm wondering when that started?

BITCH:

Oh, what bank are you with?

Me:

A Credit Union.

BITCH:

Oh, gosh, well we've always charged a convenience fee, haven't we (condescending tone, looking at peon)?

Peon:

Yes, master.

Me:

Actually, that's not true. I've been using your machines for months now, without any fees. Something must have changed recently, I just want to know when it changed, and maybe why.

BITCH:

You must've been getting charged for it, we've always charged for it, haven't we (looking at peon)?

Peon:

Yes. Yes. Please don't hit me.

BITCH:

You should go look at your statements. The fee is probably showing up on your statement, because we've always charged a fee.

Me:

It's not on my statements. I update my accounts online every month, and I know it's not on my statement. If I withdraw $60, the statement says $60, not $61.50. Besides, you can't charge me unless you ask me on the screen, right?

BITCH:

(scowl)

Me:

And the reason I'm talking to you now is that this is the first time I've been asked about a fee.

BITCH:

(through clenched smile) Well, I guess you've just been lucky then.

Ed's Note: Seriously, that's what she said. Lucky.

Me:

What?

BITCH:

You must have been lucky. Alright then? Goodbye! (turns and walks to the back-office doors)

Me:

(shouting to BITCH as she departs) Are you kidding?!? That doesn't make any sense! It's a computer! There's no lucky!

BITCH:

(clacking of Heels, closing of doors, sliding of steel bolts)

Peon:

Have a nice day!

I would have written a complaint to customer service, but I suppose I'm not officially a customer (gee, wonder why). Still, would it have killed her to just say she didn't know?

Just finished watching Surprise Wedding (link no longer available), another intelligent piece of programming from the geniuses at Fox.

Five women tricked their boyfriends into coming to Las Vegas for a "vacation," at which point they proposed on national TV. The guys got two hours to think about it, then one 30 second "lifeline" phone call, and then back onstage with their answer.

I have to admit, it was pretty fun mocking the hell out of these people, but what totally sucked is that all of the guys said yes.

Personally, I'll stick with Bridezilla (link no longer available).

It's been sunny all weekend and I've been cooped up working like a dog all weekend, so I went out and played some tennis with my friend Jason. I used to be a good tennis player. I got my ass handed to me: 6-1, 6-4, 6-2, 6-1, 6-4, 7-5. That's right, 6 sets to 0. And I barely broke a sweat in the 20°C sun because most of the points went like this:

Jason serving: "Thwok!"

Josh returning: "Ponk!"

Ball going into net: "fwhish."

OR

Ball hitting fence: "crrrrringgg!"

And now my whole body hurts. I wish I could put my finger on the moment when exercise started to suck.

I've spent the last few days horking up vast quantities of phlegm. I started wondering how the whole process works; I mean, what's actually happening back there in your throat?

I went to the bathroom and tried to look at myself in the mirror during a snort/hork. It's really dark in there (my throat, not the bathroom... I have lights in the bathroom). So I took out my little compact mirror (which I received for free with a box of Q-tips and would never have purchased on its own) and reflected the bathroom lights into my gaping, shadowy piehole.

First things first: my mouth is uuuuugly! I couldn't really tell what was going on, as there are all these weird foldy, flappy, dangly bits that bob down, and suck shut at different times. I spent a few moments in awe of how my tongue seems to pop up-and-back to close off my throat whenever I tried to breathe through my nose. Cool!

My conclusion was that in horking, one snorts a wad of snot into one's throat (the tongue closes the mouth off), and before it slides into one's stomach, one uses a forceful cough (with a now-open mouth) to propel the phlegm up onto the tongue. What one does at this point is up to one.
It's too bad I didn't give this whole examination more thought; if I'd had more foresight, I could've procured some scientific funding like these clowns.

One thing I don't understand about the first Matrix movie:

The guy who turns traitor does so because he's sick of eating slop, being uncomfortable, etc., but if they can recreate the entire universe for the purposes of training, and that little Mouse guy can pimp that Girl In Red, couldn't they whip up a little "virtual" steak that would help tide them over?

Well, I'm officially sick. I thought that it might blow over after that first day, but here I am on day five, with all the classic symptoms of infection: slight headache, sore muscles, raw throat, sneezing, and a nose that is doing an impression of the soft-serve machine at Dairy Queen.

I just started laughing, remembering something I saw on "World's Funniest Home Videos" the other day. The setting is a casual house party full of thirty-somethings. The guy with the video camera had zoomed up so that this one couple fills the frame. The guy is sitting to her left, eating peanuts. The girl is talking to somebody else, on her right. When the guy sees the camera zoom in, he smiles mischievously and stuffs a peanut into his nose.

This is funny enough. It gets better.

He removes the peanut, and offers it to his girlfriend, who moves her head just enough to gobble it up, without becoming distracted from her conversation.

The guy behind the camera is trying not to burst out laughing, but the camera is shaking. The guy on the couch proceeds to feed his girlfriend a half-dozen or so snotnuts.

Priceless. I will laugh about that until I'm a hundred.

In a perfect world, I would find a mate who, when she discovered I had pulled a prank like that at her expense, would chase me around the house and pummel me, then we'd both collapse in a fit of laughter once she'd settled down and seen the humour of it all. And then she'd begin plotting something even worse for me...

I got a flyer in the mail from Telus (they're the leading phone company out here in Western Canada). It's a thick, folded-and-glued monstrosity that acts like a page out of a pop-up book; when you hold one end and pull the other, a little green lizard moves across the front of the flyer.

They are schlepping the same old "deals" for mobile phones, and the copy is predictable and pathetic (apologies to the writer... you didn't have much to work with, pal).

I cringe to think how much this mailer must have cost them to print, assemble and deliver; I'd rather have that money deducted from my phone bill, thanks. Hell, use it to give bonuses to your employees, just don't kill trees to clog my mailbox with stupidity.

Idiots.