What's With Florida?

No, I mean, like, seriously. Why do the weird small-print news that used to be a thing in remote locations and cabin-in-the-woods places now happen in Florida more than any other places combined?

Is it the water? The sharks? The failing sports teams? The douchebag sex clubs in Miami? The drugs?

Well, drugs might be an issue, yeah. For couples who lock themselves in a closet for days at a time with crack pipes and end up shitting in metal pans. For men who look like rockers from the 1970s wanting to smoke crack in a hospital. For those who merely smoke pot in the maternity ward. For men impersonating cops at the International House Of Pancakes who end up flashing/mooning employees when they don't get free food. For people who bite their neighbours' ears off for not giving them a cigarette.

For those who run for mayor while their court case for beating a drag queen with a tiki torch while wearing a KKK outfit is still pending resolution. For those who try to avoid their time in court by claiming they have ebola. For those who butt-dial 911 while cooking meth with their mom and have the nerve to think the cops are watching them. For those who get stuck inside vending machines.

For men who claim holograms kidnapped their wives (when she's actually just off drunk at a relative's). For men who try to rob a delivery man not just for his cash but also pizza and chicken wings. For men who attack family members over undercooked noodles. For men who think calling 911 will get them answers regarding their tax returns. For those who commit murder over a card collection. For those who confuse hot dogs with real dogs. For those who, when the ice cream man refuses to take their fake $20 bill, pull a gun on him.

For those who pee on rugs then make a big stink when they're kicked out of the house (especially if it really tied the room together). For those who get caught stealing 36,000 pounds of Crisco. For those who mistake a convenience store rooftop they're trying to steal from with where their family lives. For those who punch 80-year-old men at restaurants. Or the corrections officers who never noticed a convict escaping to buy beer - then his own trying to smuggle it back in prison.

For sex-related thieving such as stealing a Jenna Jameson sex doll, or stealing 850 pairs of underwear from Victoria's Secret, or insisting on showing their sex tape to a jury in court, or masturbating in a McDonald's parking lot, or soliciting an undercover police officer for sex in exchange for $3 and a chicken meal, or busting down a wall to steal $300 worth of sex toys from an adult store, or just the general naked sword-wielders.

For those who call 911 to complain that the cop who is writing them a ticket is too slow (then getting jailed for misusing 911). For those who throw chairs at the mailman when they don't get any mail. For the elderly (yet funny) racists. For those who decide to build their paramilitary neo-nazi war compound right next to Disney World. For people who throw dead bodies in the trash. For people who propose to their girlfriends using baby alligators (and the girlfriend being happier about the gator than the ring). For those who think a welding grinder is the right tool to scrape a tattoo off their face. For the delusional ones who not only think they're blood relatives of former Presidents, but that it means they own land and/or the country and gives them special privileges.

For elected officials who think state education tests make kids gay and/or LGBT-friendly.

I mean, I get those related to crack and meth. But the rest of them, the ignorant and profoundly stupid - there is no excuse for that shit in 2015. I understand that having no state tax means the public education system is pretty much zero/dead/non-existent. But still, this is taking it (way) too far.

Still, it's probably a better place than Canada if Stephen Harper gets re-elected later this year.

I Swear I Won't Let 2014 Become 2012

By that, of course, I mean contend for the title of ''worst year of my life''. It's not too late to jump off the train and head somewhere else, and I guess that starts in early April, when I move yet again (this time, solo).

It won't be easy, especially financially, but it needs to be made.

It's unfortunate that the people who treat me the best are so far away (Calgary, Banff, Mexico, NYC) and I feel disconnected and taken advantage of and double-crossed a lot in this City I feel less and less at home in, but am legally bound to remain in until what is now June 2015 (part of my new lease... on life?), though there are ways around that.

You kind of have to feel dumb following the advice of an internet meme, but for the second time in little more than a year:

And when I realized I did, I fucked the hell off. No more being sucked in, no more innocent-bystander shit ruining my health and life.

Life Lessons #12 & 35

Everyone you know will let you down.

Family - siblings, parents, children. Relatives. By not showing up, by fighting over feeble matters, by looking after themselves.

Friends - best or otherwise - or mere acquaintances, by missing your birthday, neglecting to keep in touch, generally not caring about your well-being beyond the ''how's it going? Hope you're doing well!'' portion of communication.

Your spouse, through lies, things untold, cheating on you with an old, bald, toothless guy or worse - a Bruno Mars-looking motherfucker you always think of when a shitty song plays on the radio or TV (or a Madonna lookalike for girls, which encompasses all of these adjectives).

Strangers will let you down.

Sports teams, athletes, entertainers. Idols.

Politicians pretty much get paid for letting you down.

Things will let you down, too: your car, your TV, public transit, piping systems, air conditioners, your computer, your phone.

What's important, what matters most, is how you're going to deal with it, the amount of bullshit you're willing to put up from each of those sources before you snap and kick them to the curb, always keeping in mind we only have one life, we never know when it's going to end for any of us (unless someone takes matters into their own hands), and it's best to be with people you love/enjoy/appreciate than with people you hate - or alone.

It's normal not to have the same level of tolerance to the bullshit for everyone: I'll forgive my brother or woman (not that I would 'own' the woman, just the one I'd be with at the time) a lot more crap than I would someone I see once a year or less.

But you can't hold a grudge with someone for a long time if it's for something stupid (say, someone didn't return a book you lent them), you have to pick your battles. Especially for one that threatens to have you never see that person again.

On the other hand, life isn't a fucking slogan, either. Sayings like this one piss me off to the extreme (as Vanilla Ice would say):

Because people can let you down even if you don't ''put yourself in that position'', even if you have no fucking expectations towards them, just because they're fucking human beings and that's what we do - we think of #1, or we don't think at all. It's the nature of the beast.

I know, the Holidays are a time to celebrate, be festive, happy, but it's also a time where those who don't have the means to share and spend time with others become sadder and more depressed than ever; the poor remain poor, the needy are still in need. And the betrayed remain stabbed in the back. I'm just thinking of them today.

Racism

For years (decades?), I rode on my high horse and claimed racism didn't exist here in the same way it does in anglo-saxon countries, perhaps because our latin and celtic genes didn't see ''the other'' as people to be conquered but more with curiosity...

I pointed towards how all the jazz greats called Montréal home during prohibition, depression, and through most of the civil rights movement of the 60s; towards the underground railroad that brought slaves here to be liberated, where they were greeted as humans in need of help, equality and integration; how the first 'coloured' people in villages were its stars (everybody flocked to them and wanted to find out more about them) rather than the misfits.

But maybe that's just because there were less people then - on both sides. And maybe there are too many people to keep a balance of acceptance now. Or maybe the abundance of social media just lets the dumb ones slip through more often, whether it means there are more racist people now or if they're just more vocal, or more exposed.

Point is: I don't know. Anything.

I hear the argument that ''Québec isn't as racist as elsewhere but still is a bit'' a lot more than I used to. Maybe that's true. Again: I don't know.

But it's good to revisit the subject once in a while, assess where it's at, and try to push for the best in everyone.

That being said, my friend Yan had two stories to tell on the matter.

Today's Sign Of Our Civilization's Decadence

It has come to this. Millions of years of evolution, thousands of years of recorded human history, 400 years of white folks living in what is now called Canada, and now, in 2012...

I just can't believe it. I thought this was the pinnacle of 2000s-vomit-inducing-Canadiana...

But no...

Avril Lavigne and Nickleback's Chad Kroeger are engaged. To be married.

Think of the children - theirs!

It's the second time Lavigne marries one of her songwriters - watch out Linda Perry!

Kroeger was never married himself, but is still in divorce proceedings with his previous common-law partner who, it should be noted, for having the strength and courage to probably have had sex with him, deserves to get his private jet and Mexican holiday home in the split.

Not many people were aware - or even cared - that they were dating, so pictures like this one flew completely off the radar:

Fittingly, he's wearing a douchebag-style motif t-shirt and she looks like a nobody. Or Nicole Kidman's mouse-child.

I could go on for days, but I need my beauty sleep.