The Welfare of a Nation.

There are many who live their comfortable lives with no grasp of the problems that are still actually out there. For example, I have lived my entire life living in a relatively small city that always seemed clean, quiet and safe. I had no idea that there were so many mentally unstable and homeless in the downtown area until recently. The system is set up in a way to keep them there. They aren't given any incentive to try to make changes for themselves and depressingly enough, a lot of them are using their monthly welfare cheques, paid for by our tax dollars to buy drugs. In that respect the government is funding addiction and homelessness with our tax dollars. Wouldn't that money be better spent on some sort of home care service to try and put these people back on track? I know this could be done as it's a similar idea to how our system helps the disabled. I would even go as far as to argue that many of these people are disabled people who fell through the cracks.

My real issue here is not with the people who can't help themselves, as they really need something in place to keep them on the straight and narrow, so much as the people who don't want to help themselves. I personally know a few people who are more or less living off the system as a free ride. They sleep in shelters for only a small portion of their welfare cheque and try to convince others to buy them drugs and other things when they are low on funds.

This is why I feel to clean up the streets we need some form of social care system to help those who want to be helped, as I know they exist, and let those who don't want to be helped sleep in the bed they've made. I can't justify giving 30% of my paycheck to a government who helps people buy drugs and Listerine. We are taxed hard here in Canada and we smile and brag about our badass healthcare system, but maybe it's time to reexamine how that money is being spent. I'm cool with being taxed if it's in the name of making this beautiful country a better place.

I need to clarify though, obviously we can't just leave those who don't want to be helped out in the cold, as much as I believe in a certain degree of tough love. I just feel, that if you want free money, maybe you should be showing that you actually want to do well with it.

This system does not and is never gonna work as long as the policy makers have their heads up in the clouds. Unfortunately, I'm just some naive lower mid-class person who doesn't like what he sees, and maybe I'm bitter because I haven't given up and won a prize as so many do.

I'm frustrated, and maybe it's time for something new. I bet I get some hate for this one, but I'm standing by it.

Career Advice

I have worked a lot of jobs in my 10+ years in the workforce. Some have been gratifying, some have been unnecessarily dramatic, some have introduced me to people who will hopefully be in my life forever, but all of those jobs functioned by one very simple principle; do your work, get paid for it. Unfortunately, that idea really isn't simple enough for some people.

My two most recent jobs are in the security industry. It's very easy to see the perks of security. For example, you get to work longer hours and strike up overtime quite often (I worked 147 hours in two weeks not long ago), you don't always have to work in one location, the work is rarely overly demanding and sometimes it allows you to catch up on reading and you can take time off when it is needed with little trouble. The money isn't very good, but the perks can be exactly what is right for your life.

The flaws however can be pretty unbelievable. A good example of that is that I have been fighting to get paid for a job I did last September!!! Last bloody September!!!! Ultimately I quit that company 2 weeks ago but am still actively fighting for my money and dealing with the mother of all run-arounds. So, that company could just be a lemon, seeing as it took over a month to get paid for the last job I did with them, right? WRONG! I've heard horror stories about a local security company from a good friend who worked for them too. Naturally after that I thought I'd try working for a big national company, and have been for a year now.

It went pretty well for quite a while and made the other company look like a bunch of clown shoes. Then they hired some ignorant idiot 26 year old (as opposed to me, a good natured, decent, 26 year old) to be scheduling manager. Oh boy, for a few months my pays seemed lower than they were supposed to be, but the hours are so sporadic and all over the place, and the pay stubs are so unreadable I couldn't tell that there were actual shortages. Finally, I decided I needed to keep track of my hours in a very detailed format and really buckle down with those pay stubs. Oh boy, am I glad I did. My first pay after I started keeping track was approximately 50 hours short. Seriously. That's 500 bucks that inbred sewer rat tried to pocket from me! So, angry about the lack of massive overtime cash in my account I contacted his superior, who assured me that next pay would have all of that money in my account. Guess what? It's payday, my account got a pretty standard pay, which in itself may have been short, and those 50 hours weren't added to it. Of course I could properly examine it and see what's off, but my legal right to have my pay stub before or at least by the time my pay is given is apparently being overlooked too.

I can't tell you how tired I am of fighting for pay. There are no victories and only constant losses. The only logical course is to move on to greener pastures, but my immediate supervisor is amazing and I don't want to leave that person short. However, I don't know that I can continue to fight this war on two fronts. Perhaps it's labour board time, but if that's what it has to be, I don't want to be attached with the company that I'm battling for obvious reasons.

So this post is called career advice, and I'll put the advice very clear to be seen.

1. If you do shift work, keep track of everything.
2. Don't work security!

Oh well, it's not a total wash. Whenever someone asks me what I do, I can reply with, "I'm into charity work." Chicks love it.

Miss March (2009)

There is a very fine line to be drawn between an obnoxious movie and a funny movie. Miss March opted to make life easy for my inner critic. The filmmakers seem to have decided to extract all signs of comedy in exchange for more obnoxious, and if that was their goal, this movie is a thunderous success!

The Whitest Kids You Know is an online comedy group known for quite a few pretty decent YouTube sketches. When a good and edgy team of honest to goodness sketch comedians get their own feature film, I'm usually pretty far up in line to support it. Unfortunately, they are almost always terrible, with the exception of Mega64 and Derrick Comedy.

Miss March is an example of a bunch of young people getting their big shot and being scared no one will find it funny, so they jam so many "jokes" that they take away all humanity and in my opinion there is nothing that makes a buddy road trip better than humanity. For an example of this kind of movie done right, watch 'Fanboys'. In this we have the most over the top annoying and the most frustratingly boring main characters I may have ever seen.


Even the plot is sorta charming in a way. Well, at least some of it. Imagine two good friends on a road trip to the Playboy mansion. Honestly, I can believe that so easily and I imagine that was where they started their script, sadly they never give us one moment of realism to grasp on to.

I really love the idea of these guys making something great, and I do believe they have potential in the long run. I just suggest that in future projects, they don't spend so much time worrying about having UNRATED, splashed across the DVD case.

Avoid this movie.