The Briar Patch

Music is something I love. I have it on for most things I do. Work, travel, sports, just chilling at home. I make little playlists for everything. Pre sports lists, country lists, rap lists, chill lists, if I am in a mood I think of a list for it. I also love MOST music. Honestly pop is the only music I don't download. Simple fact is pop, or good pop is hard to avoid so I don't really need to download it. It will be forced on me. I fear though I am becoming the guys I hated a few years back.... I am becoming that guy who is saying fuck new music sucks. I like, in no order.... Guns N Roses, Metallica, Motley Crue, Korn, System, Nirvana, Hed P.E, Dr. Dre, NWA, Eminem, Pac, Johnny Cash, Alan Jackson. That's my meat and potatoes. There are tons more but those can always pick me up. HOWEVER even the stuff they have done in the last decade is not AMAZING. So really nothing has blown my mind in years...... I guess I am going to rant maybe on somethings I have enjoyed. Maybe someth...

 We are lemmings, it finally happened. I know its Covid but it happened. We officially live in some sort of dystopian sci-fi horror movie.  Let me tell you about my companies inventory. MANY years ago, it was a shitshow. We counted everything twice we had to hand write everything and it took all weekend Friday, Saturday and Sunday and each day was at LEAST 12 - 16 hour days. Now time went by a bit better because well sometimes people snuck booze in later on. The thing was shitty times were made better by being with people. Times changed, safety became important so somethings weren't done anymore but we still plowed through the weekends with coworkers. In fact it actually made people talk to people they usually wouldn't, it helped build us as a team even. When things were bottle necked, like waiting for your next assignment people played cards, sat and visited. The fact was a boring time was made better by human interaction. Then the next weekend was usually the Xmas party. Peo...

I am not a foodie, I just like to go out a lot. There is not a lot I won't try. I realized that from my yelp (Tavis P. St Albert), which you can follow me on for way more detailed look at places to eat. I figured it might not be "pop culture" in the most accurate way BUT it is something to blog about that doesn't need to be negative. In fact I wouldn't be crapping on any place. Not saying I love every place but just leaving the negative out. So below are my most positive places to eat review! A Covid note.... I get cooks wearing face masks. The fact is as a cook for many, many years maybe they should have been doing that for years before this. I would not have wanted to BUT it might not be a bad idea. HOWEVER I think having the waitresses wear them is stupid. A percentage of their income is based on their personality. If they are happy, joking, smiling they are getting a better tip than scowling. Your covering the face, which tells a lot about the server and if th...

 So I am going to do a random thoughts post again. I have half a dozen mostly done entries BUT I am not quite ready to post them, wanna know why? I am having twitter issues.... Years ago, literally I think a decade ago I made my twitter. At first I used it just to rant and not much else. Post stupid pics and memes. Then I started in on Alberta politics and such, then discovered it can actually be used to promote my blog. When I started I was getting MAYBE 20/50  reads a post. So I started posting links to blog and the fact is reads shot way up. Like 100 / 200. If it was something "big" 400 hundred plus. SO that became my focus. I admit I did say some rude things and a couple times got a day or a week suspension. The fact is I accept that, a few times I didn't think it was suspension worthy but I lived with it. I mean if you use twitter I am sure you have seen out and out lies or hate spread with no problems but I got booted a few times. A couple months back now I posted o...

 I did a TV post not too long ago so I will keep this one short. We recently watched the Haunting of Hill House and the Haunting of Bly manor. I don't know if I would call these horror or suspense. They don't do a lot of jump scares, they are more creepy which to me at least is better. Not relying on a corny method to get a reaction BUT then is it horror? You not really scared. I went to bed every night fine after them. So I dunno what you want to call them BUT in my mind they are VERY well done. I do have to say there is another horror anthology series that is stupid popular. Difference between the two, AHS often will mix in politics or current world views where as Haunting is just purely horror. Which I think I prefer. also spoilers below FYI, if you haven't watched.... Also shouldn't have to say it but ya, spoiler warning! Start with Hill House, wish I would have watched this when it first came out, the cast and the story are stellar. I quite enjoy how each episode i...

 I have to start this with my take on the world. Call me selfish, an asshole, whatever you want but I think masks are a joke! I think this pandemic is a gong show. Imagine a virus so deadly you need to be tested just to see if you have it. So deadly there is over a 99% recovery rate. You actually have a better chance of recovering from it than a condom does to stop a baby. As of this writing 3026 people in Alberta have covid. We have a population of 4,371,000 That means there is currently 0.00069% of the population infect. HOW with any common sense can you be frightened by this? Now that I have said that I will put the other part. IF you are elderly, immunosuppressed or something I understand your worries. Not even being cruel but yes maybe you should stay isolated. I get it sucks, I am going mental with our "isolation" this year and I don't have it too bad. However for your own health I would say it is probably best to stay safe. If tomorrow someone came out and said the...

So what's good? I am constantly asking myself that. There are a million options now a days. Cable, which is going downhill, Disney Plus, Netflix and Prime are all the things we have. I could go on about a million shows I have watched over the years BUT I think I am going to say it has to have aired in the last 3. I also figure I need to keep it down two 1 or 2 per service or this will go on all day.  I have to start with Game of Thrones. I am not about to go deep into it because for 7 seasons it was the best show on T.V. Yes it had some slow moments and some gross moments but it might have been the best thing on T.V. I will go as far as to say ever. Then we had the final season, with no source material. Could we just redo it? I am not complaining because I didn't like it, that it wasn't an ending I wanted. I mean how often did that show do something fans didn't want. I rant because it really was awful. Arya killed the Night King. Sure that was awesome, but that's it...

 This one is a short unedited rant. Covid and all the other crazy shit going on in the world these people are showing their truest most annoying selves. Basically this is a rant about everyone lower, (younger, younger may be a better word) than Gen X. But let me start with Gen X and the boomers. You did this to yourselves. I am not sure why you decided that everyone was a special snowflake and that everything will be fair and the world will bend to make people happy. It won't. SO WHY DID YOU DO IT???  This all stems from a "feminist" financial advisors tweet. Claiming the current economic system isn't held up by hard work but by... Unpaid women of labour at home, White supremacy, Patriarchy, generational wealth, environmental destruction and on and on.... Whining, the same person constantly complaining the "Boomers" had it so easy, it sets my teeth on edge. Unpaid labour of women at home actually hurts the economy. If these women were out making  money they ...

 Too much on the go! I dunno why, well I do I just started doing too much and not doing what I should. I have said to myself for like 3 months now FOCUS! My list has been Blog, Write, Read, Hockey, Comics, Family Tree, Work trips, Try and do yard stuff and garden. Oh plus keep up on TV and such! I know it is a first world problem but man I barely seem to have time to try and finish the things I want to do. So I set my mind on a plan. A real plan. I am going to come up with 5 or 6 blogs over the next week. The release them a week or two apart and that SHOULD fill my need to blog. Plus that should cover like 2 / 3 months of blogging. I have a submission guide for a comic company and I want to get a couple submissions off in that time! Once those are done I am going to work solely on editing a a story and finishing another. All my writing in a row.... Then Family tree I think is simply a lunch time project. I can do it at work and right now it seems almost as done as I can get it. I m...