Moaners

[firehazard]

This falls squarely into "first world problems," but interviewing for jobs sucks. FYI on that.

Agree completely. I have never got a job when a competitive interview's involved. Hate the things. Good luck, DzM.

[DzM]

This falls squarely into "first world problems," but interviewing for jobs sucks. FYI on that.

I don't presume that anyone has been worrying about this, but just to bring closure:

I am no longer doing job interviews. I have accepted a new role within my prior company (All Praise the Company). I remain a proud wage slave and am able to continue paying my mortgage. Go me!

So with that settled I presume I should now invest in some celebratory Pogues whiskey.

[Mike from Boston]

This falls squarely into "first world problems," but interviewing for jobs sucks. FYI on that.

I don't presume that anyone has been worrying about this, but just to bring closure:

I am no longer doing job interviews. I have accepted a new role within my prior company (All Praise the Company). I remain a proud wage slave and am able to continue paying my mortgage. Go me!

So with that settled I presume I should now invest in some celebratory Pogues whiskey.

Congratulations and welcome back to the treadmill!

[Frances]

Actually, once upon a time Philip was listed as one of my references.

That is amazing.

[Sportin' Life]

This falls squarely into "first world problems," but interviewing for jobs sucks. FYI on that.

I don't presume that anyone has been worrying about this, but just to bring closure:

I am no longer doing job interviews. I have accepted a new role within my prior company (All Praise the Company). I remain a proud wage slave and am able to continue paying my mortgage. Go me!

So with that settled I presume I should now invest in some celebratory Pogues whiskey.

Congratulations and welcome back to the treadmill!

Congrats. I just did my first interview in over 25 years a few weeks ago. Bombed it, but I am still glad I went.

[firehazard]

This falls squarely into "first world problems," but interviewing for jobs sucks. FYI on that.

I don't presume that anyone has been worrying about this, but just to bring closure:

I am no longer doing job interviews. I have accepted a new role within my prior company (All Praise the Company). I remain a proud wage slave and am able to continue paying my mortgage. Go me!

So with that settled I presume I should now invest in some celebratory Pogues whiskey.

All hail DzM! Well done, Raft Captain. Enjoy the whiskey.

Meanwhile, back in moaning mode, my specs broke two days ago. Still haven't managed to get them fixed. I can't see a feckin thing at the moment.

[Tal]

This falls squarely into "first world problems," but interviewing for jobs sucks. FYI on that.

I don't presume that anyone has been worrying about this, but just to bring closure:

I am no longer doing job interviews. I have accepted a new role within my prior company (All Praise the Company). I remain a proud wage slave and am able to continue paying my mortgage. Go me!

So with that settled I presume I should now invest in some celebratory Pogues whiskey.

Congratulations and welcome back to the treadmill!

Congrats. I just did my first interview in over 25 years a few weeks ago. Bombed it, but I am still glad I went.

I don't mind going to work, it's just the 8 hour wait to go home I can't stand.

[Tal]

This falls squarely into "first world problems," but interviewing for jobs sucks. FYI on that.

I don't presume that anyone has been worrying about this, but just to bring closure:

I am no longer doing job interviews. I have accepted a new role within my prior company (All Praise the Company). I remain a proud wage slave and am able to continue paying my mortgage. Go me!

So with that settled I presume I should now invest in some celebratory Pogues whiskey.

All hail DzM! Well done, Raft Captain. Enjoy the whiskey.

Meanwhile, back in moaning mode, my specs broke two days ago. Still haven't managed to get them fixed. I can't see a feckin thing at the moment.

"....my specs broke two days ago.." did you not see that coming,

[firehazard]

This falls squarely into "first world problems," but interviewing for jobs sucks. FYI on that.

I don't presume that anyone has been worrying about this, but just to bring closure:

I am no longer doing job interviews. I have accepted a new role within my prior company (All Praise the Company). I remain a proud wage slave and am able to continue paying my mortgage. Go me!

So with that settled I presume I should now invest in some celebratory Pogues whiskey.

All hail DzM! Well done, Raft Captain. Enjoy the whiskey.

Meanwhile, back in moaning mode, my specs broke two days ago. Still haven't managed to get them fixed. I can't see a feckin thing at the moment.

"....my specs broke two days ago.." did you not see that coming,

What I really didn't foresee was the size of the bill for new ones.

[Heather]

Meanwhile, back in moaning mode, my specs broke two days ago. Still haven't managed to get them fixed. I can't see a feckin thing at the moment.

"....my specs broke two days ago.." did you not see that coming,

What I really didn't foresee was the size of the bill for new ones.

Should have gone to Specsavers.

[firehazard]

Meanwhile, back in moaning mode, my specs broke two days ago. Still haven't managed to get them fixed. I can't see a feckin thing at the moment.

"....my specs broke two days ago.." did you not see that coming,

What I really didn't foresee was the size of the bill for new ones.

Should have gone to Specsavers.

So should this bloke. Oh.

[Low D]

Today, The Tragically Hip has announced that singer/lyricist Gord Downie, 52 years old, has an inoperable brain tumor. Fecking hero that he is, he will be joining the band on tour this summer for what is expected to be their last hurrah.

I don't know what sort of a profile they have internationally, but The Hip are HUGE stars here in Canada, with an impact that could only be likened to maybe The Guess Who and BTO. I'll have to admit i stopped listening to 'em when they became too guitar rocky for my liking, but their early, rootsy stuff still ranks among my favourite music of all time. And when i do check 'em out from time to time, I'm always impressed with the continued enigmatic greatness of Downie's lyrics.

Coming close on the heels of Spirit of the Wests's retirement due to John Man & Vince Ditrich's illnesses, this is tragic news for fans of Canadian, or just plain good, music.

If you've never heard 'em, you could do worse than to start with "Boots or Hearts" from 1989's breakthrough album Up To Here. I love the how tension that never resolves, which is quite a feat for a primarily acoustic number:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uER0SS6bJpw

[Mike from Boston]

Sad news. They are known here in the States but have more of a cult status. To be honest, I know of him due to the fact his godfather is Harry Sinden, former coach, GM and President of the Boston Bruins and Team Canada 1972. I will give them a listen.

http://www.macleans.ca/general/macleans ... rd-downie/

Q: Many of us know you as singer, a poet, and even an actor. But a championship hockey goalie?

A: When I was a kid, Bantam age, our team, Ernestown, went all the way to the provincial “B” championship. We had to beat four teams in four series to get there. The crowds were huge, the stakes brutal and crushing. I was the goalie. Teen hero or teen goat. It teaches you things.

Q: Was Bob Rock your coach?

A: I wish. He knows what to say to a goalie. And goalies are strange. You do want to play but there’s also a part of you that kinda hopes a compressor will blow or that there’ll be too much snow on the roof and part of it will cave in and they’ll have to cancel the game.

Q: You’re a big fan of the Boston Bruins. This could be considered a travesty, even treason with many Canadians.

A: I have loved them since the early ’70s. All of my siblings were big Bruins fans. It was a certain type who liked the Bruins. They were known as a “blue-collar” team. They seemed to me like an outlaw team. You were a bit of an outlaw if you liked the Bruins.

Q: Why not the Leafs?

A: My grandfather liked the Leafs. Because of him I always carried—and still do—a place in my heart for the Leafs—albeit a small place. I should mention, also, that Harry Sinden and his wife, Eleanor, are my godparents.

Q: The Harry Sinden, godlike Bruins head coach and coach of Team Canada in the famed 1972 Summit Series against the U.S.S.R.?

A: I didn’t like to make a big deal of it when I was a kid. But I was very proud of our connection and I still am. My brothers and me defended every move he made, and loved the Bruins fiercely, spiritually, as any number of our friends will painfully attest to.

[Low D]

If you like the Hip AND Hockey, as many Canadians do, you will want to check out the song "Fifty Mission Cap".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaeRrrtsCqU

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty_Mission_Cap
"Fifty Mission Cap" is a song by Canadian rock group The Tragically Hip from the band's third full-length album, Fully Completely. The song was released as a single in 1992.
The song is a tribute to Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman Bill Barilko, reintroducing Barilko's story to a younger generation,[1][2][3] and is among The Tragically Hip's most popular songs.[4][5]
The song's influence on public awareness of Barilko's story was such that the band is devoted an entire chapter in the 2004 book '67: The Maple Leafs, Their Sensational Victory, and the End of an Empire.[1]

Lyrics
The song's lyrics describe the mysterious disappearance of Toronto Maple Leafs hockey player Bill Barilko.[6] Barilko scored the Stanley Cup clinching goal for the Leafs over Montreal Canadiens in the 1951 cup finals.[6][7] Four months and five days later, Barilko departed on a fishing trip in a small, single-engine airplane with friend and dentist, Henry Hudson.[5] The plane disappeared between Rupert House and Timmins, Ontario, leaving no trace of Barilko or Hudson.[6]

Eleven years later, on June 7, 1962, helicopter pilot Ron Boyd discovered the plane wreckage roughly 100 kilometres (62 mi) north of Cochrane, Ontario (about 35 miles off-course). Barilko was finally buried in his home town of Timmins, the same year that the Maple Leafs won their next Stanley Cup.[6]

The song's lyrics also reference the World War II style U.S. Army Air Corps, or U.S. Air Force officer's cap, mentioned in the song's title. The fifty mission cap was a cloth cap with visor issued to U.S. Army officers in World War II that developed a particular crush from the headphones that the bomber crews wore.

[Mike from Boston]

How fucking stupid can people be. A man accused of murder is released with a GPS device attached to his leg. The Einsteins attached it to his PROSTHETIC LEG!!
He removed the leg and killed someone else while the GPS signal was sending from his fake leg that was left at home.

http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/dc/murd ... /251529748

Again, how does this man with a lengthy criminal record that includes violations of gun laws. This past weekend there was a murder in my town of Dracut, MA. Again the accused killer has been arrested numerous times-including possesion of a locked and loaded gun as recently as March 2016, but the judge released him. A 17 year old good kid was gunned down a few weeks ago, they arrested two men (23 and 24) with lengthy criminal records-again released to be on the streets to kill.

I am seriously worried about this country. I respect the 2nd Amendmant (though not a gun owner) and feel citizens should have the right to protect themselves. But to me, that means a handgun-assault type weapons, high magazine clips-no reason for people to own these-at worst restrict their use to a gun club where the item would have to be stored. No fly list-no buy. But there is no enforcement of existing laws. Here in MA, we had one of the first in the nation gun laws (around 1976) the Bartley-Fox act, that would
mandate one year in jail for a person in possession of an unregistered gun. To the best of my research, in forty years, less then 10 people have even been charged with this and not one convicted. The politicians pat themselves on the back for passing a law and it is never enforced.

Our choice for President is a woman who is morally corrupt. She has blood on her hands from Benghazi. She was a absolute failure as Secretary of State. Through the Clinton Foundation, she accepts money from countries that abuse human rights, increased arms sales to countries that donated to the Foundation and has done other favors to donors,
etc. She is a liar. Mr. Trump is also a person with no ethics, his business dealings are corrupt and his speech is inflammatory and hateful. His plans for the country are incoherent. There is no evidence the world diplomacy is part of his vocabulary.

I heard one person say "they pray both Hillary and the Donald are indicted by November". I agree, but there is a total lack of leadership in this country. Very sad and worrying.

Needed to get this off my chest.