Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

You'd think that by now the old lady would have given up on telling me I can't park where I do. I've been parking there for three years, and she still yells every time she sees me.

Old lady: “You can't park there! I'm the boss of this laneway! The police said you can't park there!”

Me: “We've been over this a hundred times. Let me remind you how this goes. You tell me I can't park here. I tell you to fuck off. Then you call the police. The police laugh at you and do nothing… So let me finish by saying: FUCK OFF.”

I went to the bank this morning, which is always kooky for some reason. Canadian banks don't have security, or even plexiglass walls — where the tellers sit is just an open counter. I could easily walk behind it if I wanted to, and, in fact, I've seen some regular customers do that when they want to say hello to a specific bank worker. In any case, when I got there, there was a Chinese (I say this because he spoke not a word of English) nutcase wandering around the place babbling and touching everything. Eventually they managed to kick him out, but he stayed for another two or three minutes yelling bye to everyone in the bank, one by one. When he left he didn't really leave, he just walked in circles outside the bank, and then eventually wandered into another bank across the street.

Standing next to me in line was an old Triad-looking guy trying to open an account. He also spoke basically Chinese only, and since the bank's Chinese employee was on lunch, it was going slowly. To open the account you have to have money of course, and this guy was carrying — in his pockets — $50,200 (I watched them count it) in neatly stacked crisp $100 US bills. If he'd spoken English I'm sure that under Canada's money-laundering laws they'd have grilled him about its origins (I think they can make you explain any personal deposit over $10k Canadian), but they barely asked him anything.

All this made me ask the bank manager (who I know and happened to be standing next to the teller I was dealing with) a lot of questions about the way security is handled (it basically isn't). Then I asked them all about what type of paperwork is required to allow the police to open safety deposit boxes (they need a warrant specifically for the box of course). Anyway, I figured that was making them think I was a crook (I'm sure they wonder what I do, I've never really told them anything other than “internet stuff”), so I told them all about Marty's Cancer Benefit and that made them fairly certain I was a decent sort of fellow.

Then I went and got an iced mocha and talked to Scott for a while about money laundering — I'm sure that amused the other customers at Second Cup… Some pierced and tattooed guy, wearing dirty torn clothes and big boots talking about money laundering and then driving off in a $50,000 sports car…

My internet connection has been up and down since 2AM last night, so it's video editing all day for me!

Hmmm…. I think if anything is a sign that I make too many drug references on my page, this might be it. I get about five or six messages like this a day, from people who think they can get BME memberships by sending some weird snapshot of themselves (without any mods). I'm not really sure how people get that idea, I think it's pretty clear what BME is all about.