Scott’s Blog of Doom

I’m sure everyone will have read this by now and will have formed their opinion on it, but let’s go over it anyway. 

http://www.ken-kennedy.com/

I think it’s wonderful that Mr. Kennedy advocates owning up to your own demons and taking responsibility for your own actions, and he’s definitely right about one thing — it’s much different now than it was 20 years ago, when guys were partying like rock stars.  20 years ago, the previous generation wasn’t dropping dead on a weekly basis.  20 years ago, I didn’t check magazines with a sense of dread waiting to see who the next early casualty would be.  And sure, just because someone dies of an overdose doesn’t mean it’s 100% the fault of the drug dealer, but don’t they deserve some share of the blame?  Has Vince McMahon EVER stepped forward and taken ANY responsbility for the fact that wrestlers previously under his employ have been dropping like flies for the past decade?  Even when he put forth the half-hearted “wellness policy”, which has crazy notions like “drug testing” that other employers have used for the past 30-40 years of so, he still wasn’t willing to come forward and say “You know, maybe when we train fans that the only main eventers are roided freaks, we’re doing a disservice to the business”.  Or maybe rehiring a multiple-time admitted user like Jeff Hardy is asking for trouble.  Or maybe waiting until Rob Van Dam is actually caught by the authorities smoking pot before firing him is asking for trouble. 

I’d like to agree with Ken that we’re all just being a bunch of worry-warts here who don’t know the business, but when I’m watching Wrestlemania V and literally counting, into the double-digits mind you, people who have dropped dead before 50 years of age since that show aired, maybe that says there MIGHT be a problem here. 

With apologies to Jon Stewart, of course.

Anyway, today we’re up the coast near Gibsons checking out the ocean (or offshoot of the ocean if you want to get technical about it) and to get there from Vancouver proper you have to take a ferry.  They’re generally packed so people line up in their cars about an hour early and wait for it to arrive so they can load up and leave on time.  This is the generally accepted common practice by the thinking people of the world.  Now, obviously an hour gives you some time to kill while you hang out outside the car and have a smoke (if you’re into that sort of thing) or take pictures of the scenery or whatever.  However, today we experienced the greatest thing ever:  Hungry Asians.  Keep in mind, this is a true story. 

So we pull up to wait for the 7:20 ferry and along side our car is a pair of other cars from what is presumably a group camping trip — a sedan and a mini-van, both loaded with what had to have been 15 people total.  As the parking lot fills up and we near the loading time of 7:00 PM, people start getting into their cars, what with the announcement from the PA system that now would be a good time to get back in your cars and all, and the family beside us has a better idea — supper!  And what better time and place to cook supper than the lineup of cars waiting to get into the ferry, so of course they pop the trunk of the sedan, revealing an entire box of instant noodle bowls and chopstick sets, and then proceed to produce a pot of what had to be very cold water and a portable propane heater.  So with people hurrying to get going, the patriarch of this clan of brain surgeons starts attemping to BOIL THE WATER with what has to be 1/4 less heat than what is in a typical hot-plate, while seated on a cooler in the middle of the road with his kids lined up with their noodle bowls and chopsticks in hand.  Finally, after TEN MINUTES of attempting to boil two liters of water with a low-powered blowtorch, they realize that ferry officials are waving entire lines of traffic around them and feebly try to figure out what to do with their pot of what can only be lukewarm water, by which time we had already driven past them and onto the boat.  Sadly, I don’t know if they ever got their noodles, but I can only hope for my own sanity that they did.  Because otherwise, what hope is there for any of us?