“Doctor, doctor, I haven’t slept for days.”
“Why not?”
“Because I sleep at night!”

What do you get if you cross an insomniac, an agnostic and a dyslexic? Someone who stays up all night wondering if there really is a dog.

One of the great ironies of life is by the time you retire and are able to sleep late, you are to old to be able to sleep late.

Did you hear about the man who slept under an old tractor? He wanted to wake up oily in the morning.

A man went to the doctor complaining of insomnia. The doctor gave him a thorough examination, found absolutely nothing physically wrong with him, and then told him, “Listen, if you ever expect to cure your insomnia, you just have to stop taking your troubles to bed with you.”
“I know” said the man, “but I can`t. My wife refuses to sleep alone.”

When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.

Did you hear about the parents who called their baby “Caffeine?” It kept them awake all night!

Why it is that the one who snores always goes to sleep first?

Insomnia is what you have when you lie awake all night for ten minutes!

“Doctor, doctor, I can’t get to sleep at night.”
“Lie on the edge of the bed, then, and you’ll soon drop off.”

Husband: “Honey, I have terrible insomnia.”
Wife: “If you go to sleep, it won’t bother you!”

Insomnia is the triumph of mind over mattress.

Whiskey may not cure your insomnia, but it makes staying awake much more pleasant.

Insomnia is the triumph of mind over mattress!

My insomnia is so bad, I can`t even sleep on the job.

I won’t rest until I find a cure for insomnia.

What question can never be answered with “Yes.”
Are you asleep?

Sleep is a form of death on the installment plan.

An accountant was having a hard time sleeping and goes to see his doctor.
“Doctor, I just can’t sleep at night.”
“Have you tried counting sheep?”
“That’s the problem! I make a mistake and spend 3 hours trying to find it.”

He is such an insomniac that when he falls asleep, he dreams he is awake!

“Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.”

Relationship Issues

In the province of BC an established dealer can sell a vehicle that is missing most of its seat belts and nobody thinks that this is a problem. If the car came from outside the province there is a detailed inspection that is required but if it’s from within BC no regulations seem to apply.

Ontario used vehicle safety inspections make sure that every seating position has a seat belt and that it is undamaged and in working order.

Whoa. But what if the used car you are looking at has had a BCAA inspection you ask? The BCAA inspection doesn’t even have seat belts in their inspection report. How reliable can an inspection report be when it doesn’t require the most basic of safety equipment to be in a vehicle?

According to ICBC, they think only the front seat occupants need seat belts. If you’re an adult in the back seat and the vehicle is pulled over you will be charged with not wearing a seat belt even though there isn’t one there for you to put on.

During a walk-about I dropped by the Nanaimo RCMP building and asked the two officers behind the desk if it was legal to sell a car that is missing most of its seat belts. I was shocked at one of the officer’s immediate reply. “Car dealers can do anything they want.” The other officer then nodded in agreement.

You can go to the Motor Vehicle Sales Authority. But don’t get your hopes up. They have eight excuses they can use to not help a consumer. Apparently they don’t have any excuses not to help a dealer.

You can try going to the Better Business Bureau but they’ll sent a letter of complaint to the car dealer, he’ll put it through a shredder unopened then claim he didn’t get it. This will go on two more times and the BBB will give up.

So if you’re looking at a used car remember that the dealer can do anything they want, there’s a good chance the VSA won’t help you, ICBC won’t be interested in any safety issues and a BCAA inspection is worthless because seat belts in used cars are optional.

I also took my BCAA card and cut it up and will never renew.

I came from a tech background. I was an UNIX Administrator and programmer for almost 20 years. During this time I found myself frequently laid off as another company flamed out or whole departments were slashed in a downsizing. The pay was great when there was work but during the down times I always came close to financial rock bottom before another contract came up.

Since being laid off from a telecommunications company for the last time I did a lot of soul searching, meditating, praying and navel gazing in an effort to understand what the heck life is all about and why am I here.

I tried a number of programs and read lots of books in an effort to find an answer. Then for some reason I just decided to chuck it all, sell the house and drive across the country to live on an island and learn about building wooden boats.

While on the island of Gabriola in British Columbia, Canada I tried to work on my goals and determine what things were meaningful for me. My lists included things I wanted to have, things I wanted to do and things I wanted to be. I also added a list of the things that make me feel good and are good for me. It took several weeks to get 25 to 30 items on each of my lists and several times I was close to giving up. I wished there was a meaty list of items I could use as a starting point so I could get the exercise over and start the actually doing.

As I continued building my lists I started to experience some of the items I had on my original list of goals. During the next couple of years I started this blog, which was picked up by Wellsphere.com and I contributed to as a blogger and as the moderator of the Sleep and Dreams community for almost three years. I was approached by Health Central but I decided to sever my relationships with both and head out on my own.

I also learned to ride a motorcycle, got my scuba diving certificate, did a fire walk, volunteered at a Dragon Boat festival and climbed a mountain (more a big hill with attitude).

While a was channel surfing one day I came across Dr. Phil as he was talking to a young adult about what he wanted to do. (The boy was living in is parents basement, sleeping until noon and playing video games all day and night.)  “I don’t know” was his answer. “Well,” Dr. Phil continued, “what are you interested in?” and he again answered “I don’t know.” (This wasn’t the exact conversation but generally what was discussed).

It was at this time I had my “Eureka” moment. What if expanded my lists into a book, added a whack of career possibilities to choose from and what if kids like this one had it to work with. Heck I wished I had a book like this when I was his age!

Instead of hiding from life in the virtual world of video gaming a kid could quickly develop a list of interests and some concrete goals to work toward. They could get a real sense of accomplishment and have a true focus and direction in their lives.

So I finished writing my book, got an editor and book cover designer and self published my first book (and scratched that goal off my list of things to do).

For the rest of this month you can download the complete ebook for free at Smashwords. Use it yourself or give it to a young adult for them to start working toward a fulfilling future. You can also take a few moments to discover some of the other great authors and their ebooks available on the site.

If you have the time I would appreciate if you left a review of Goals for Change on the Smashwords site. Feel free to add what you liked, what you didn’t and how it helped.

I’d also love to receive a short note about any goals you or the person you gave the book to have accomplished. There is an online form at www.GoalsForChange.com. I would like to publish them on the site to help you celebrate your successes!

The self-styled atheist applied for a new driver’s license using a photo of himself wearing a pasta strainer as his official religious headgear. He claimed that he was a “pastafarian” and that his headgear was required to be worn by his religion.

It took Alm three years to get his license photo accepted but he won out and now has his new license.

“Police officials in the mostly Catholic country did not sound amused.”

So I drove over and picked up a couple of the sandwiches for each of us along with gravy and an order of fries. Bad move right off as it cost over $33. Could have gotten a 12 pack, Micky D’s and change in my pocket for that price.

I brought the food mass home in my vinyl briefcase in an effort to keep in some of the heat, then my son and I tore into the meal eight seconds after I walked in the front door.

The sandwiches looked pretty small so I was glad I got two each. Then I dipped my sandwich into the gravy, took a big bite, dipped a mitt full of fries into the gravy and mashed that into my gapping maw as well.

It’s amazing that when you’re famished you don’t even realize what you eating as long as it’s powered in at a high rate of speed. Then after the first sandwich was gone and the imminent threat of dying from starvation abated, a few brain cells kicked in and wondered what the hell did I just eat (like when I had a McRib when they first came out).

Along with that first Double Down sandwich, a good quantity of the fries were also gone, along with a big glass of milk. Man that KFC seemed mighty salty. So much so that my 16 year old son put his second sandwich in the fridge and got something else to eat. But being a trooper and too lazy to get up, I scarfed down the second Double Down, the rest of the fries and most of the gravy.

A couple of hours later I had to down three more glasses of milk and a couple of glasses of water to quench my thirst because of all the salt in that meal. Consuming such a salty meal took me back to my childhood home in wintery Ontario where my mother used more salt than the department of highways. It wasn’t good for me then and all that salt wasn’t good for me now.

Being the masochist I am I had to look up the nutritional information about the KFC Double Down of doom.

For the two sandwiches:

Calories                     1080
Grams of fat                  60
Milligrams of sodium   3480

Seeing as the recommended maximum sodium intake for an entire day is 1500mg, I was a tad over. And that total doesn’t include the fries or the gravy (or breakfast, lunch or snackies). I had my salt requirement for the better part of a week. Probably explains that after drinking so much afterward I was still whizzing dust. I also consumed half my calories and all my fat intake in one meal.

My son’s second Double Down sandwich stayed in the fridge almost a week before he got around to eating it. With all the salt it likely would have stayed preserved for years.

I don’t think I’ll ever eat another KFC Double Down sandwich again. Way too salty and it just didn’t taste all that good.

Now what about a Wendy’s Baconator?

Base pay and any increases are out of control and nothing is being done about it.

After the current federal election in Canada several bus loads of new representatives with absolutely no political experience have parachuted into a $155,000 plus a year job. Who else could be hired off the street with no experience and get that kind of a salary? These newbies are not worth that kind of money. I also believe that all the other MPs shouldn’t be paid what they are currently stealing (minimum work for maximum pay).

How much has our Prime Minister cut his office’s budget? That number would be zero. How can elected leaders cut funding for schools, hospitals and charities yet not reduce their budget. How many staffers have lost their jobs and are left to get by on unemployment benefits? That would also be zero.

One day the so-called directors of Translink in Vancouver whined that they had to increase fares to maintain services, and then a month later voted themselves a pay raise that doubled their salary. All this approved by a committee composed of “liked minded individuals.” The pay grab was a done deal before anyone could do anything about it. And nobody could anyways.

It’s also great being in charge at BC Ferries where you can decide you’re entitled to over a million dollars in salary, then bring along a bunch of your pals at half a million each. Toss in a hefty helping of normally $50,000 a year jobs that take home over $100,000. The CEO Of BC Ferries makes 10 times the money of the President running the ferry in Washington state.

Some groups try to justify their wage demands by hiring an outside consultant to review their salary. Well if the consultant looks over the situation and decides that the group should get a 2% raise then three guesses as to where that consultants report is going to end up. That’s right – into the shredder, never to see the light of day. And the group will also cry to everyone around about how incompetent the consultant was.

If the consultant came back with the recommendation that the group should get an 80% pay increase, then that consultant is wonderful and will be recommended to all the rest of the thieving groups looking to steal from the public. Sometimes the group pretends they are doing the taxpayer a favour and saving them some money by voting to increase their pay by only 50%. What troopers.

And don’t get me going on CEO pay packages that are so insane as to be bordering on criminal with the amount they take from shareholders.

Warren Buffett is one of the riches people in the galaxy and is paid $100,000 a year. I don’t think any bank CEO should be paid more than that.

Every single one of these groups wants to justify their high salaries and big increases and bonuses because they have to attract the best people. This is just a bunch of self-important B.S. With everything else being equal, the person getting the higher salary is deemed more important. It’s all egos and a sense of entitlement. With a large salary you’re more likely to attract buzzards than lions.

A taxpayers group should be able to oversee and rein in these out of control salaries and no group should be able to vote on their own salaries and benefits. How about a university look into into it? A mayor gets paid $X for every thousand of population in their city or town, then use that to figure what every other elected official should make.

Poor people rob liquor stores. The so called pillars of our communities are just a bunch of empire builders who are out for themselves. And for groups of those who vote themselves big pay days, life is good for the pigs at the trough.

Governments around the world are going into default or close to doing so because the people can’t afford to pay for their bloated beauacracies, out of control spending and slef serving behavior.

Do you get to vote on your pay and benefits? Leave a comment below.

The players are goons, the coaches are goons, the owners are goons and the league is run by goons. There is absolutely no professional sport other than hockey that encourages fighting. For years in hockey if there was a fight that turned into a bench clearing brawl and if a player didn’t leave the bench to join in (often on the coaches orders) they would find themselves back in the minors.

The most ridiculous of all fights has to be between goalies. They spend the game so far apart they can barely see one another let alone get upset over something the other goalie said. And they fight like a couple of constipated turtles.

And who is over-seeing all this mayhem? That would the leagues lap dogs, laughingly referred to as referees. This group couldn’t miss so many infractions or just plain look the other way as much unless they were referees in the World Wrestling Federation.

Hockey is the only so-called professional sport where the rule book goes out the window in a close game, an overtime game, or in a playoff game. Short of a two-handed, execution swing with a hockey stick to an opponent’s head everything goes, except offsides.

Ringmaster to the goons who watch hockey is the goons biggest clown, Mr. Rock’em Sock’em Don Cherry.  His hockey commentary is for entertainment value only. Kind of like listening to Howard Stern. You know he’s going to say something pointless but you never know what it will be.

The lowest, arm-pit period of hockey was the 70’s Philadelphia Flyers with Dave “The Hammer” Schultz. This king of the goons couldn’t skate, pass or make plays. The kind of things you figure a hockey player should be able to do. His sole talent was fighting on skates and racking up penalty minutes. He had no other purpose.

The greatest hockey player the game has seen was Wayne Gretzky. But how many other players would have been as good if they were hardly ever touched in their career? Did you ever see Gretzky leveled by a check? It was common knowledge in the league that if you touched Wayne then his personal goon Marty McSorley would come on the ice, ignore whatever was happening on the play and skate over to the player who hit Gretzky and put a beating on him. They called themselves enforcers. Kind of like when the mob puts out a hit.

It’s also tiring to hear from washed up former players commenting on head shots and about how players today don’t have any respect for one another. These goons often used their stick for everything except touching the puck, after the play hits were common and behind the referee’s back everything went. Maybe their brains are too scrambled to remember anything. Forget the commentary and stick to your colouring books.

Everything from Tidbits hockey goes downhill. Kids learn from the hockey goons and by the time they’re in their early teens the goon mentality is firmly entrenched.

The league could stop fighting if they wanted. First off, let the players fight as much as they want. On the ice, in the hallways or in the parking lot. If a player instigates a fight he gets a 1 game suspension, is fined $10,000 and the teams is fined $100,000. If the same player gets into another fight he gets a 10 game suspension, is fined $100,000 and the teams gets a $1,000,000 fine. If he stupid enough to start a third fight he gets a 100 game suspension, a $1,000,000 fine and the teams get hit with a $10,000,000 fine. If the suspension runs into the playoffs, into next season or ends that players so-called career, then too bad. Go drag your knuckles out the door.

With this plan, it won’t take the owners long to figure out that having goons on their team is not good for business. The word will be out that if you can’t put the puck in the net you better be looking for a new job.

Then what would happen? A truly professional sport might develop. I won’t be holding my breath.

During this year’s Stanley Cup playoffs between Boston and Vancouver, the Canucks got off to a two game lead in the best of seven series because they were a faster, more talented team and it looked like the series could be over in four straight. But the NHL wasn’t going to loose out on millions of dollars so they ordered their lap-dog referees to goon up the game in Boston’s favour.

During game three Boston start slashing Vancouver players on the back of their legs and had their gloves in the face of Canucks after every play around the net. And the poster boy for Boston goons, Brad Marchand, enjoyed complete freedom from any penalty for punching Daniel Sedin in the face six times – right in front of a so-called referee.

But then if the referee didn’t follow the orders of the league to goon things up they would find themselves out of a job. And anyone from a player to an owner is punished is they ever say anything disparaging about the league in public.

Could you imagine a basketball game where players were free to elbow each other in the face and clothes-line an opponent at will right in front of a referee and not be called for a foul. How about stomping on an opponents ankle when lined up for a free throw, then slam their hand into another players eyes as the play takes off. How about duking it out at center court while everyone stands back and watches?

I watch football to see football not brawls. Hockey is going off a lot of people’s radar as a professional sport to watch because hockey always has been a goon sport and it always will be.

Do you have any comments or are you a goon that kan’t spel nuthin?

If you only had $20 left to your name, there would be someone out there who would take it. The work at home scams have been around for a long time because they rake in hundreds of billions of dollars every year for the people running them.

These scams are especially low because they prey on people who are desperately looking for a way to make a few extra dollars like seniors, students, the unemployed and stay at home moms.

Whether you see the ad in a free paper, at the supermarket, community center, on a telephone pole or posted online they often pitch the same get rich quick schemes that include:

• stuffing envelopes
• sending emails
• clipping coupons
• assembling products or crafts
• data entry
• reading books
• reviewing movies
• medical billing
• online business with a “free” web site
• filling in surveys
• reshipping products

How can it be cheaper for you to stuff, lick shut and put a stamp on an envelope when a machine can do it a thousand times faster and a thousand times cheaper?

Assembling products at home companies are not in the business of selling your assembled products but in selling you over-priced, poor quality craft supplies you could have bought at the dollar store for a fraction of the cost. And you’ll be stuck with whatever it was that you made.

You have to ask yourself, why some company would pay you big money to make an item at home when a guy in China can tool up and crank them out by the thousands for a few cents each.

Sometimes a scheme requires that you purchase a directory of work at home companies. Why on earth would you pay for something you can get for free? I just searched Google for work at home and got over 2 billion, yes BILLION results in a quarter of a second.

There’s that many sites out there because there are even more gullible fools that think the next offer will be the answer to their financial dreams. As long as the odds are in your state lottery, you very likely will have a better chance to win that than make any money from any of the “guaranteed” programs you can find to make money at home.

For example, you see an ad on a telephone pole with a number to call. The person says “Send me $20 and you’ll be in business as soon as you get my special report”. The special report is a few notes telling you to put your phone number on the enclosed ad about making big money from home, you put that up on telephone poles and when someone calls have them send you $20 and you send them a copy of the special report.

Even if a work at home company offers a money back guarantee you will still lose your money because most of the fee they charged you is an application fee that will not be refundable.

If you had a big money making business on the internet would you offer it to thousands of other people so they could start up and cut into your profits? These cons are out to sell you internet hosting or special training and coaching programs. If you send them any money, it and them usually disappears. And if you paid by credit card or gave them any bank account information, they will steal everything.

Are medical professions going to send you their boxes of confidential files for you to enter into a computer? Call a few and ask them, but be prepared for them to hang up on you.

Top 15 Warning Signs That This Is a “Work At Home” Scam

1. You saw the ad in a free paper, on a telephone pole, at the supermarket or posted online to make big money
2. Offers you huge profits for very little, part-time work
3. You have to purchase instructions or supplies before you’re told how the program works
4. You don’t need any experience or knowledge to succeed
5. You’re told there is a guaranteed market for the products you’re asked to make or the service you are going to offer
6. You’re directed to a one page web site with no details about any program, just a box for you to enter your name and email address and maybe your credit card information
7. The ad has “no name”, unverifiable testimonials from “John in Washington” or “Julie in Philly”
8. You won’t be offered any employment contract
9. You’re going to make a really odd amount of money, like $372.83 a week
10. They won’t give you any indication of what the job actually is
11. They emphasize that their offer is perfectly legal
12. You can make more money in a few hours than most people earn in a day or even in a month
13. It involves sending money to an overseas company
14. It’s a unique opportunity (for you and 5 billion other people)
15. All your dreams will come true

If there was an easy way to stay at home and make big money doing hardly any work for only a few hours a day, then all of us would be doing it. Free ads are easy and quick to put up and slick looking web sites are easy to make by the thousands.

I think it was in the movie Wall Street where it was pondered that it was not so much that a fool and his money are soon parted, but how a fool and his money got together in the first place.

The most over used advice every one knows still holds true and that is if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. When it comes to work at home scams, 99.99% of them will take your last dollar and you’ll make nothing.

Have you been taken by one of these scams? Do you know someone who lost all their money? Leave a comment and let me know.

by John Haslam

Most people want to be smart, or at least appear to be smart. Marketers have clamped on to this need to appear smart by offering a variety of products that people can use in an effort to let those around them know how smart they are.

Many are food products that you consume in your home so you’re only trying to convince yourself how smart you are. Or maybe how much more superior you are over your cat.

You can drive a smart car. I don’t know how smart it is to drive on a highway full of trucks in a car a little bigger than an eight-ball. You can also fill it up with a couple of bags of groceries. With such great gas mileage, you can afford to make five or six trips every week to do what used to be your once weekly shopping trip. Then there’s the guy test. Can you fit your golf clubs in it? No? Pass.

You can sit around your house in your underwear eating cheese flavoured smart popcorn. I usually steer clear of products that may contain this, or may contain that or something else, the makers aren’t really sure. Gee, you make the stuff and you aren’t really sure what’s in it. How smart is that?

You can now at least make your fat, lazy kids smart by feeding them smart macaroni dinner. Master chefs have added a couple of tablespoons of cauliflower to a plain white flour product and now it’s a smart food. The only thing smart is the marketing department that found a way to convince people to buy a product that has less in the box than the original, costs more and delivers twice the sodium with the same amount of calories.

You can also feed your kids smart bread. It cost more, but you want your kids to be smart, right? The makers have created a whole wheat bread that looks like and has the same pliable texture as white bread. What else can a smart parent do? Oh I don’t know, how about regular whole wheat bread. Wean them on 60% then introduce 100%.

Have you ever seen a dead cat in a tree? Well your kid won’t starve on the kitchen floor because they won’t eat a sandwich. Be a parent and make a decision for Pete’s sakes.

There’s a herd of smart people using smart phones. I suppose they haven’t realized that cell companies have no interest in making your life easier or helping you stay connected or entertained. The entire game is to find gimmicks to eat your minutes.

The companies sell you a $600 phone so they can magically change your $20 old home phone bill into a $400 a monthly bill. Some people are so smart their phone bill is higher than their car payment or mortgage.

Why don’t you try smart vegetarian hotdogs or hamburgers? I have yet to figure out why vegetarians want to make a soy product that looks and supposedly tastes like a product they abhor and are so firmly against in the first place.

You can live in a smart house, buy your kids smart toys, eat smart meal replacement bars, listen to smart music, furnish your abode with smart furniture, build things with smart tools, make smart goals, use a smart board, run a smart humidifier, shop for smart bargains, drink smart water, find a business with smartpages, run your electronics with smart batteries, tie your horse up with a smart system and let your dog sleep in a smart bed.

There you go. Dazzle your neighbours, coworkers, the kid who delivers your paper and the local mutt and mostly yourself with how smart you are.