SuperPharm Criminals

Patrons of SuperPharm Valpark BEWARE:

Yesterday (sunday 13th) I went to superpharm to buy a pack of pepper mango. It took me no more than 10 mins MAX (the real time was probably about 5 mins) to go in, find and get the mango, wait in line and then pay for it.

In this 10 mins my car was broken into and my glove compartment and between the-front-seats pocket (roughly) searched and my friend's work bag stolen.

I made the police reports etc and I've realised that this isn't an isolated incident. Both the St. Joseph police station and the Arima finger-print division have stated that this SuperPharm has been hit A LOT by these criminals, who leave no trace behind.. a broken lock was all the evidence of a break-in with my car. Police inability aside, they say these people are quick and know what they're doing.. as evidenced by my incident.. and leave nothing for the police to go on.

I went back to speak to SuperPharm people.. they said it hadn't happened in a while but used to, especially on the WESTERN SIDE OF THE CARPARK. Arima officer said that it's been happening right through..

Anyway, I noticed a camera that was located obliquely opposite to where my car was parked and asked about this. SuperPharm said that there is only one camera outside and it points down over their warehouse door, not over the carpark. The security that we always think/see outside in the carpark are apparently not for there and are supposed to be inside so there is realistically NO SECURITY for the carpark either. (hence the sign I suppose).

In any case it sounded as if Superpharm could really care less about what happens to their customers' property/cars while they're inside contributing to Mr. Rahal's fat pockets.

So please, be careful if you HAVE to go to this SuperPharm (Valsayn SuperPharm, across from Valpark). This has happened before and it will continue to happen as SuperPharm seems content to do nothing about the situation, simply stating that 'well there are the signs outside saying that SuperPharm isn't liable for loss or damage to cars'. Which means, no cameras, no security and no one to be liable for your car being broken into but you, for patronizing their establishment. There's a really nice pharmacy across in Valpark, I think I'll be continuing to go there from now on.

- Gerard

My first HIV test

So I went for my first HIV test the other day, following on the heels of my first ever wisdom tooth extraction (or what was SUPPOSED to be my first..). This (HIV test) is something I've wanted to do since I started having sex and really since I was 21. This and cancer checks.. but yea, so I finally went to do one.
Went to Queens Park West to get it done and had a family member who had been there as well take me. So got there, got in really quickly, they took my info down and I had to wait a little while before they could take the blood. Got called about 10-15 mins later and had to go talk to a doctor/counsellor first so she could assess my risk factor and whatnot. I really, really enjoyed this talk. It was informative, casual, comfortable and she laughed at my jokes :P she seemed like a really lovely, easy-going person and made the questions seem less edgy and personal lol. So that lasted for about 10 mins then I went to actually have my blood taken.. this is where the fun happened.

This was my first time of my adult life(memory) that I had a needle in my arm for longer than it took to give an injection. So I told myself that I had to look at it happen, needed to see it happening for myself. The problem was that I thought it'd just be *stick needle in, pull up plunger, nice, free flowing blood quickly fills vial and done*. Ohhh no my friends, this was not to be the case;

the nurse cleaned the spot and stuck the needle in. This itself wasn't really painful, more just awkward. The unnerving part was that I didn't see her unwrap the needle that she used - instead I saw her take the whole assembly - needle + plunger part thing out from wherever and stick it in my arm. So I was a little nervous about this.. then things got really interesting.

So apparently I either have really oxygenated blood or the nurse just wanted to fuck around.. cus an air bubble soon came up into the vial.. prompting ms. nurse to push the plunger back down, forcing the flow of blood in my vein to reverse. Which btw, I could feel as plain as day. I felt the blood literally changing course in my vein.. this went a little beyond 'awkward'.. maybe 'unnatural' is the word I'd use. So the nurse doesn't only proceed to do this once, but does it probably another four or FIVE times. All I could think while she's pushing the blood back into my vein is this "FK! FK! The needle have aids on it!! SHE GIVING ME AIDS! I GETTING AIDSS!! OH G*D!! OH G*D!!" - so yes, perhaps I was a little delirious.

By the third time I started to get dizzy and faint. Did I mention that I didn't have any breakfast? well I didn't. Not one ass to eat that morning. So there I am starting to see spots and stars and fuzziness so I say, as best I could, to Ms. Nurse "umm.. I should probably say that I'm feeling a bit faint" and no sooner had I said this than my vision promptly disappeared and all I can think of is me passing out either in that room or outside in the waiting area and looking like the jackass noob who couldn't handle drawing blood..

So I alert Ms. Nurse to my current physiological situation to which she says "hold on, hold on" while still fucking pulling and pushing the blasted plunger in my vein. So I finally look away to the left, as I figured I couldn't see shit anyway and soon after I felt the needle gloriously be removed from my vein. A plaster was applied to stop any bleeding.. however no bleeding occurred.. perhaps because Ms. Nurse sent so much blood back the wrong way in my vein that it would be a while til the poor, traumatised blood vessels could work the courage up to venture past the spot where the needle was.

The doctor-counsellor I had before came right when Ms. Nurse was finished and saw my condition and asked if I were ok. All I could mumble to her was the word "faint". She said she'd get me some water and left to do so. While she was gone, Ms. Nurse is busy trying to push some alcohol soaked cloth up under my nose.. which wasn't making me better or worse, so I just pushed it away and said I'd be cool. Which I actually was very soon after. By the time doctor-counsellor came back with the water I could see and could stand etc. She said I looked as white as a ghost, I told her I was as white as a ghost before, she laughed and said I looked even whiter.. so I got up, threw the paper cup away and was finished with my first HIV test-giving blood scenario. Have to go back in a few weeks to collect results - wish me luck!

Annoying things.. and GOOD NEWS! :D

Annoying things:

Trinidad sending shit to Guyana to help them out - Anyone find this is sort of like someone whose family is in a shambles trying to give marital advice to someone else? or the owner of a house that's falling apart giving away his tenants' wood and bricks to another house... you see what I'm getting at? We can't fix our own shit, partly due to a lack of resources and we sending shit over to guyana.
Now I'm extremely sympathetic to the situation in Guyana and I do understand that we need to keep good ties and help those in need, but I kinda think that maaaybe we should fix our shit before we try to help anyone else fix theirs.

America's Best Dance Crew - I've been an avid follower of this show since it started. I love dancing in most of its forms, especially hip hop, break dancing etc. My favourite group on the show is Jabbawockeez. I also really like Kabba Modern and realised today that I really liked Live in Colour as well. Tonight they sent home Live n Colour in favour of the all-female group Fysh n Chicks. I strongly disagree with this move as I thought that overall Live n Colour has been a much better group than the f'in Fishies. Apart from that, I felt that Live n Colour really embraced and destroyed (in a good way) tonight's challenge, which the f'in Fishies failed to do so.. so I figure it's just for ratings that this happened and I'm once again reminded why I hate television shows like this. *sigh*

Was reading the papers about the boy that got stabbed in Success Laventille and the school was reported as saying that they have had an 'exemplary' standard of 'discipline' at the school. Now rumours and shit talk aside, I've a friend who works in the school and I hear the stories straight from the horse's mouth. My friend has been threatened by students more times than he can remember and has been in scuffles (against his will) with students on more than one occasion. It's just that these things don't make it to the papers.. which I understand, but still don't sit there and lie to the country when we know better about the discipline in your school. We aren't fools.. well I'm not at least.



Now for the good news:

I got my drum pedal fixed and drummed today for the first time in about a month. Finally used my ipod so I drummed along to favourite songs and what not :D and in the same day..

I GOT A JOB!! YAYY!!!! wait.. actually.. I GOT TWO JOBS!! YAYYYY!! (I'm in denial at how stressed from this shitload of work I'm going to be doing).
The first job is in UWI and is pretty exciting to me. I was actually enthusiastic about the job while hearing the job description during the interview..
The second job is co-hosting a new show that's going to be on a local television channel. I've always wanted to do something like this.. actually pretty much this.. so I'm pretty psyched about it. The only problem is the pilot shooting conflicts with the hours of the UWI job.. but I'm really hoping I can pull some strings and be able to go in a little later. We'll see how that goes. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

I'm not dead

no, I'm very much alive.. just wanted to say that for anyone who cares. Just haven't been feeling particularly blog-y lately for some reason. I feel like I don't have much to write about.. guess that means I've been out of touch with things for a bit.
hey what the ass.. I'm actually blogging about something write now.. this very moment.. well look at that! funny how these things work out.
so yea, I've been out of touch with things for a bit.. haven't been taking on much things external to my personal life and a bit of that is a little TOO personal to write about. Apart from that I'm still currently trying to look for a job.. and trying to figure out what exactly happened to my drum beater cus it's not pulling back after it hits the beater. Need to get one of my drum friends to come check it out for me.
My band took first steps to sign to a new local label - OddSound Entertainment (not to be confused with OddOne Ent. which is a different company but same type of business (music label). We signed a pre-contract merchandising agreement with OddSound so we should be getting our own merch sometime soon! we may need a logo first tho.. ahhh the ever elusive logo that we haven't gotten as YET, after all these years *sigh*. We're getting our own.. get this.. condoms as well. Every band under the label gets their own type of Trojan condom. We get 'twisted pleasure', another band gets 'ultra-sensitive' and another band gets 'magnums'.. now which band you think got the short end of the straw with that one? lol. I feel so... inadequate

so that's that.. two shows are coming up on the same night. I'm pretty turned off by this especially since the promoters whose show was confirmed after the other show are supposed to be supporters of local rock music and bands. That's not support in my opinion. I've supported these promoters before and I'll support them after but I'm not joining them like I had a chance to. I've realised I'd rather be accountable only to myself and no one else.. I really am more of a loner than I previously realised. But yea.. even if I were playing with the second show I'd still be against it.. hell even if it were MY show I'd be against it and move the date (i know this because it's happened with me before).
Incidentally I AM playing for the first show to be confirmed on that date.. it's the label's debut show with the three bands signed to them. It's gonna be a concept show and sounds like it'll be pretty kickass.. which makes me even more angry that another show is happening the same night because I feel like that other show is robbing both these promoters and the people who won't attend of a great experience.

well we'll see how it goes.
I out.

The way things are/ supposed to be

I just read a most thought-stirring post by Shivonne on facebook and before I knew it my reply was two comment-spaces long. I decided therefore that I should put it here as it reflects how I feel about some things.

Shivonne's original post: http://tahitian-sky.blogspot.com/2008/01/sham-of-public-consultation.html
entitled ' The Sham of Public Consultation'

(I ask that you read her post first as it's not only a good piece but makes my post make sense)

and my response was this:

I've been the same way you are for a while as well. Flinching every time someone says 'but how could they DO that?!' or 'that shouldn't be able to happen!' Obviously if it weren't able to happen we'd be having a different conversation right now.

if ISPATT is any indication, any steel mill in this country is certain death to the surrounding environment. I ask anyone wanting to see what this looks like to check out that area using google earth or some similar program.

maybe one day solidarity won't be a trend or passing phase with trinis. Someone from the EMA came to a lecture I was in once and spoke about the process one must go through to put up.. anything of that nature (as the steel mill).. but I can't exactly remember a lot of it.. and I spent most of the lecture thinking to myself that this woman could save a lot of breath if she just told us the truth that all you had to do was be in good with or pay off the right people and avoid all the hassle of forms and sight checks etc

Once you propose something to this government in a way that makes it seem like they stand to gain in some great (economic) way you get a free pass to do almost whatever you want; a red carpet made by the broken backs of the country's people.
Mind you, you don't actually have to kick back anything much to the government AFTER the fact, once they think you were going to do so before hand and you keep some specific people happy.

I always love it when one of the proposed advantages to these mills etc is 'there'll be lots of work for locals'. As if all fishermen were also engineers or technicians. As if farmers were just as comfortable working with machinery as they were with the land. It hearts my heart when I think about the futures of all these locals who will have their main(and only) source of income ripped away from them only to be given the PROSPECT of 'training' and a potential 'job'. What are they REALLY to do? it's just like you said Shiv - the way things are supposed to be and they way they really are.

Step out

I'd never seen people 'stepping' until I saw previews for movies like 'Stomp the Yard' and then saw stepping championships on tv etc. I never paid much mind to it really, often looking on with slight interest just because it was a dance form (and I love dance) that incorporated percussive elements (and I love percussions). However it just never grabbed me really.
Then I went to various local shows, one being a show in UWI held by foreign hall students (from other Caribbean islands) and saw (local) trinis stepping (and chanting, as is often a part of stepping). From the first moment I saw a group of trinis do this I got annoyed. I wasn't sure exactly why I was annoyed by this at first but now I realize it's because I feel like my people are once again emulating something from the states that we could more than do (and do better) on our own.

Not a single stepping group that I've seen have done anything different to the stepping I've seen in the U.S. We have neither tried to modify it or incorporate local elements into it. It's pure emulation (in my eyes). And this peeves me. I admire americans doing it for what it is.. some tricky hand and foot movements and group co-ordination. But come on.. trinis must be able to come up with something a lot better than this. Why are why copying this (I refrain from saying crap, though that's how I feel despite my respect for it) dance form?! It's shit like this that is robbing us of our international individuality, our creativity and passion for uniqueness.
Someone must come with the excuse that stepping has African roots etc. This is barely true. It's mostly an american-made dance form and if it WERE heavily reliant on African culture, there'd be a lot more rhythm, colour and better vocalization.

So I appeal to my trini steppers.. at the very least make stepping YOUR OWN. Do something different. Do not be content in the mediocrity of mimicry and emulation. Excel in your own right and bring something new to the table.

Step out of the foreign-made box you're in and step into an endless realm of possibility and originality.

Speaking of free education..

anyone else have a problem with people who vote/support the PNM BECAUSE they gave them/us tertiary education? Mind you I love the fact that I didn't have to pay tuition for my final year, but sorry - the proper governance of my country and some thousands saved NOW don't quite equate each other for me. This is perhaps because I could have afforded to pay for my tertiary education and I'm sure the story would be different for someone who previously could not have. For those who are like me however, and could afford their tertiary education and still support the PNM because of this; see facebook groups like 'Ah real sorry but PNM pay for my education' http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=9355336351 I say shame on you. You just get free tertiary education, you supposed to be at least a little intelligent. At least there are those in the group who see the truth for what it is and are not afraid to speak out.