Canadian Greyhound Bus Horror: Young Passanger is Decapitated

A bus was scheduled to go from Edmonton in Alberta to Winnepeg in Manitoba yesterday, Wednesday, July 30th. But as he slept wearing headphones on the Greyhound bus in Canada, a 20-year-old man was repeatedly stabbed and then decapitated by a 40-year-old stranger who sat beside him. As the stabbing was taking place, the bus driver made an emergency stop in Manitoba and the remaining freaked out passengers fled for their own lives.

According to reports from BBC, while waiting for the police, some of the passengers were vomiting while others were crying once out of the bus as the shades wearing killer continued to stab the man about 50 times in the chest with a large knife.

Garnet Caton, a passenger who was sitting just in front of the victim explained to CBC Television that the attacker stood over his victim holding him and stabbing him repeatedly.

The Associated Press reported that after the stabbing, the attacker decapitated the young man and walked to the front door of the bus, stared out at the horrified passengers, and dropped the head. He then went back to disembowel the body.

Caton, the bus driver and another passenger secured the door from the outside so that the attacker couldn’t leave before the police arrived, and when he attempted to drive away with the bus, the driver disabled it.

"He calmly walks up to the front (of the bus) with the head in his hand and the knife and just calmly stares at us and drops the head right in front of us," Caton said.

"There was no rage in him ... It was just like he was a robot or something."

There were 37 passengers at the time of the attack.

Big Monstrous ComicCon

This year we had the fortunate opportunity to attend ComicCon 2008 in San Diego, where thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people gathered for five days to celebrate pop culture comic/movie character icons and all the encompassing merchandising and artistry. I kind of knew it was a big deal but I still underestimated its magnitude.

On the last day of ComicCon, my daughter and I drove down to San Diego, which was on a Sunday. For anyone who has spoken to me lately or read my blogs previously, you understand that this was a bit of a sacrifice for me since I decided not to drive anywhere on Sundays to save gas and money. However, I work Monday through Friday and Saturday I was just too wiped out to do anything that big, so the only day left was my anti-driving day. I told my daughter we would go, and I HAD to stay true to my word to her above all else.

I knew that trying to find parking would be horrendous because the ComicCon website (and a friend of mine) told me so. The crowd was larger than any I think I had been in, in years, which lead to some pushing, a lot of bumping, some grown man stepping on my child’s ankle and me accidentally getting pressed up against some woman’s breast. It was crazy! Crossing intersections of foot traffic was like trying to cross a river with a really strong current. I had to keep an eagle eye on my child so that she wasn’t washed away upstream in the Dark Horse comic or Lego sections. In fact, there were so many people at the Tokidoki booth that we couldn’t even see their merchandise only the back of many many heads.

All in all we had a lot of fun, looking at the promotions of new characters and comic books to come; all of the die hard fans dressed up in full regalia of their favorite characters; and we even met comic book and other character creators. My daughter was so excited to have met creator of Jane and the Dragon, New Zealand author, Martin Baynton. So excited in fact, that she couldn’t think of a single thing to ask him when he offered to answer any of her questions…until she got in our car! Of course.

Speed Racer: Not Just My Parents' Childhood

Yesterday I took my daughter to see Speed Racer at our favorite movie theater – you know, the one that costs $1.75 and on Tuesdays, only cost $1.00. The theater is in the mall, and I actually had a duel purpose for going to the mall. One was the movie of course, but the other was to see an old friend of mine who is going through her own bout with family drama. But initially we couldn’t find her because she had already gone on her lunch break, and when we went to the food court, we couldn’t find her. So then we decided to see the next movie playing, which happened to be Speed Racer. I kind of sighed and rolled my eyes, because this was the last movie I was interested in seeing, but I complied and said, okay.

Just like I suspected, it was rather cartoonish in appearance, but grudgingly, I had to acknowledge that it was kind of whimsical and charming and laid out very differently than most of the movies that come out of Hollywood. It’s style reminded me a bit of the 1998 German movie titled Run Lola Run (directed by Tom Tykwer). The story lines are completely different but they both carry a comic book aesthetic that is very interesting to watch.

I can tell you, I’m not a racecar fan, but what I didn’t know before, is that you don’t have to be one to appreciate the races in the film. Let me just add this too. The racing in Speed Racer doesn’t really look like automobile racing the way we know it. It comes off as a cross between bobsledding, skateboarding and racecar driving with some futuristic type car flipping thrown in. The crashes are different too – more explosive of course.

However, although the movie was based off of the 1967 Japanese animation and revolves around racecar driving, the movie’s core is about having your foundation shaken underneath you and keeping your integrity in spite of it.

My daughter now has something in common with my parents. The cartoon in the 60's is what they grew up on. Hey, I didn’t want to see the 2008 film either, but I did get the opportunity to check it out and the movie Speed Racer really is so much better than it sounds.

Meet Adande: Excerpt from Raise the Red Teddy

Adande, a close friend of mine, a very gorgeous woman and a very talented singer, was notorious for abusing her sitters. Oh, she talked a great game… seemed very level headed and sincere, but she took the record for bridge burning in my book, until her kindling only allowed her a few old burnt but still reliable logs to count on.

If Adande asked her sitter to watch her two kids, Terrian and Amber, and told them she would be back by midnight, it was certain that her sitters wouldn’t see her again until 9 a.m. the next morning. If she said she was going to leave her children with someone for two days most likely something would come up and she’d leave them for four. Dear Adande is a great example of a sitter abuser, by habitually hiding her gratitude; and didn’t bother returning to pick up her children when she said she would. Oh, she would tell some tragic tale to her sitters to either evoke laughter or sympathy becoming a master at softening people up.

Taking care of children is work. This is nothing profound – you already know this. So don’t you think it would be nice if we realized it with our sitters too? If your boss said that your job ended at 5pm everyday but then wouldn’t allow you to leave until 8pm, wouldn’t that kind of piss you off? Wouldn’t you feel just a little taken advantage of or disrespected? Wouldn’t it be a bit inconvenient for you? And wouldn’t you have liked to have known that your evening was going to be hijacked? Be sure you’re not giving any less consideration to your sitter than the consideration you would like to receive. You know this rule – it’s golden!

In Debt We Trust

I was just about to pick up a couple of tickets to Savannah to visit my grandmother who has been awaiting my arrival for months. I just finish reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt, and though I’ve been back and forth to Savannah all of my life, the story made me miss the canopy of trees that hides the Georgia sky, and envelops the city with Spanish moss, historic mansions and the stoic eyes of people on their porches, holding you in their minds, trying to figure out whose kin you are.

The truth is, I don’t have the money to go to Savannah, but I told grandma that I’d be out there by July and July is almost over! So of course, what I was going to do was just charge it, and then pay off the balance within the next couple of months. The only reason I hesitated, is because it took me so very long to get to zero balance on both of my cards, and the thought of having to slowly pay something off just sounded so painful. I figured I would do it soon, just not yet.

In the meantime, I picked up another documentary from Netflix called, In Debt We Trust – about how Americans are swimming in credit card debt and how the credit card companies and our country’s economy benefits from it. The documentary debuts some really crazy sounding songs to punctuate its point, but the value of its information is immeasurable. Among many of the topics covered, the film covered how credit card companies are preditorial and start by luring young college students to apply for credit cards. Many of these students adopt the “buy now, pay later,” mantra and find themselves drowning in large debts at such a young age.

When I first started college, I was no different. By the time I was 18 I had my first credit card, but fortunately it was from American Express, so that by the end of the month, everything had to be paid off. However, after applying to other cards, and with a few new turns in my life, I was running from the creditors by the age of 23. It was very stressful and just plain awful! It has taken many years and some serious hard work and organization, but now, however, my finances are very much under control.

The documentary points out though, that this financial system goes beyond getting financial education, which still is very important… but we are in a system that is built to cheat us and keep us in a constant cycle of debt. Which makes a lot of sense if you look at how many bills you have; credit checks for employment, credit scores, and established credit needed to purchase simple items like cars and houses. The players have made it so complex just to thrive off of consumer confusion.

So after watching the film, I decided to keep my plastic in my wallet, and I’ll have to call my grandmother and tell her that our trip to Savannah will be postponed. I think I’ll wait about two months - when my car is paid off before I create another big bill.

Stop Whispering Jesse! The Mic is Hot!!


My theory has always been that the older you get, the more comfortable you get in your own skin. The more comfortable you are walking around in your own ways, the less you give two shakes of a rats tail about what people think about you. The less you give two shakes, the more inclined you are to say exactly what you feel regardless of another person’s feelings or the feelings of people around you. Okay, enough theorizing because, just recently, Jesse Jackson proved my point.

If you’ve been enlightened, you know that I’m referring to comments Jesse Jackson whispered to a fellow guest before he found out that his mic was on. Jackson was a little miffed with Obama over a Father’s Day speech Obama made, calling for Black men to be more responsible fathers. Jackson is feeling that Obama was being condescending to Black people. Well, some thing’s you should only say in the privacy of your own home, because if you are wearing a mic before or even after an interview – you don’t know if it’s hot or not! And a statement like this made from a public head can be devastating, as Jackson well knows, which is the reason he hurridly came out and apologized over his private comment mistakenly made public in a hot mic – for voicing he wanted to cut Obama’s nuts off.

When I actually saw the footage I wanted to crack up, because I know that Jackson only made the statement out of frustration with Obama’s speech, and not because he wanted to cause Obama any real physical harm. Still, he shouldn’t have said it. That was careless on his part, and it kind of confirms my initial theory about old people and their insults.

Raise your hand if you’ve never said out of jest or frustration at some time in your life that you wanted to strangle someone, slap someone, beat someone down or punch someone in the mouth. Honestly, I don’t think this whispered insult/threat is any different than that. Surely it was inappropriate, but it is really not the end of the world or the end of anyone’s political career like the news and its political commentator would have you believe.

Meet Paula: Excerpt from Raise the Red Teddy

Paula, another single mother of one, decided that after two weeks with her newborn son, she needed a break and dropped him off with her mother for weeks at a time. I’m not a doctor, but I couldn’t help but think at first that it may have been a bit of baby blues that led her to do such a thing. Surly I remember a time shortly after my own child’s birth when I sat quietly on the floor in front of her crib and cried because she was crying, and after having changed and fed her, didn’t know what else to do. My situation wasn’t quite like Paula’s.

Paula’s son is now 3 years old, and to this day she still leaves her son with her mother, now, for months at a time. As a result, of course, her son prefers staying with his grandmother over his own mother and let’s his mother know it.

“Bye-bye mommy, I’m going with grandma now.” The poor little thing has even asked his grandmother to be his mom. “You my mommy now, okay?”

She’s an extreme case, this Paula girl, but I only mention her case to illustrate an extreme deterioration of a mother/child relationship due to the frequent absence of his mother. Now, most women will not be able to do such a thing, but when separation from your child is done early and often, the bonding process becomes more difficult for both the mother and the child. Avoid sabotaging the bond with your children.

If a short-term escape is what you desire, you might want to reconsider scheduling a date and set aside some time for you instead. All of your adult life you may have been in the company of someone; your children, your husband; a boyfriend… If all you need is a break, investing this time on yourself would be a wise one. Go get a pedicure. Climb the rocks on the beach. Go see an R-rated movie. Go hang out with a girlfriend you haven’t seen in a while. As a mother, I recommend that you find serenity hanging out with yourself before pursuing the company of someone new. You’d feel so much better about yourself once you discover how cool you are to hang with.

The Gambler Has Left The Building


Possibly, I’m way over my head in writing this, but I’m going to give it a shot anyway. Recently, and certainly understandably, I’ve decided to slow down my execution and future plans concerning experimental investments because of this volatile economy. Raise your hand if it seems like there are a zillion people who don’t quite have a handle on things like they thought they did.

Within the last couple of years I’ve poured over finance books and economic newsletters trying to figure this thing out, because I don’t know, maybe it’s just me but wrapping my mind around the tried and true theories of financial wisdom and calculated responsible risks is like trying to understand metaphysical – rocket-brain-surgery-science. It’s insanely confusing when expert after expert you follow contradicts the last one.

I’ve been waiting on the side, studying the perfect time to jump into the stock market like a little urban girl playing double-dutch on the sidewalk. Waiting… waiting…waiting…. Oh look! ING Direct have stocks you can buy for as little as $4…waiting…waiting…waiting…Wow, that article about buying consumable products made a lot of sense… waiting…waiting…waiting… Guess I’ll wait some more because with the housing market looking capsized in these white water markets, I’ll just keep on pinching off my savings and burying it in CD’s and my IRAs for now. Since I don’t know much, I have to trust in what I do know.

Investment director, Andrew M. Gordon just recently wrote an article briefly pointing out what he calls, “Wall Street’s Most Lethal Fallacies.”

• Home prices never fall – we all know how much bologna that is full of.

• The housing and credit crisis is over – really? Because there is a whole hot tempered heap of people who would totally disagree.

• The stock markets go up in the long run – according to Gordon, this is true if the long run means 15 years or more because that’s how long recovery can sometimes take.

• Bank stocks will be supported by their dividends – well, Citibank, Washington Mutual, KeyCorp and others have cut their dividends and I’ve heard that more are likely to follow.

I’d love to go out in my stirrups and ride the markets like a cowgirl swinging my dusty hat in the air while clenching a stalk of wheat between my teeth, but I keep on hearing the lyrics from The Gambler loop themselves in my head…

“You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run…”

The Unmarked Fourth of July

Bright and early on Thursday morning, my daughter informed me that she wasn’t feeling so well, but I made her go to day camp anyway because her little body is easily distressed, particularly in the morning, and I thought a little fresh air would do her some good since they’d be going on a fieldtrip to the Los Angeles Zoo.

When I went to pick her up in the afternoon, her voice was nasal and her poor little eyes were a little swollen, not to the point of closing, but to the point of knowing that her illness was to be taken seriously. By that evening she has a temperature of 102. She was sneezing and coughing and complaining about other aspects of her condition, and was totally bummed out about the fact that the next day would be the Fourth of July.

Traditionally, every Fourth of July, my daughter and I go out to the park by the beach, pack a small picnic and stay all day and night to enjoy the music and fireworks in the salty air. But with her on and off temperature, I chose not to take her out. And by not leaving my house early, I continued to feel sluggish myself, all day long. She then asked me, “Mom, can we just pretend that it’s not the Fourth of July?”

I said, “Sure.” But by nine o ‘clock, it was pretty hard not to remember.

So for this year’s Fourth, there were no barbecue’s for us, no fireworks, and no public or private celebrations; only illness, and bad news. Saturday was better, and we drowned ourselves in errands and Chinese tales of the Monkey King at the Bowers’ Kidseum.

What Did You Do When You Were 21?

Last night I took my daughter to see the movie 21 at the theater in the mall because, well frankly, I’m saving to buy a house so right now I’m super cheap. On Tuesdays, movies are only $1.00 and with the cost of regular movie tickets prices right now, this cheap theater and Netflix are my new best friends.

If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know the movie is about a young MIT genius who just turns 21 and is aspiring to go to Harvard Medical School (which he can’t afford) as he is introduced by one of his professors to the dark and lucrative world of counting cards at Black Jack tables in Las Vegas on weekends. Not only does he have to navigate through the jealousy of the new hustle group he’s now apart of, but he catches the attention of casino security – because they don’t take kindly to beating the House all of the time. He’s good. He’s real good… until one bad night when he loses because of his own carelessness. He is lambasted by his professor and catches a beat down by casino card-counting-catching security personnel, played by Lawrence Fishburne. When he flies back home, he receives a notice informing him that he won’t graduate, and his dorm room is ransacked, and all of his Vegas earnings (the ones that were going to help pay for Med School) were taken…I should stop here, because if I tell you his plan to get everything back, I’ll totally ruin it for you.

Anyway, it was a lot to experience at the age of 21. When I was 21, I was a single mother still in college trying to make ends meet and make sense of the chaos all around me. If it weren’t for such chaos that followed me for many years, I wouldn’t have been able to write Raise the Red Teddy: A Single Mother’s Guide to Dating. I wouldn’t have the life experience that led me to the path I’m on now. Oh sure I’d have a different path, but what watching 21 reminded me of, is that our own stories can be very juicy, and it’ those dark and painful moments that allows you to be the hero or heroine that jumps off the page of your own story and inspire the reader (or watcher) of your story to live out their own exciting destiny.