Going to the Dogs

Well, if I haven't already said somewhere, I'm blind. I don't like that to be in only the second post you read of mine, but since the point I'm rambling towards kind of makes no sense without telling you I'm blind, there it is. I guess not technically completely blind, I see light and sometimes I think a pole is a person and vice versa. Yea embarrassing conversations with street signs and coat racks!

But anyway, I've been thinking about getting a guide dog. Har har har what a corny post title. So for people who don't know, to get a guide dog, it's not like you show up at the local dog pound with someone and they go, "Hmmm, this one looks about the right size for you. Get 'em a harness! Fleas? Ah they'll go away." That's not really the way it works. Also, benevolent forces don't run around and give unto blind people guide dogs like they're the chosen ones. Believe me I have had people think both things. The dogs are specially trained and you have to apply to schools, and there's more than one school. Yep, apply.

Ok, that was boring. Bla bla bla. But I'm thinking about getting a guide dog, so I called up a couple schools, and my god the differences between the packages the schools sent is like night and day. One sent this super sweet package and said that I could send back the package on disk, tape, email, on the web, they'd even let me phone back and have someone take my application down by dictation, hell if I said I had to send it back in hyrogliphics pounded into rocks I think they would have found a way. These people seemed so accommodating. Sure there was print, but everything that was in print was on tape, and a whole bunch of staff all talked on the tapes they sent, which was cool, cause I'm going to meet these people possibly, so it's cool to hear them talk.

Now the other school. Let me just shake my head. First of all, they sent me a CD with some stuff about the realities of living with a guide dog. Sweet awesome cool. But on this CD, which only had 15 minutes of recording on it I might add, it kept saying there was a section about how to apply. Guess what? They neglected to record that section. Then, everything else in that package was in print, including the infamous instructions on how to apply. Luckily, through the joys of technology, I have something that will scan print and turn it into text that my computer can read. So I scanned every page of these papers, and there were a lot of papers. A ton. Among them I found a fliar! A fliar! What in the blue sweet holy christ am I going to do with a fliar? Post it somewhere? Are they really that broke for money? They seem to like repeatedly telling me that they are a registered charity, on every page of the papers, certain costs I will have to pay for, and instructing me on how to fund raise so the school will be there when I want another dog. Holy crap is the building I'm staying in during training about to cave in?

I also notice that it is repeatedly instructing me to please print on the form. If I'm blind enough to need a guide dog, how do they suppose I'm able to a. read the stuff without scanning it, and b. be able to print between the right lines? " Oh crap. I just told them my name was Canada. Oh shit what do I do now?" I hear you. "But Carin, people with all kinds of different degrees of vision get guide dogs. Maybe it's big and they assume you can read the print." I stop you with this. Next, I came across something that killed me. My computer clearly said, "Guide dog application for training, small print version." Maybe I'm crazy, but I don't remember specifying to them, "oh sure send me the small print version." I do remember them asking me if I could read large print, but I said no. That does not mean send me small print. That's like saying, "He's in a wheelchair, so even small steps are trouble. Well how about we send him up these big ones?" I don't know. You'd think, "I can't read large print." means "find another way than print to give me the shit." Even if they sent the print along, cause I have to have other people fill some of this shit out. but at least give me another way to do the application.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a super nutty crazy accessibility advocate, so bad that if you so much as send me one piece of print, I cry discrimination. I accept that this is a sighted world, and of course sighties for sighted things are going to send me print first. I'll ask if there's a way for me to do it another way, but if it has to be print, so be it. But this is a school to help blinks get dogs to make sure they don't hit things they can't see. If I can't see a hydro pole, how am I going to read this paper with little black specks on it, and write little specks back?

Ok now I have thoroughly bored everyone. I didn't mean to make this into a preaching session. It was just shit that I was thinking about cause I just finished scanning every last blessed piece of paper from one of the schools. Maybe I'll have something more interesting to say tomorrow.

Doing My Part To Rock The Vote

This might be a little heavy for a Saturday morning but that doesn't make it any less interesting or thought provoking.

These are the very much simplified results of a study of various fascist regimes around the world that have played a large part in history. The basic finding was that all of them have 14 things in common with each other. As I read the list of characteristics I couldn't help but think about a certain neighbour country of mine to which a lot of them seem to apply. I'll let you all form your own opinions on that, but to me the list and the facts as presented to me in anything I've ever read or watched that looks like it has any credibility at all are pretty hard to ignore.

The 14 Characteristics of Fascism

Here I am

Well, Steve has decided to let me pollute what was once his and Matt's site not only in the comments section, but on the main site. Oh the humannity! Things will never be the same! Anyway now that it's too late, mouhahahahaha, here I am. My name is Carin if you didn't know. If you haven't already looked at something of mine and gone "What the hell is she smoking?" You can find a couple guest rants of mine in the archive here, I have some columns up on Salty Ham, and if ya really wanna see it, I have a really antequated site doomed for death soon that is so old now that honestly it shouldn't see the light of day. The poor site, I had so many ambitions for it. But anyway. Here I am to splatter crap all over this site whenever the hell I feel like it. And I'm sure I'll come up with ample opportunity. I'm finishing up a lovely degree in Psychology, and no that doesn't mean I think Freud is god and I want to analyze every last one of you. But it does mean I get lots of things to rant about. Either that or I'm just a really big bitch who could be living under a rock and still rant about things other than how I was trapped under this boulder and wanted out and how nobody would help me and...ok so maybe I am a giant bitch. Either way, I hope you'll at least get a kick out of me talking about who knows what. Or maybe I'll piss you off, piss you off enough for you to send me hate mail about what I've said. I hope not, but there it is, and anyone who's a spammer? None from you! No! more! spam!

So now that I've made it clear that I'm nuts, hope you'll still stay around. If I've already scared you, which is quite possible, Apologies to Steve and Matt for driving all the traffic far, far away.

New People

Since Matt has pretty much dropped off the face of the earth and I haven't had as much time to devote to this place as I'd like, I've decided to add a new writer to the mix. Some of you will probably know her from the comment boards and I'm sure that a few of you will recognize her as one of the people who used to send me rants to post. You might even recognize her from her stint on
Salty Ham,
where she wrote a great column that a lot of people liked, including me. So please welcome Carin to The Comet. She's got lots of great ideas floating around in her brain and hopefully she's got the time to share them with all of us. I'm looking forward to reading what she comes up with and I hope you will too. If nothing else her being here will give you a break from reading my stupid crap all the time. Welcome to Vomit Comet Carin, it's nice to have you around officially.

Still Want That Flu-shot?

One of our loyal Vomiteers, Brad, pointed this story out to me.
HEALTH CAMPAIGN MAKES 'L' OF A MISTAKE

I thought they gave you those shots in your arm. Now I'm definitely not getting one.

Things I've Been Thinking About

I don't understand sports fans who riot when their team wins. What sense does that make? When they lose that's different, I can almost see where they're coming from there. Although, any adult who's not a part of the losing team but still takes things that seriously probably has some separate issues of his own that he should look into. But forget about that, for our purposes here it makes some sense that emotions would run high for fans watching their team's quest for the championship come to a negative end and it also makes sense, knowing that some people are prone to act out with raw emotion when that happens, that riots are possible. You're frustrated, you're angry, you're sad, you're a whole range of emotions and sometimes that can be hard to handle so it's not impossible to think that somebody could say to a group of people, "I'm so fucking mad right now that I'm going to turn over a few cars, set some stuff on fire and maybe loot a few buildings. Who's with me?" But when you win, it's a celebration! Things went your way! You're happy, you're excited, you're pleased, you're a whole range of emotions and given that those emotions are different, it doesn't make all that much sense to think that a guy could say to a group of people, "I'm so happy right now that I'm going to go out and turn over a few cars, set some stuff on fire and maybe loot a few buildings because I'm proud of my city and my team. Who's with me?"

Am I the only one who finds it ironic not to mention highly amusing when I hear that organizations for the blind are holding focus groups?

The expression "odd jobs" bothers me. I think it's because of the way people use it to describe ordinary things. Cutting your lawn or shoveling your driveway aren't odd jobs because everybody does that. You see it all the time. Getting paid to sort dryer lint into coloured piles on the other hand, that's an odd job.

I got myself one of those Ikea credit cards a little while ago, but I can't figure out how to put it together.

I saw a report on the news a while ago that talked about a new school in California exclusively for overweight kids. Hold on, that's not the joke. In addition to teaching students all of the usual skills such as reading and writing, they will also learn how to count calories at meal times as well as take walks every morning. No, that's not the joke either. During the report a guy came on and said that the school would be a positive environment for students because they wouldn't have to worry about being made fun of. Ok, whatever. There are a couple of ways we can look at this. First, allow me to play the voice of experience for a second, and not because I'm fat. I spent pretty much all of my elementary and high school life in a school for blind people. And while we may not have spent a lot of time making fun of each other for being blind [and that's not to say that we didn't spend any time on that], we quickly found other reasons to insult each other. It's human nature. Put a bunch of people with commonalities together and they'll turn on one another anyway by exploiting each other's differences. But the ribbing they'll get from each other will be nothing compared to what they'll get from the kids who go to the regular schools once they figure out that Jimmy from down the street goes to Fat Fuck High, which will happen around the same time as they see him getting on the school bus with the forklift on the front of it. And if anybody has a problem with that joke and wants to beat the hell out of me, catch me, fat ass, catch me.

Mother Goose For The Religious

I'll bet you didn't know that there was a King James version of Humpty Dumpty. Well
there is
and you can see it if you click that link. Just another example of how reading Vomit Comet every day makes you smarter.

I Guess I Won't Be Having Any Fucking Kids

New research by Russian scientists has found that people who swear should probably consider stopping or risk facing problems down the road.

Gennady Cheurin, who lead the team of scientists that conducted the study at the Yekaterinburg Centre for Ecological Safety and Survival says that when men and women swear, it effects who they are as a gender. More specifically, it causes women to slowly become more masculine, growing more hair and developing more muscles as time passes while men risk suffering sexual disfunction. Make that immediate sexual disfunction, since the word "slow" isn't used to describe what happens to us.

If you're freaking the hell out right now and want to learn more about what could be in your future,
just click on this goddamn link for all of the details.

The Monster Slash

I posted
this
story on Salty Ham earlier today. I'm not sure if it's more funny or sad, you be the judge. What I'm really wondering though is who thought this was a good idea, because quite simply, it isn't.

Site Changes

Well, I'm starting to get everything fixed up around here as you've probably noticed by the fact that I can actually make proper links again. And the problem? It was actually somewhat my fault so all that stuff I said on Sunday, while the basic idea still stands, just forget it.

I've also been doing a little bit of playing with the archives and the links, adding some new things, getting rid of some others, just generally changing the look of things now that I actually have the power to do more than just write.

But with any changes come the inevitable problems and that's where you come in, especially you people with eyes that work. If anything looks funny [especially in the links section, please let me know. It all looks normal to me but if the spacing looks funny or something isn't displaying right visually, I'm not going to know that without you.

I think that's everything for now.

Did Somebody Say McHamster?

I bet it tastes like chicken and everything.
Whatever it tastes like, it sure makes me hungry, even if only in a dyslexic sense.

So Did I Get The Job?

The following is a public service announcement.

If you ever find yourself needing to apply for a job, under no circumstances is it ever a good idea to do what
this guy
did.

That is all.

This One Cracked Me Up

Saint Peter is watching the gates of Heaven, but he really has to go to the bathroom. He asks Jesus to watch the gates for a few minutes, and Jesus agrees

As Jesus is standing there, he sees an old man leading a donkey up from Earth to Heaven. He notices the old man has carpenter's tools with him. When the old man gets to the gates, Jesus asks him to describe his life and explain why he feels he should be admitted into heaven.

The man explains, "In English, my name would be Joseph, but I didn't live in America or England. I lived a modest life, making things out of wood. I'm not remembered very well by most people, but almost everyone has heard of my son. I call him my son, but Iwas more of a Dad to him, he didn't really come into this world in the usual way.

I sent my son out to be among the people of the World. He was ridiculed by many, and was even known to associate himself with some pretty unsavory characters, although he himself tried to be honest and perfect. My single biggest reason for trying to get into Heaven is to be reunited with my son."

Jesus is awe-struck by the man's story. He looks into the old man's eyes and asks, "Father?"

The old man's face brightens; he looks at Jesus, and asks, "Pinocchio?"

Feedback

I got a fair number of interesting responses to the relationships and cheating post from last Thursday so I thought I'd share them with you all. If you haven't read it yet, scroll down the page until you find the one called Tough Call.

These responses come from our own comment boards as well as from the Salty Ham Forums where I also posted it since a discussion there is part of what inspired the thought in the first place.

If you've got your own thoughts on this or if you want to disagree with something that somebody said, feel free to add your own comments. Let's go.

First up is Anonymous.

Well you've managed to get yourself into to some very deep shit. Been there....and to be honest I don't know if I handled it right. I think you first have to go to the cheater and bring it up with them....try to convince them to either quit it, or own up and end it. But if that doesn't get you anywhere you may have to take the chance of losing a friend and tell the guy what's goin on. Think about it though, if they're willing to treat this person that they love that way, what's going to stop them from doing that to you?
Good luck Steve

That's pretty much what I was thinking. With one small change those would be exactly my thoughts. I wouldn't aim for either quitting it or confessing, I'd be pushing to get the person to do both. It's one thing to extract a promise from somebody that it won't happen again but it's another thing entirely to make that person keep it. And it's not me who's really getting hurt here, it's the person getting cheated on and in my mind, above all else, that person has a right to know and it shouldn't have to be me who tells him.

Next up is Carin, who chimed in with this.

I'd tell the girl to fess up. Give her a chance, and if she doesn't, then I think you should tell the guy what he ought to know.

Well that's kind of what I was thinking too. Everybody should get a chance to solve their own problems before a third person steps in, but sometimes there's a point where I can't justify staying out of things anymore because it doesn't seem right.

Moving right along, our old friend A Different Anonymous has this to say.

I think I am gonna have to agree with everyone else. You have to talk to the cheating girl and make it clear that though she is your friend, so is the guy she cheated on, so if she doesn't come clean and tell him, you will. Give her a chance to deal with it herself, and if she doesn't then maybe it is time to step in.

This one comes from Outburst.

Approaching the cheater is a good idea but personally, I'd steer clear of making it your business. No doubt, you'd have the best of intentions in the above scenarios but you greatly run the risk of getting mixed up in a very messy situation and could find yourself losing two great friendships. Approach the friend. If she does nothing, ask yourself how important your friendship with her is before telling the cheated. Otherwise, I'm fairly confident he will find out on his own and I doubt you'll really want to be implicated at all at that point.

Certainly an interesting point, but don't you also have to consider how important your friendship with the cheated is as well? To me that's the person who really deserves the most consideration here. Maybe I only think that way because I've been the cheated before but no matter what my reasons are, be they experience or what I believe to be right and wrong, that's what I think. However as you'll see as we shift our focus to the Salty Forum responses, a lot of people disagree with me, like Jeanice for instance.

Wow, what a hard situation to deal with.

You know, I always see "cheating" as a test of sorts of someone's character. Even though she's my friend I'd be wary of a person who is supposed to be my best friend and tell me everything but "cheats" with another guy without even telling me. If she told me, maybe I'd be able to understand the reasons why she did it. Maybe she's not such a scuzzball. Maybe I could have compassion. But she's hiding it from everyone. That makes her look really shady. I'd be sort of upset about that because the guy she's with is also my friend, (and even though I used to like him/still like him, that wouldn't be why I don't think the situation is cool) and if she can do this to him, what kind of backstabbing crap is she gonna do to me? I guess I'd be more upset over the fact that she didn't tell me or explain her situation to me over cheating, because everyone makes mistakes you know? Or changes their mind about who they really want to be with. But the fact that she's continuing to try to decieve everyone is awful.

What would I do? I'd wait for her to tell me/explain her reasons. If she continued to try to play me too, I'd just stop talking to her and keep my distance. If everything is all wierd between us and our little clique why should we still be friends? I woudln't rat her out or anything, because telling him is not going to make it hurt any less. Of course if he knew you knew he might be upset with you, but whatever. Get yourself out of that situation and save yourself.

I say mind your business.

Personally it wouldn't upset me that much that the person didn't tell me. What does upset me is that she's not telling the guy getting cheated on. She is, in a sense, playing both of us and putting all of us in a tough situation because of the nature of all of the relationships. And it's the nature of the relationships that makes me disagree with the whole "mind your business" line of thinking. By default, because these 3 people are all so connected to each other, it is my business. I don't know about the rest of you, but when I give my word to somebody I take it seriously and if somebody is a friend and will show me the same respect, when I say that I'll look out for him or her, I'll be damned if I'm not going to do just that.

Let's hear from WT Harmon, who disagrees with Jeanice.

Not me. I'm running up to the Guy getting cheated on(girl in my case) and tell (her) what's what. there's not a reason in the world for anyone to cheat, and no matter what my friend could tell me, this girl deserves te be treated with the same respect as everyone. Of Course, I can't look at this objectavly, as I've been cheated on too many times over the years to let this kind of thing slide. As a matter of fact, I once ratted my best friend out to his girlfriend, efectivly ending he and I's friendship. But that's another story all together.

Now there's a guy who stands up for his convictions and does what he feels he has to do. You're a man of action Mr. Harmon, and I respect that. But having said that, I have to say that while I would do the same thing in a second, I'd also take a minute to think about it first, giving the person doing the cheating a chance to do the right thing and confess. If I don't think that it's going to get done, then I'll step in and for the good of my friend I'll do the job myself.

Here's a quick one from TheHoss.

I'm with Jeanice on this one...

Let them get this one out in the open. You've done nothing wrong, so just be cool.

In a situation like this, the only time I would consider myself to have done anything wrong would be if I kept my mouth shut when I should have opened it.

Ringo has his own take on this, as well as some thoughts on cheating in general.

Ringo here learned a good lesson a long time ago and will now share it with all of you.

Do not, by any circumstances, get involved in anyone else's romantic/sexual/s&m/whatever issues and bullshit. Do as I do. If you find out that Mary Jane Rottencrotch is cheating on whoever or Sam Spade is boinking a sheep then just do yourself a big favor and forget you ever heard it. I've saved myself countless aggravation by refusing to get involved in my friend's romantic/relationship situations.

I imagine i'll probably get called out as not being a good friend, and if you feel this way then fine. I'll counter by saying that i'm being a better friend by staying the hell out of something that isn't my business and that I don't want becoming my business.

As for cheating/not cheating it's really up to the individual. I like to sleep with married women because they are much more available than the single ones and I don't adhere to most other people's moral standards. I have few morals or scruples. I'm a huge believer in looking out for #1 and getting mine.

Honesty, another trait I respect. Here's more of it courtesy of The Current Big Thing.

Ahhh, don't you just love porking an older married lady? I don't mean Mae Young old, I mean Sable old. Awesome. For some reason, they enjoy it better when there's a risk in getting in trouble. God bless horny older ladies that get reminded of their cute innocent son when they see me until I'm drilling the shit out of 'em.

Not that I don't care about others. God knows I do.

So the moral of the story is: don't sleep with your friend's girlfriend. It's one thing if your friend cheats on her, but it's another when you get involved. And if you're a girl that is close friends with a couple, and find out the girl is cheating, you go ahead & slap some sense into your female friend & convince her to tell her man. If she doesn't, try to manipulate her to leave him & get with "new guy" & start porking her ex... you liked him didn't you??

If all goes wrong, look for hot married women near your area.

I have nothing to say about that, I'm too busy cracking up. So let's end things off by giving the last word to Jeanice.

Wow, TCBT and Ringo, you guys sure don't mince words about being morally corrupt. LOL.

I still say, what's the point in dry snitching huh? Is it really worth it? Unless you're really good friends with the person your guy is cheating on you have no real motive to tell. And even if you are you should just stay out of it and stay far away from those people as possible.

Unless you like drama and broken hearts. If you do, then by all means, get all up in someone's koolaid.

So is it really worth it? Should you keep your mouth shut and let the chips fall where they may, or do you have a responsibility to make things known even if people are going to get hurt and friendships might be destroyed? Or is the right answer something in the middle, something that we haven't thought of? If you've got thoughts, I'd love to hear them. Leave a comment on the site, sign up for the Salty Ham Forums and look for the love thread, or feel free to drop me an email atsendstuffhere@rogers.comand let me know what you think. The floor is yours.

Thought For The Day

"I think it's important to remember that we just can't be good at everything. For example, look at Liberace. He was a great pianist, but he sucked on the organ."

Honest Honey, I'm Just Sick

Something tells me that this one isn't going to be a rare disorder for too much longer.

CANBERRA, Australia - If you're cheating on your spouse and get caught, you could use this as your alibi. Apparently, an Australian doctor has diagnosed one of his patients as having a disorder that leads her to have sex with strangers while she sleeps. According to the doctor, the woman would later not remember her activities. It wasn't until herpartner woke up, noticed she was missing from the bed, and found her having sex with another man that she realized what she was doing. The doctor tells an Australian radio station that "people are often stunned and overwhelmed" when they find out what's been happening. He is concerned that those with the disorder might not seek professional help because they are embarrassed and fear that partners and doctors won't really believe they were sleeping.

The thing that strikes me about this story isn't that a sleeping person could have sex without realizing it even though that is pretty weird. What I wonder about is who is having sex with these people? How would you even get into a situation like that?

"Hey baby, are you a parking ticket, because you've got fine written all over you."

"Snore."

"Woe hot stuff, it sounds like you've got a bit of a cold or something, but that's ok, you're not the only thing that's contagious in this place."

"Snore."

"You sure don't talk much do you sugar lips, but that's ok, because you'll be screaming my name by the end of the night."

"Snore."

"Well I must be the man of your dreams because you're already sleeping. Come with me, we'll head back to my place."

How the hell does something like that happen, and how does it happen repeatedly? The mind boggles. And how good can the sex possibly be if it's not even waking you up? So many questions, so few answers.

So Much For That

Remember the other night when I was all happy because I finally fixed the posting system so that it wouldn't mangle all of my html anymore and even gave you that link to prove it? Well, that must have been a fluke because everything I thought I fixed is broken again and I honestly have no idea why. All of the settings that I changed and saved are still there but it's doing what it did before I changed anything.

If you're wondering why I don't update as much as I used to, this is a big part of the reason why. I write all of my posts offline because it's easier for me to do it that way. I write perfectly good html in Notepad and then paste it into the post box and hit publish. What's supposed to happen is the system will post what I wrote the way I wrote it. It's a great system when it actually works. The problem is that every time I try to link to something, no matter what I do, the system always breaks my tags and a few times, especially tonight, it even moves words I wrote within those tags to different places or worse yet, manages to put words that were in plain text into the tags and leaves everything else out, completely screwing up not only the tag, but the link itself.

I know that there are other people with their own blogs who read this site and I'd love to know if any of you are having the same trouble and how you managed to fix it or at least work around it if you did. Asking support got me nowhere. they told me what to do and it worked for exactly 1 post so I need some other opinions here.

I've honestly just about had it. I don't want to stop updating and give up on the site, I have too much fun with it and judging by some of the stuff that's gone on on the comment boards [most of which has been deleted by our board provider because we're on the free system] and some of the emails and personal comments I've gotten from people, I know that for the most part you guys have fun here too. But because of all of the technical problems and extra work that it takes to write everything now, it's not really all that easy to get motivated to write anything good. I've got topics and I'm always finding amusing things to post when I don't, but when things don't work like they should and there's seemingly nothing I can do about it, sometimes I just can't be bothered to put them up.

Sorry for the rant, but it bothers me to no end when people feel that they need to fix something that wasn't broken in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about innovation and improvement, but I find more often than not that what's being fixed ends up broken when it's all said and done. For example, how many times have you seen a perfectly good, well organized and easy to navigate website get redesigned into a completely unusable piece of shit while the person responsible for it crows about it like he's just done the greatest thing ever and should win some kind of award for it? Well to me that's exactly what happened when the people at blogger decided to tweak the post editor over the Summer. In fact the only reason that I can post at all is because I've got a really smart friend and because I was smart enough to figure out that I had to write some sort of weird half html half plain text mess just so that line breaks would appear properly.

I'm sure that the new system is great for some of you, probably most of you but don't forget that when you're blind and can't see all of the snappy new features and your computer access software can't either because everything is overly visual, all bets are off.

Anybody who knows me or who has read this site for a while knows that I hate to use the blindness thing unless it's relevant to the situation because I honestly think that too many blind people wine too much but this time I'll make an acception and go totally blind guy on you. For an organization that claims that they are working to address access issues, Blogger isn't off to a very good start. If they really cared as much as they claim they do, they would have put an option in place that would allow people to use the old system while they had actual blind people test out the new one to make sure it actually worked. I'll bet that would have been appreciated by everybody, not just the blind.

I'm sure that by this point some of you are probably thinking "Jesus Christ, for a guy using a free service you sure complain a lot. You get what you pay for, dick," and I would probably agree if I didn't think that you were wrong.

Think about it this way. I might not be paying for the domain name, the webspace, the server, the maintenance of it or anything else associated with the day to day operations of blogger for that matter but if it weren't for people like me and the millions of other people who use this service, there wouldn't be a company to pay for in the first place. The business model they've chosen leaves no room for argument on that point either, allow me to demonstrate.

It basically works like this. Blogger gives me a free place to write things, and I in turn write them for free. People come to the place where I'm writing them and Blogger gets more hits which translates into more ad money for them which means that they get paid. Sometimes the people who come to read the things I write decide that they want to write things too, so they set up their own place to write things and the cycle repeats itself. Doesn't sound like a bad little system to me, and it seems that Google thought the same thing since they bought the company. The Google people aren't stupid, they know a good concept and a good revenue stream when they see one.

But back to my point, that being why I can bitch about what I'm getting for free. When you visit most websites all you're doing is reading things that other people wrote. don't get me wrong, you're an important part of the site because without people to read things that people write, there would be no site, thusly it follows that there would be no need to write things especially if you're looking to get some money out of it. But Blogger is a different story. They might have built the system, but I'm the content provider. So the way I see it, it's an even trade if you exclude the fact that they're getting rich not only off of their hard work, but also off of mine while all I'm getting is a free way to make other people money. Ok, so maybe that's not entirely fair. This free site does allow me to have my voice heard as well as a chance to promote other things that I'm involved in. But still, I'm doing a lot of the leg work here to make sure that this company survives so as a volunteer worker here I think that I have a right to complain about an organization that isn't treating it's employees the way that it should.

The bottom line is that I'm not going to stop posting on the site, but I'm not going to stop complaining and trying to make things right either. So all of you will just have to put up with some technical problems and a little bit of cursing along with your fun. But come on, what do you want for free?

That Helps, Thanks

I'm sure that by now those of you who have been trying to access the Salty Ham website either through our link or on your own have noticed that the site is down and that it has been for quite a long time. But I'd be willing to put money on the fact that not as many of you have taken the time to read the nice friendly error page that greets you when you get there. Hell, I work for them and until about 5 minutes ago I hadn't read it either. But now that I have, I'd like to point something out.

This is a direct quote from the the page cannot be found message that you get when you try to access the home page. Note the use of the words home page in what I just wrote, otherwise you probably won't get what I'm driving at here.

"Contact website: You may want to contact the website administrator to make sure the Web page still exists. You can do this by using the e-mail address or phone number listed on the website home page."

As I read that again I can't help but wonder how many people are currently caught in an infinite loop trying to figure out why they can't get that phone number. Come on, you know they're out there.

I Think Those Weird Link Problems Are Finally Fixed

This is a test post to see if the settings I changed were the right ones. If they were, you should be able to go and check out Boing Boing, which is a really cool constantly updated blog run by some very interesting people that covers everything under the sun.

The coolest part of all of this is that you'll be able to check it out by simply clickinghere,rather than by clicking on some long ugly link that might not work.

If some of you could let me know if everything looks ok and if the link works it would be much appreciated.

Tough Call

I want you all to do something for me. I want you to read the situation that I'm about to lay out and then tell me where you stand on it and what you would do if you were ever faced with such a choice.

But before I start, I should say that while what I'm about to describe is somewhat based on my life, it is no way a reflection of anything that is actually going on, it's only something I've been thinking about because of the combination of a discussion in the Salty Ham forums and something that somebody asked me today.

Also, even though the people I'm writing about are of a certain gender, I want to get both male and female perspectives so feel free to switch things around as required. Ok, I think that's everything, let's do this.

You are a girl who is best friends with another girl. You do everything together and tell each other pretty much everything. Naturally this means that you will not only keep this person's secrets, but you will do anything you can to help her out when she's in a pinch or just when she needs a friend. Remember the in a pinch part, it becomes important.

Through this girl you meet a guy. He's a nice guy, funny, smart, good to talk to. He's also very close to the girl, possibly even closer to her than you are but to the best of your knowledge, he's only in that lovely place known as the friend zone and is content to stay there, as is she with him.

As time passes you become pretty close with the guy as well, eventually coming to think of him as another best friend, one on a comparable level to that of the girl. You talk about everything and you develop a pretty deep trust to the point that things which before you would only either tell the girl or keep to yourself, you're now telling the guy.

More time passes and something changes. The guy and the girl start dating. So much for the friend zone, I guess there is a way out after all. For a long time, things are great. The guy and the girl are happy, the 3 of you are all very good friends, and even though you kind of have a bit of a thing for the guy, you're happy for them too because 2 of your best friends have found something special.

So things are happy, things are fun, life as you know it has never been better. But then one day something happens. A new guy comes into the picture. At first it seems that the girl and new guy are just friends and nothing more. That's fine, new guy seems pretty cool and there's no harm in a friendship. Besides, as cool as new guy is, the girl loves the guy she's already with too much to ever even think about starting anything with new guy, or so you think until one day you either witness something that you weren't meant to see or are told about it by the guilty girl who knows that she's got a bit of a situation on her hands given your relationship with the guy. Whatever the case, you know that the girl is cheating on the guy with new guy. No matter how you come to find this out, the point is that you know.

The question now becomes what do you do with this information? Do you say nothing about this to the guy or the girl and pretend that you know nothing because you don't want to become caught in the middle? Do you, out of some sort of best friendish need to protect the girl keep your mouth shut about this and say nothing to the guy, hoping that either he finds out on his own or that she comes clean and confesses all the while knowing that your failure to act might screw things up with the guy? Or do you tell the guy what's going on because of a best friendish need to protect him or do what you think is right, all the while knowing that what you do could screw things up with the girl?

This is where all of you come in. If this was you, how would you handle it?

Advertising Pisses Me Off

No, this isn't another rant about how marketers have gone too far, although it could easily be one. The problem is that this concept is too funny to get me all that angry.

A company called Wizmark has developed an interactive urinal cake that can not only be used to keep a urinal fresh, but also to promote products and services through sounds and immages when motion is detected nearby.

CMT [Country Music Television] is using them across the United States to promote their programming, and other companies and organizations have caught on to the idea as well, using them to broadcast public service announcements.

All you could ever hope to know about this groundbreaking technology can be found here.

Now That's Some Hatemail

I don't generally post other people's hate letters but this one I found extremely amusing for some reason. Maybe it's because I've never seen one quite like it before. I mean sure I've gotten some less than positive feedback to things that I've written but for the most part, the person has either had a valid point or has been completely retarded. But whatever the case, you can quickly figure out which side of the fence your hater is on. Not this time. Just click here and read the flame and its accompanying article and you'll understand.

By the way, I'm sorry that every time I tell you to click on something these days it's always a big long link and that sometimes those big long links don't work for some of you. I've only had a couple of people tell me that, but it's a couple more than I'd like. But the blame for this doesn't fall to me, it falls to the people at Blogger who decided a few months ago to fuck around with the way that the posting system works completely screwing it up in the process, and to Matt, who set things up so that I can't change any site settings which means that I can't fix the problems I'm having, which I know how to do thanks to a guy who works for the same good people who caused them in the first place.

But anyway, since Matt has almost dropped off the face of the earth, I'm not sure how long it's going to take to get things sorted out and back to the way they should be. Thanks Matt, you douchebag. If you were looking for a good way to start some infighting, you've found it. Ahh infighting, some things never get old and I figure that with the site's first birthday coming up very soon, what better time than now to bring up all of the old stuff? Besides, most of the new stuff sucks anyway so why not use the old stuff as something to fall back on?

Ok, now I'm just rambling about nothing in particular. It's almost like Matt came back and brought some spelling and grammar skills with him. Zing!

New content coming before the long weekend, time permitting as usual. Maybe Matt will even show up and say something. How much can there possibly be to do in that town you live in my friend? From what I've heard from other people who live there, once you've been to the local coffee shop 17 or 18 times, you've pretty much done it all. Besides, since it's starting to get a little colder in this part of the world, it must be too cold to go outside by now where you are.

Ok, I'm done for real this time. Honest. No seriously, I'm really going to stop writing now. This post is over. Finished. Done. I'm gone. Out of here. You won't hear from me again until the next time you come here and see something new that has my name on it, or at least not until I respond to a comment or something.

Rules For Singing The Blues

I can't take credit for writing this but since it's been emailed to me a few times over the years and I can't seem to come up with any of my own ideas these days, I'm going to post it. It's funny, enjoy it.

1. Most Blues begin, "Woke up this morning."

2. " I got a good woman" is a bad way to begin the Blues, 'less you stick something nasty in the next line, like " I got a good woman, with the meanest face in town."

3. The Blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes ... sort of: "Got a good woman - with the meanest face in town. Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher - and she weigh 500 pound."

4. The Blues are not about choice. You stuck in a ditch, you stuck in ditch; ain't no way out.

5. Blues cars: Chevys and Cadillacs and broken-down trucks. Blues don't travel in Volvos, BMWs, or Sport Utility Vehicles. Most Blues transportation is a Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Jet aircraft an' state-sponsored motor pools ain't even in the running. Walkin' plays a major part in the blues lifestyle. So does fixin' to die.

6. Teenagers can't sing the Blues. They ain't fixin' to die yet. Adults sing the Blues. In Blues, " adulthood" means being old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.

7. Blues can take place in New York City but not in Hawaii or any place in Canada. Hard times in St. Paul or Tucson is just depression. Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City still the best places to have the Blues. You cannot have the blues in any place that don't get rain.

8. A man with male pattern baldness ain't the blues. A woman with male pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg cuz you skiing is not the blues. Breaking your leg cuz an alligator be chomping on it is.

9. You can't have no Blues in an office or a shopping mall. The lighting is wrong. Go outside to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.

10. Good places for the Blues:
a. highway
b. jailhouse
c. empty bed
d. bottom of a whiskey glass

Bad places:
a. Ashrams
b. gallery openings
c. Ivy League institutions
d. golf courses

11. No one will believe it's the Blues if you wear a suit, 'less you happen to be an old ethnic person, and you slept in it.

12. Do you have the right to sing the Blues? Yes, if:
a. you're older than dirt
b. you're blind
c. you shot a man in Memphis
d. you can't be satisfied

No, if:
a. you have all your teeth
b. you were once blind but now can see
c. the man in Memphis lived.
d. you have a retirement plan or trust fund.

13. Blues is not a matter of color. It's a matter of bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the blues. Gary Coleman could. Ugly white people also got a leg up on the blues.

14. If you ask for water and Baby give you gasoline, it's the Blues. Other acceptable Blues beverages are:
a. wine
b. whiskey or bourbon
c. muddy water
d. black coffee

The following are NOT Blues beverages:
a. mixed drinks
b. kosher wine
c. Snapple
d. sparkling water

15. If it occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it's a Blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another Blues way to die. So is the electric chair, substance abuse, and dying lonely on a broken down cot. You can't have a Blues death if you die during a tennis match or getting liposuction.

16. Some Blues names for women:
a. Sadie
b. Big Mama
c. Bessie
d. Fat River Dumpling

17. Some Blues names for men:
a. Joe
b. Willie
c. Little Willie
d. Big Willie

18. Persons with names like Sierra, Sequoia, Auburn, and Rainbow can't sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

19. Make your own Blues name (starter kit):
a. name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Lame, etc.)
b. first name (see above) plus name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Kiwi,etc.)

c. last name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.) For example, Blind Lime Jefferson, or Cripple Kiwi Fillmore, etc. (Well, maybe not "Kiwi.")

20. I don't care how tragic your life: you own a computer, you cannot sing the blues. You best destroy it. Fire, a spilled bottle of Mad Dog, or get out a shotgun. Maybe your big woman just done sat on it. I don't care.

Fact Or Fiction?

I just found this story while searching for material to use on the radio. I'm not using it there even though I'm sure I could have lots of fun with it so I thought I'd put it here.

But as funny as this story is, I have to wonder if it's legitimate. I'm having trouble getting my head around the possibility that something like this could even happen. You be the judge.

Man Mistakenly Cuts Off Penis, Dog Eats It

An elderly Romanian man mistook his penis for a chicken's neck, cut it off and his dog rushed up and ate it, the state Rompres news agency said Monday.

It said 67 year-old Constantin Mocanu, from a village near the southeastern town of Galati, rushed out into his yard in his underwear to kill a noisy chicken keeping him awake at night.

I confused it with the chicken's neck, Mocanu, who was admitted to the emergency hospital in Galati, was quoted as saying. I cut it ... and the dog rushed and ate it.

Doctors said the man, who was brought in by an ambulance bleeding heavily, was now out of danger.

I honestly don't get it. How dark would it have to have been for him to not see what he was doing? Not only that, but he would have had to have one hell of a hard on for there even to be the potential to fuck up that badly. We're talking more than porn star level wood here.

Ok, I've spent way too much time thinking about this and for the sake of my own sanity I should probably get back to work now and let you guys think about it for a little while. Have fun, and enjoy your KFC.