Thought Shake, Extra Thick

It's random thoughts time again! Yep, here's where I ramble about a bunch of crap that probably interests no one. The only difference is this one's full of a bunch of disconnected thoughts. Since most of these random thoughts posts have titles about food, and I figured thoughts of soup or anything else would probably make people sweat way too much on a hot day like this, and salad was already taken, it's a thought shake. So I wonder if you can suck it through a straw.

Speaking of shakes, has anyone else noticed that the Macdonalds chocolate milkshakes are way, way, way too sweet? You suck back on them and it feels like the sugar is going straight to your brain and your pancreas is shrieking in protest. Once, I thought I tasted chocolate powder in them. Like holy crap. They were fine before. Did someone actually demand more chocolate? What is wrong with people, if they did? Or maybe someone at this one macdonalds needs to go back to shake machine school.

I wonder if the construction crew in this part of the city should look into whether they're dyslexic. I'm certainly thinking they should, after I saw the masterpiece of a bus shelter near this place. IT's backwards! If you stand in it, you won't be seen by the bus, and the back wall faces where the front usually faces on these things. When the bus comes, you have to run out and around it. It's so bad that people tell us not to stand in it, that it's better to stand behind it. Nice job...or...boj.

When you're getting a TB test as a requirement for a form, and you come back to have it read, the last thing you need to hear from the nurse looking at your arm is....oh my goodness! So many thoughts race through your head. "Do I have TB? How did I get it? Shouldn't I be coughing or something?" Then she says, "you're clear!" This causes another thought cascade. "Phew! Why was she surprised? Was she hoping I'd have TB? Or, was she fucking with my head just for fun? Does she like saying to people who get lumps looked at, "You'd better sit down. You're fine." What is wrong with this deranged individual?" Or, am I the weird one? Either way, that was strange.

The CD buying spree continues. I now own the two newest albums by the Frantics, and all I can say is, these guys are weird. Some pretty funny stuff swirling around in their heads. I love how some people can take ordinary stuff and make it hillarious.

The other day, I did a couple speeches for my sister's teachers' college class about blindness and education. When she asked me to do it, I was like gee what do I talk about? Well, apparently, there's over 40 minutes worth of stuff to talk about. But the weirdest thing was having the people I spoke to say I was inspirational at the end. Me? Inspirational? Um...ok? I just talked about what happened. I never really thought of myself as inspirational. I even apparently made one girl cry because I was so moving. Allrighty then. I'll try and digest that. I guess they liked it then.

Isn't it weird when you see someone say things that are totally the opposite of what they used to stand for? You can only think they're blinded by love and that's why they say them. Take someone who was always one that would tell people to do their own damn laundry unless there was a physical reason why they couldn't, like they couldn't reach the machines or something, and couldn't understand why guys would hire maids to iron their shirts. Now that they're with this guy who does exactly that, oh how the tune has changed. In fact, the maid does his laundry. When I heard about it, I started laughing and was completely amazed. She stopped walking and said, "Carin, he doesn't have time to iron his shirts." He doesn't? That night, he was going to play tennis and get a massage. I'm sure he could have worked the ironing in there. This guy has lots of money and they're going on trips, seemingly on a whim. I remember when she was sensible and practical. I hope she comes out of this fog. I'd like her back to normal. That would be nice.

And then there are people that are completely unable to see what other people need because they're too wrapped up in their own needs. One friend of mine had an older family member who had to have part of her esophagus ripped out because it had a tumour. Think about that. So she has to be fed through a tube because she can't actually eat stuff. Since this friend's family is spread all over the place, they sent the friend over to help her do stuff she can't do herself because of what's happened. So my friend has to crush up her meds and put them in a syringe, attach new bags of whatever you put into feeding tubes to the machine that shoots it in there, turn the pump on and off that supplies the older lady's tube with stuff, and she has to do this a few times a day. She doesn't have to bathe her, she doesn't have to do anything highly medical, yet this was enough to make her cry because it was so much work! One day, she said she had a migraine headache, so she said she crossly said to the old lady, "I'm going to bed, I'll just get up to do the bare minimum." Is anyone else as astounded as I am? This poor old lady doesn't want to be like this. she doesn't want to be dependent on family to feed her. And then she gets that kind of treatment! My friend even said she made jokes to the old lady about "What are you gonna do when I'm gone?" I thought that since my friend gets sick a lot, she'd have a little more empathy for her relative. I guess not.

*slurp slurp gurgle* That's the end? Yep, it is. Maybe I'll have more thoughts later. Hope you enjoyed this one, and it was yummy yummy tasty.

That Canadian Guy was Funny!

A while ago, Steve and I got tickets to go see Glen Foster, with the opening band the Black Roses. Well, the show was last night, and it was awesome. If you have a chance to see either of these two, you should go see them.

Glen Foster was funny, but I knew he was going to be funny. I guess what I wasn't expecting was exactly *how* funny he was going to be. When you've heard a couple CD's and a bunch of TV specials, to see him live is a whole different level of funny. Everybody seemed to be having a pretty good time, which was good since I wondered how many of the old ladies near us just came because they saw an ad for it in the paper.

But the big surprise was how funny the Black Roses were. They seemed like they'd be fun from the little bit of them we saw on the CBC and from their website, but god their delivery was hillarious. Imagine two sweet-sounding girls getting up to sing and play the guitar. They have voices that sound like they should be singing songs about the world's problems and how we should all love each other. Then they sing, and make you laugh your ass off about fag hags, cults dying together, dead dream babies, polygamy, screwing, and whatever else is swirling around in their dirty minds. Somewhere, some poor old nun or choir teacher is crying because she taught these girls music and now they're using their beautiful voices to sing such horrible words.

I got their CD, "Look it up Yourself", and parts of it are just...odd. there's no other word for it. Odd. They even signed the CD, which was cool. The freakiest part was while they were signing it. They were talking to me and they sounded all sweet, the way they do during their act, just before whipping out a really sarcastic line or a joke. So I was waiting for them to make some kind of crack at me. They didn't, of course, but it was weird. We added them to our links section under people who make us laugh, so if you want, you can...go look them up yourselves.

So, it was lots of fun. If you can, go see Glen Foster. And check out the Black Roses too.

Well... It Ain't A Door - But It's Cool

So today we made another landmark purchase. It won't be as cool as the door we've all been talking about agani recently - but it's pretty sweet so it warranted a post.

Our family owns a cottage in Harcourt Park. Harcourt Park is in cottage country and is a privately owned huge piece of property with a bunch of lakes and roads and stuff. It's massive. So you buy the cottages from the Harcourt Group instead of from other people and basically you then own shares in the park, which is private property owned by everyone who owns a cottage there. This means while standard laws do apply - certain ones do not. Since our roads are technically not "public roads" and have to be consideredm ore like driveways through the woods that the land is on... you're allowed different vehacles on them than you would be allowed to have on a public road or highway. Vehacles like.... golf carts....

That's right, rather than take your car from cottage to cottage when you visit, most people use their boat or a 4 wheeler or something. Until we moved in a few years ago, and then my aunt and uncle, and then our family's best friends, and then a guy my Dad works with who hangs out with us. We started taking over. And while we did bring 4 wheelers and boats, we also brought Golf Carts. They were the same standard small, weak battery powered ones you'd see on any golf course and we used them because we could carry more people on them than on the 4 wheelers. That was until today.

We just bought the mother of all golf carts. It's an extremely hot lookin' red which is a great start. It has huge mud tires on it to get better traction on the dirt and gravel roads and to keep it up out of the puddles that can accumulate. Also assisting to that end? A bad-ass lift-kit keeps this thing sittin' high and lookin' hot. And rankly lookin' more like a mini-truck than a peaceful golf cart.

As I said, most golf carts on a run on an electric battery powered rechargeable engine which is ok except it's not that powerful and the battery dies quickly. We have one relative who lives 5 km's on the other side of the park. This thing would get you there, albeit slowly thanks to lack of power in the little engine and all the hills that it didn't have the balls to speed up, and would then require charging at the other end before you could come home which took about 4 beers... err... I mean an hour to do. Not this baby. This thing has a gas powered 30HP engine! This bitch will do over 50kph (which is a nice step up from the battery powered one which would hit top speed of about 11kph if you were lucky enough to be going downhill with only one person on it).

It has 6 drink holders (and only 4 seats which is funny but appropriate with our family) which is good since you pretty much have to be loaded to be willing to be seen driving around in a sooped up golf cart. The crowning jewel. A stereo system. Some in the past have had radios but this has a full out CD player and speakers in it. All we're missing is the hydrolics and the rims and we've got Snoop's golf cart.

Just thought I'd keep you kids up to date on the crap we're buying these days.

Paralympic Swimmer Crosses Lake Ontario

You can call me a sap or just straight biased towards Paralympic sport - but this immediately improves my previously shitty day.

This was just sent out by Paralympics Ontario

"Jenna Lambert, a 15 year old, with cerebral palsy, was successful in completing her marathon swim across Lake Ontario. Jenna's crossing took place on July 18th and 19th. The 32 kilometre swim took her 33+ hours to complete. Jenna, who has no use of her legs, swam the entire course using only her upper body (arms). This marks the first time a woman, with a disability, has tried and successfully completed such an event. The swim, titled the Kid 4 Kids Marathon, is a profile event within our capital campaign to build a new pool at our YMCA. We anticipate that Jenna's swim will raise over $100,000. Jenna (and the YMCA) is receiving national attention from this swim. She was featured last night on the "National", this morning on Canada AM, as well as a variety of regional Canadian and U.S. based stations.


Jenna is a member of our Y Penguins swim team...a swimming team for children with physical disabilities. The program is coached by Vicki Keith, world-renown marathon swimmer. The team currently has 31 members, all with some form of physical disability.


If you get a chance, please take the time to go to www.penguinscanfly.ca and leave a congrulatory note in Jenna's Guestbook."

In all likelihood she'll never ever read this page - but congratulations from us, too! Unbelievable!

J

Stream of Negativity

Here we go kids.

So I just finished lunch at Subway - which normally I love. My bread was stail and the meat smelled funny. This leaves me unhappy.

I'm doing company billing today. The program we uses only allows one person in the office to access the Billing section at once to prevent someone from altering a bill at the same time you do cuz otherwise things get fucked up and you over/under charge. I was in it all morning when someone said they needed in for 5 minutes. I said that was fine because I was going for lunch and now that I've returned from my (shit) lunch I find out this person has just left for her lunch and not closed the program on her computer meaning I can't get back in and she's not expected back for an hour. I got deadlines and people wanting to know what they owe!

Eric Hinske of the Jays is a douchebag. Last night while he was at third base he got thrown out in a suicide squeeze where the batter bunts it and runs to first, the pitchers throws it to first because he can get the batter out for sure and if he throws home the guy at third just won't go and the batter gets to first safely. Well the pitchers gets the ball and HInske decides to not wait and runs home and the pitchers throws him out at homeplate costing us a run. Then in the bottom of the 9th with a man on he hits in to a double play, virtually killing the rally and costing us a chance to tie.

Shea Hillenbrand of the Jays is also a king sized fuck tard. He left the team (with permission) on Friday to go be with hims family as they had adopted a baby girl. He returned late Tuesday and was not put in the line-up. On Wednesday he flipped telling the media that the team was a disgrace and there was a terrible atmosphere and if they weren't going to play him he should have just stayed home and how he wants to be traded and a pile of whiney shit. His biggest gripe, though? That no one from the Blue Jays front office called to congratulate him on adopting a baby. Does it deserve congratulations? Probably. I'm not sure what the rules are on that - but I mean come on. To call the team a disgrace if it doesn't happen seems like a little bit of an over-reaction to me.

That is all. Continue with your otherwise pleasant day.

What Goes Up, Must Come Down, Then Go Up Again, And Then Back Down, Then Up...

I still have nothing much to say, so here's a
fun happy story about a guy with a penile implant who gets a nice big erection whenever the people next door use their garage door opener.

I Love A Good Meltdown

I just saw
this rundown of 10 of the greatest sports-related temper tantrums in history
on the CBC website. There's some pretty good stuff here, I know we've got some sports fans who check out the site and I've got nothing else to write about, so enjoy.

USB Arms Race?

Earlier, we heard about the USB missile launcher. Now, with tensions mounting between east and west wings everywhere, someone just upped the firepower, or so it would seem. A device that is a USB hub when not being used to defend against the enemy looks amazingly like a nuclear missile launcher. We're all doomed!

Boobytrapped! Progress Report

Well, the good folks at the Canadian Cancer Society apparently never sleep. I already got an email from a human profusely apologizing for this, and saying that I should hear more from their web team within 8 days. Holy crap! That's almost enough for me to open my wallet and send them some dough!

Barby, Look what You've Done!

You may not have noticed this, but we've added a new link to the People who make us laugh section of the links area, leading to the website of Paul and Storm. Barby, as you would say, I blame you. Because of you talking about them, I've started downloading a bunch of their stuff from their website, and I now have their album, Opening Band.

Man they're a goofy bunch. Who'd ever think of singing the Miranda rights in a song? Who'd make a bunch of theme songs for movies and then sing them like Randy Newman would? Who'd think of the sickest collection of jingles possible? Who'd write a balad of the death of a urinal cake? Who'd make a very sweet-sounding love song...and then fuck it all up? They would, that's who. And they do a bunch more. There's a couple songs on there that are just sorta there, but most of them had me on the floor. So in the words of their Randy Newman theme songs, "Go, Paul and Storm, Go! You're my friend! ... You've got a reason to live..."

Boobytrapped!

Ha ha ha. I'm so corny. But I had to write about this, because I find it slightly amusing and extremely disturbing all at once.

Did you know that information that we're led to believe should be common knowledge is locked up behind password protection by its own publishers? Let me explain. I was on the Canadian Cancer Society's Website a while ago, I can't even remember why. Anyway, I was zooming around, and I ended up on the breast cancer page. I found their little booklet on breast self-examinations. I thought, well gee, they say we should all know how to do this, maybe I should learn how. After all, my cousin died of breast cancer.

So I tried to read the thing. First of all, clicking on it caused adobe reader to load up. This is usually ok for most people, but sometimes, PDF's, for one reason or another, are unreadable for blinks with our happy fun software that makes our computers talk. "Oh well, no big deal," I thought, "I'll just feed it through some other happy fun software that knows how to recognize images and turn them into text." So I downloaded the thing, and opened said happy fun software package. When it tried to open the pdf, I was greeted with this message: "Enter password for breast self-exam en.pdf." Password? Why in christ does the Canadian Cancer Society, who gives out free pamphlets, feel the need to password-protect their electronic documents? Are they afraid of tampering? If so, why? I would have to not only tamper with the file, but find a way to implant it back up on their website, which I'd think would be quite a feat. It would be easier to tamper with their print documents, I'd think. Why all the protectiveness on information that is supposed to flow freely?

It appears that the happy fun software package had other plans for their trusty password, since it just found another way to the info by taking a picture of the document and pumping it through another way. But oh somebody, if there is a somebody, has a cruel sense of humour, because after all that password-cracking and yelling, I couldn't even understand the damn thing. Sentences like "move your hands in motions like this." are really helpful to us blinks. I know they don't take us into account, since we're so few, but it just added insult to injury.

I'm going to email the Cancer Society about the password protection of this stuff, because that just baffles me. Hopefully I get an answer worth posting here. I might mention the second point while I'm at it. It probably won't get anything changed, but if they don't know, it is guaranteed not to change.

Interview With A Dumbass

Somebody interviewed me. NO seriously, somebody did. It's for Salty Ham and it's all about wrestling, and you can click
here
to check it out.

And before you ask, I have no idea why it looks like a continuous block of text with no paragraph or line breaks. It didn't look that way when I sent it in, so I'm not the one you should be emailing about it.

Thanks, Pal!

Truth be told, this is Steve's post to write. It happened to him, I was just watching. But, he's too mad to write it, plus he's making me lunch. So I figured the least I could do was scream on his behalf.

Everybody probably knows about PayPal, right? It's this service where you punch in your credit card number, a bank account if ya want, and your address and stuff and then associate it with a login and from then on, you can buy stuff just by logging in, specifying how much money you want to send to another person with an account and hitting the pay button. People who use EBay love this thing, so much that EBay bought it. So what do you think PayPal's main objectives are? From their cute little buttons that appear everywhere, they say it's fast, free and secure. Well, I won't question them on the secure part, that's for sure. Here's why.

As we've been saying a lot lately, well me anyway, we just moved. So, you know what happens when you move. You have to remember to tell every frickin body who sends you mail about your new address. So, among the other six zillion places we had to call and visit, we both happily went to PayPal and merrily changed our address. When we finished telling it all the new stuff, it said, "Thank you." We assumed that meant everything went off without a hitch. Apparently, "Thank you" in PayPal speak means, "You bastards better check your account again because you're about to get screwd."

Skip ahead a month, to today. Steve went to buy a couple things. After he put the purchases through, he got a message that did not make him happy at all. It said, "Your sending limit is..." Actually, these few words made him practically jump through the roof. Having a sending limit meant, for some unknown reason, he had gone from being a verified user back to being an unverified user. This was especially angering since he'd had to essentially crawl through broken glass, adding a bank account he never wanted to add to his PayPal account to become a verified user just so they'd piss off about the sending limits. And now the limits were back? Why! Why! Why!

After picking apart an email, we found the problem. PayPal, in its infinite wisdom, had decided that since he had changed his address, they could not believe that this was his actual address until he confirmed it over the phone. In its even greater infinite wisdom, which is a trick, because how can you have greater infinite wisdom than infinite wisdom, but whatever, PayPal had decided to neglect to tell him this little nugget of fun info. Luckily, after we figured this out and satisfied PayPal by entering a happy fun code into their happy fun automated phone calling thing, the account was switched back to verified and all returned to being well.

Ok, I appreciate PayPal's being super anal about security. This is money, and millions of people around the world are having their financial info and addresses kept in PayPal's care just so they can buy stuff. For a long time, I resisted the urge to get a PayPal account just for this reason. I didn't want some entity holding onto that sort of info. But I eventually gave in when everybody and their brother was using PayPal and there weren't giant reports of PayPal's members being victims of hacking and all manner of theft. What pisses me off, though, is that when he changed his address, nothing popped up or came in an email and said, "Hey! Asshole! You're going to have to confirm this!" When a person is moving, they already have enough on their mind. You'd think the least PayPal could do is save them one frustration.

So, if you have a PayPal account that you just opened a couple of years ago, and you decide to move, remember to confirm your address. Otherwise, you're in for a nasty surprise.

And People Wonder Why I'm Not So High On The Whole Career In Broadcasting Thing Anymore

If you haven't heard by now,
Bell Globemedia is buying CHUM Ltd.
This news may not mean much to a lot of you, but if you in any way care about having options when it comes to what you watch on TV, what you listen to on the radio or what you read in the newspaper or online every day, it definitely should.

Read the story at the link above and think about how many things these 2 companies own, and then consider that when, not if, this deal is approved, 1 group of people will own every single bit of it. One voice will dominate all of those airwaves. The creative vision of a select few people will dictate the kind of shows you have to watch and the types of music that make it to air on mainstream radio. And most frightening to me, one editorial voice will have even more control than it does now over the already slanted news coverage we rely on to stay informed about what's going on around us. If you don't think that the news is slanted, first of all where have you been, and secondly, consider that in order to find out that more than 200 people would be losing their jobs as a direct result of this sale, I had to rely on the CBC. Funny how the CTV news didn't mention that little chestnut when they covered it, I wonder how something like that happened.

On a personal note, I want to take a moment to address anybody who has ever asked me why I haven't gone ahead and snagged that big time radio job I've always dreamed of. Does it make sense yet? It's things just like this that have soured me on the whole idea. The job security just isn't there anymore, and the pool of available *decent* jobs is getting smaller and smaller as technology takes over and as the number of companies offering the positions that remain gets lower and lower. Knowing that, I'd be an idiot to willingly get myself into such a situation for the sake of fulfilling a dream that in no way resembles the one I grew up with. Sure I might have a good voice for radio, but I know damn well that there are better uses out there for it than standing outside repeatedly yelling "will work for food."

In closing, let me state the obvious. the only people that media consolidation benefits in any way are media executives. Everyone else, from the people who do all of the actual work for these companys right on down to the lowly consumer [that's us by the way] just ends up getting the shaft. And you know what the really sad part is? We're getting to the point where we can't even choose who gives it to us anymore.

Calling All Eyes! Again!

This one's got nothing to do with site tweakage, or breakage depending on your point of view. This has just got to do with this song and animation. I dare you. Let the song get into your head and slowly drive you mad, because it will! Watch and see. It will follow you everywhere, even when you're off the net. When you are walking somewhere, it will fit the rhythm of your step. It will make you go back and record a five-minute loop of the song. What? It didn't? Then I guess I'm just loopy. Ha, ha, ha! I kill me. But what in christ is on the screen? I would love to know.

Calling All Eyes!

Hey everybody. We're experimenting with the ads again, cause we can't seem to leave them alone. But doing this is kind of like painting your house blindfolded. So...does it look ugly? Did I just drip on the other nicely painted wall? Did I just mix the paint and it came out hot pink? Tell me if you can still see the links bar down there. Does the ad frame look too small? too big? Although if it's too big..uh-oh, we're screwed since I can't find a smaller size. But tell me anyway. Would it fit better on another spot on the page? Are the colours ok? If you know better colours and you know those annoying bits of code to make them happen, could you let us know? And hey, if anyone out there is an ad sense guru and wouldn't mind giving us a hand from time to time when it's time to paint the house blindfolded again, feel free to shoot me an email. You know where the address is. Thanks everybody.

Matt, Want One of these?

I laugh every time I think about this. there's a USB missile launcher! With this device, anyone can make their coworkers shake with fear, because with a few clicks of the mouse and a click of the red button, they have the power to unleash...foam rockets at them! If only this existed when a friend of Steve and I was working at Royal Bank. It would have beaten the hell out of the marshmallow fights we always heard about.

People seem to really be having fun with this, starting office wars with it. Oh procrastination has reached a whole new level.

Even though it's too late to be fun for our one buddy, something tells me Matt would have a lot of fun with one of these. Just think of it. Next time someone's standing over by the photocopier jabbering about holy paper and driving you nuts, you could click a few buttons and declare holy war with the thwack of foam rocket fire. Or, next time you've got that office-mate sitting next to you dropping large stink bombs, you could return fire of a different kind. Wouldn't it be cool if they had no idea where it came from? But what I can't figure out is how you hide one of these things. Maybe stealth attacks wouldn't work so well.

Matt.... REVIEWS THINGS!

So I have just returned from lunch and on this particular occasion it was time for something new - and since it's not just new for me but is actually new for the world - I thought I would review it for you here so that you may base your opinions moving forward solely on what I thought of this product. I'm still campagning that that be how the world works. Moving along we get to today's subject.

BURGER KING'S NEW STACKER QUAD!

So we've all seen the commercials (unless you have a life and don't watch as much tv as me) where Burger King advertises their new burgers - Stackers - which can come with 2, 3 or 4 patties. Good enough idea I guess.

So lately it's been my goal to try and eat, at least a little bit, better than I have been and results have been good as I've lost a nice little chunk of weight in the last few months. Now that's not to say I've cut out fast food altogether (I'm only human) and I had a weekend out of town where I ate a lot of crap this weekend so I really shouldn't have been doing it again today - but I was talked in to Burger King - and then in to sampling the quad as I'm a fan of oversized food, as I know some of our readers are. (I'm looking at you Steve, Jon and Lu).

So despite not having had one since the mini-diet started my favourite burger is the Wendy's Classic Triple - so I'll pretty much stack (see what I did there, sith the Stacker) this one up against that. Since I have yet to see a burger with 5 patties on it (and I'd like to) I will use the not-yet-famous 5 patty grading system. 5 patties being good, 1 patty being for little girls.

We'll start where we always should when talking about food. Taste. You can have a 37 pattied burger but if it tastes like Steve's burnt pubic hair it's really all for not.

We're gonna give the Stacker Quad 4 patties out of 5. It was indeed quite tastey. But really no different at all than any of their other burgers. That's not necessarily a bad thing since they make a good burger and this was no worse - but if you're gonna throw that kind of advertising behind your new huge burger - you might want to add a little spice or something to it.

Presentation. No Patties out of 5. Ya this one will hurt you. I give it this rating because when I opened the wrapping, it appeared there really were no patties on this thing. Just 4 patties thick of CHEEEEEEEESE. Upon closer investigation I discovered that there were indeed patties there, just covered in so much cheese that the patties were hidden and I wondered if I'd ever crap again if I ate it. It just looked far too sloppy and messy whereas the Wendy's Classic Triple has a nice clean appearance to it. (which I'll admit starts to fade as you start to power through it.

Size: Despite what your girlfriend has told you, size matters. Especially when we're talking about my burger. While there indeed were 4 patties on the burger, they were not Burger Kings Whopper patties. They were small standard fast food patties. When you order a Classic Triple from Wendy's you get 3 square patties (because they don't cut corners... get it?) and they are quite large. So, while Wendy's has one less patty, I certainly felt like I get more food out of their burger without the shame of having to tell my friends "it takes 4 patties to satisfy my fat ass." That's a big plus in my book.

Finally, Bang for your Buck. 3 Patties out of 5. To get the Wendy's Classic Triple combo with fries and a drink costs you $8.04. Sure that's expensive for fast food but you get what you pay for. To get the Burger King Stacker Quad combo with fries and a drink (which I above deemed to be the smaller burger) costs you $8.49. So sure it's only 45 cents more - but it's still a valid point if you're actually getting less meat.

So in closing - while I was not dissapointed with the burger in and of itself, when stacked up against the competition it was not enough to win me over as my new favourite artery busting burger.

Eat accordingly, friends.

So...

You know how I usually start these posts, when I have nothing to say, by saying that I'm just going to type and see what happens? Well today is a day, again, where I really have nothing to say. But this time I'm not going to type and hope something comes of it. So... ya.....

Carin and Steve, apartment building kiss of death.

What is with this? A few months before we left the last place where we lived together, there was a nice big apartment fire in the super's apartment, and now, yesterday, after we move back in together, what's that sound I hear? Ding ding ding di-i-i-i-i--i-i-ing! The fire alarm! Luckily this one was just a false alarm, but what's up with that? Is our being together the indirect cause of apartment building destruction everywhere?

Well Damn Sam!

I don't even know how to begin this post, so I guess I'll just start writing. As some people probably know, last year, I went to guide dog school. I don't know what it is about spending a few weeks with your classmates and it being a small class of 4, but you get pretty attached to them. In that class was a lady in her 70's. She was hillarious! She seemed like your typical grandmother who would never swear, who was very meek and mild and quiet. Then she'd whip out gems to surprise you, like the day we were talking about a girl a couple of us happened to know who, well, got around and had a lot of babies, and the lady said, "She should learn to cross her legs!" I hadn't laughed that hard in forever. She had the funniest expressions. Where some people might say "Holy crap!" or "Jesus Christ!" she'd say, "Jeepers twist!" If something went wrong, all she'd say was "Damn Sam!" She always wanted to visit, and always had time to sit and shoot the breeze. You could tell she loved her dog, and would do anything for her.

A few months ago, I found out that she had pancreatic cancer, and it was taking its toll on her. I would try and give her a call every few weeks to see how she was doing, but sometimes life got in the way. Ever since I heard the news, I was bracing myself for the worst, but you're never prepared for it.

Yesterday, I thought I'd give her another call. I was a little worried when the answering machine just had her husband's name on it. But I'd never gotten her answering machine before so I thought maybe that was just the way it was. When he returned my call, I got the news I never wanted to hear. It turns out that, not only did she lose her battle with cancer, but it happened in May! He had no way to get a hold of me, or any of the other classmates, to tell us what happened because she had all her friends' numbers memorized.

I guess they were shooting her full of chemo and radiation, and it wasn't doing a damn bit of good, only making her feel absolutely miserable. At her age, I wonder why they'd put her body through such an aggressive treatment. But maybe she decided to fight to the death. Then they put her on morphine and she had to go into the hospital, and I guess that was the end. Weirdly enough, her retired guide dog died six days before she did.

He said they had a nice service for her and there was a big turnout. If only I could have been there! But I'm glad lots of people could come. She was loved by a lot of people, and we'll miss her. But at least she's not suffering anymore. I remember, in one of the last conversations I had with her, she said, "Cancer's a bitch!" At least now she can rest in peace.

Great Times

Well I"m back from the Sunny South. We had a great time down there. Canadian Mens team finished 6th which was just good enough to qualify them for the 2008 Olympics and the Canadian Women won the tournament and earned the right to be called World Champions! That lead to quite a party afterwards - most of which I couldn't recount now if my life depended on it.

However, these were not the great times that I refer to in the title. Today has been a slow work day so I've been reading through the archives. (Or has it been a slow day BECAUSE i've been reading through the archives.... anyway...). The old posts were always there and they were fun enough to read - but having the comments back has made it great.

I went back and read a bunch of the stuff from late January 04 and early February 04 and it was all I could do to contain myself and not burst otu laughing in the middle of the office.

In my mind, that was the most fun time on this site. The cast of character's commenting on the boards made it that way. Not that they (or us) had anything more interesting to say - just that everyone was so bloody malicious! Most of it was spurred on by Nick and Gee (or what turned out to be Nick as Gee). The comments where he fucked up his posting and then tried to dig out, just making it worse were hilarious. Then Steve just heartlessly tossing him under the truck by throwing all the fuck up's on to the main page for the world to see was just gold. Satan's verbal abuse was great as was everyone's (Steve, Carin, Greg Twilly, annonymous, a different annonymous and Not Roland). It was just so much fun.

I'm not sure I'll get anything more accomplished today as I'm hooked on going back and reading all of our cold crap. Great stuff.

Also for the record - since I don't know if it's been mentioned yet - we passed 1,000 posts a while back. This is number 1006. So, for now anyway, call this the 1000th post look back. Maybe we'll get some time to put together some of our best posts/comments in to one big VC Retrospective. We'll see if any of us are feeling that ambitious. For now. Cheers to the VC.

Well...We're Alive.

I don't have much to say, except, phew, we survived another move. I always underestimate how freaky it is to have everything you own put in boxes and transported to your new home. But it's weird. And now everything we both own has made the trip safely, although I do feel sorry for the people who helped Steve. Hauling a bed frame up 6 floors because it can't fit in the elevator has gotta suck. But everything fit beautifully, and our new home has the phone, the internet and the cable again, not to mention that it plain rocks. This is a strange thing to say, but because of Stupidhead and Ditz O Matic, I forgot how it felt to feel safe and secure in your own home. Being here has made me remember what it feels like. The neighbours are cool, I think I've met a grand total of one creep in this building, and he's leaving soon, and everyone else has been nothing less than awesome, and there's lots of nice people in the neighbourhood. Plus, I don't know what my parents were smoking when they said there was nothing near us. Let me count the things I found when I went on a little walk with a friend. 3 convenience stores, a computer store, our bank, a pizza place, a drugstore, a hair place, a Mcdonalds, a Tim Horton's, a Dairy Queen, two more restaurants, another ice cream store, and a beer store. And I'm sure there's more! Oh yeah, and a giant park where lots of stuff happens. If that's nothing, having everything near you must mean you don't have to move and stuff comes to you. Now I just need to get a few groceries and Steve needs to come back from family stuff and the place will be complete! Oh I can see many many happy times ahead!