You Left Your Dog Where?

I cannot even remotely understand this story. Here's a short summary.

Guy, his wife and his guide dog go camping in a Wal-Mart parking lot (what the hell?).
Guy ties his guide dog to a tree.
guy and wife leave the next morning, each thinking the other had put the dog back in the camper (again, what the hell?).
Neither did.
guy is very lucky, because nice delivery man rescues dog.
Police reunite guy with dog.

How in christ do you forget your guide dog? How does that even work? I can understand losing your dog if the dog somehow runs out of your house when you're answering the door. I can understand something terrible happening to the dog if you somehow lost control of him/her and he went out into the street. But this is just stupid! He'd had this dog for at least four years. After having your furry friend either near you or attached to you in some way, you just don't forget him! It would be like leaving your kid at a gas station. I know it happens too, but in that case, what do we say? Wow, that's stupid!

Hopefully I never end up leaving Trixie somewhere. If that happens by some bizarre chain of events, I'll really have to eat my words. But until then, I'll just shake my head and be glad that it ended ok.

For Stressed out Geeks Everywhere...

Wow. The USB gadgets keep getting weirder. This one reminds me of a toy I had when I was a kid. It was called the revenger, and people would attach it to their car's dash. then when fellow drivers pissed them off, they could press one of 3 buttons and it made noises of a death ray, a machine gun or dropping bombs. So they could feel like they were obliterating the idiot driver who just cut them off in whatever way they saw fit.

Now, you can have a similar experience with
the USB stress panic button!

It looks like some ordinary piece of technology, but if you flip up the lid, there's a giant red button. Slam it, and either watch a simulated bomb explosion or pretend you're punching your boss. And if you're afraid you'll get caught screwing around, it has something to quickly flash up on the screen that looks like a spreadsheet.

And these people want people to pay $17 U.S. for it. Wow.

It's a Small World After All, Even Smaller After This Guy Does Some Target Practice.

Remember Carey McWilliams? Well, um, he's a grad from GDB! Now there's someone I don't want to piss off at an alumni convention. He might shoot me!

That Explains A Lot

A growing number of complete fucking dorks are
paying big money to consultants to help them come up with names for their children.

But as stupid as this is, at least it offers some explanation for how we wind up with dumbshits trying to name innocent infants who have never done a bad thing to anyone things like
4real.

Chris Benoit

Carin told me I should write something about the Chris Benoit situation. She's right and I was planning on it, but even though you're reading what I've come up with, I really have no idea what to say. I don't even know what to think at this point. I'm reading what comes out just like everybody else is, and just like them, the more I hear, the more shocked, the more saddened, the more confused I become. It never crosses your mind that somebody you look up to, somebody you see as special to you in some way, somebody you've almost never heard a bad word spoken about could have done what it's looking more and more like he did. I know it's a strange thing to say, but of all the people in and around the wrestling business, there's almost nobody I have a harder time picturing murdering his family and killing himself than Chris Benoit. It just doesn't seem possible, and there are moments when I think about it and I half expect that any minute now I'm going to wake up and everything will be the way it was before. Unfortunately I know that's not going to happen, and that as today moves on and becomes tomorrow and as tomorrow turns into next week, more details will emerge, and somehow everything will get even harder to comprehend than it already is.

None of us will ever truly know what went on in that house or what was going on in the minds of the people in it, and sadly, the only ones who will ever fully understand what happened this weekend can't tell us now. But I think it's pretty safe to say that even if they could, sense could never be made of it. Sense can never be made of something like this, no matter how much we may wish it could. Right now and likely forever, the only things that I'll ever know for sure are that 3 people are dead, and that even though you can't take his accomplishments away from him, the name Chris Benoit will likely never mean the same thing as it did just a few short hours ago.

Strange Dreams are Made of Trixie.

You can tell I spend a lot of time thinking about Trixie. Why? She's in my dreams! She's in a lot of my dreams in very ordinary ways, but there were two that were especially weird.

I had one dream that it was one of those times that Steve and I were off to visit his family. But in the dream, I decided to leave Trixie behind! I didn't leave her with someone, I just left her in the apartment. Everyone was fine with this, until I got there, realized that we would be gone for days, and began panicking when I finally figured out that noone would be there to feed her, let her out to relieve, all that good stuff. Then, it was too late to go get her, so we were just going to hope for the best. And the dream was over, I woke up with a start, terrified that I had actually done this. Alrighty then. What does that mean? Does part of me think I would actually abandon Trixie? Weird.

Then I had another dream that made even less sense than the other one, although I can sort of see fragments of reality in it. I dreamed that I took Trixie out to play on the flexi-lead, and the lawn was full of dogs! Dogs everywhere! They were playing, romping, having a good time. So I let Trixie loose, and we all watched the fun. Then I brought Trixie back in, and every so often, when I'd call Trixie to me in the house, I'd think I saw another dog! One time, the dog that jumped at me was yellow, and we all know Trixie is black! Somehow, I'd brought Trixie in, but another dog had followed us, and noone had stopped the dog from coming in with us. I was trying to get this mystery dog to sit, and it would not sit at all. Trixie was not a fan of our stray and kept growling at him. This was not a good scene.

I picked up the phone to call our downstairs neighbour. My thought was she knows everyone in the building, she'd know who this dog belonged to and help me get it home. But the phone wasn't working! Every time I'd pickit up, it would either buzz at me strangely or I'd be hearing someone else's conversation.

Finally, I wrestled this big dog without a leash past a growling Trixie and into the elevator. We went down to my neighbour's door, but she wasn't home! I got back into the elevator, and ran straight into my boss! I wondered what the hell he was doing in the elevator, but wondered if he could help me with this dog. He went to look at the tags to figure out where the dog was supposed to go, but just as he was about to read it, the elevator opened, he said he had to get off here, but to go to the lobby and he'd be right there to help me. But he never showed up! So there I was, in the lobby of the building, fighting with this uncontrollable dog that wasn't mine. All I kept thinking in the dream was, "Man I'm glad Trixie's good at her obedience."

Man, my brain is screwed up when I sleep. I wonder what other weird dreams it will cook up with Trixie in them.

No What Allowed?

Wow. It's not very often that, while browsing apartment listings, you stop dead in your tracks and laugh for five minutes at a listing...after staring at it in bewilderment for another 2 minutes.

I'm trying to help a friend find an apartment, so I'm surfing around the newspaper's classifieds section. I found one listing that said "no crocodiles allowed!"

Crocodiles?

Yes, in fact, it said c r o c o d i l e s.

This is the listing.

No Crocodiles Allowed!
Item#:  911076      
Rate:  
$1,150  /  month
(Fixed Price)      
Address:  120 Mansion St    
City, Province  Kitchener, ON       
National        
Bedrooms:  1    
Bathrooms:  1    
Square Feet:   615       
Quantity Available:  1    
Condition:  Unknown      
Date Available:  09 Jun 2007    
Posting Date:  09 Jun 2007    
Posting Expires:  09 Jul 2007      
Posting Last Modified:  09 Jun 2007 11:23:55 PST    
 
Seller: 
greatspace

    Description

Air Conditioning: Yes    
Building Age: 1 years 
Floor Size: 615 Square Feet    
Stories: 6 
Parking: 1  
You'll love this beautiful upscale, almost new 1 bedroom condo. Quiet residential area, new building. Stainless appliances. Electricity extra. No smoking.
Shared roof terrace. Lots of light in this unit. 

Everything else looks normal, except the part about the crocs, which leads me to say, huh? What...who...why?! In the middle of a city, there is a one-bedroom apartment listed, and they actually had to tell people that crocodiles were not welcome. No dogs? Got it. No pets? Totally understand. But are these landlords saying that they're finding it a common occurrence that tenants are keeping crocodiles in their apartments?

I'm so tempted to email these people and ask why they felt it necessary to tell prospective tenants that crocodiles were not allowed to live there. Perhaps a better question is, where are crocodiles allowed to live? I want to know, so I can avoid those buildings.

Speaking Of Running Gags

Here's one from the You Named That Kid What? Files.

Pat and Sheena Wheaton said they decided to name their new baby "4real" shortly after having an ultrasound and being struck by the reality of his impending arrival.

"For most of us, when we try to figure out what our names mean, we have to look it up in a babies book and ... there's no direct link between the meaning and the name," Pat Wheaton told TV One on Wednesday. "With this name, everyone knows what it means."

But when the parents filed the name with New Zealand's Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, they were told names beginning with a number were against the rules.

The government office has opened negotiations with the parents about the name under a policy that says all unusual names must be given case-by-case consideration.

"The name has not at this stage been rejected," Registrar-General Brian Clarke said in a statement Thursday. "We are currently in discussions with the parents ... to clarify the situation."

Clarke said the rules are designed to prevent names that are "likely to cause offense to a reasonable person." Satan and Adolf Hitler were proposed names that have been declined, he said.

If no compromise has been reached by July 9, the baby will be registered as "real," officials say.

The full article is
here,
4Real.

A New Trend To Follow

I don't know if anybody else has picked up on this or not, but I've been noticing something odd about the news lately. Over the last few weeks, there has been an unusually high number of stories dealing with people who's names somehow relate to the situation that caused them to make headlines in the first place.

First there was
Christopher Woods,
the guy who is suing the Boost Plus energy drink people for damages over a case of endless, well, uh, wood.

A few days later there was the story of Iowa woman
Suzanne Marie Butts,
who is facing charges and possible prison time for stealing toilet paper from a local courthouse.

And just yesterday I came across the story of an imprisoned murderer who was caught with an entire cell phone charger stuffed up his ass. His name?
Tony Pile.

I know that things like this happen from time to time, but 3 cases in as many weeks is pretty weird so I thought I'd better mention it before somebody else scooped my observation. It would suck to spend so much time *coughcough*researching*coughcough* such an important topic and have it all be worth nothing in the end. And don't worry, I'll be sure to report on more of these as I find them or as people point them out to me, because this is so totally a ready made VC running gag.

DVS Is Great, But This Is a Bit Much

Are you a blind person? Do you like pornography, but feel that today's porn product is neglecting you by not paying attention to your accessibility needs? If so, then boy oh boy do I have a treat for you. Yes indeed, your life changes today. For today is the day that
PornForTheBlind.org
enters your world.

Thanks to this new free service, never again will you have to ask yourself or even worse a friend questions such as "just what is he doing to that woman exactly?" Or "did he really get it all on her face like he said he wanted to?" Porn for the Blind's helpful narrators will solve those mysteries and so many more for you, and they'll do it with just slightly more vocal inflection than
Steven Wright.

But wait, there's more!

If the ever so cheerful sounding men using the technical terms for sex acts aren't enough for you, you will no doubt be thrilled to learn that none of them appear to have grasped the concept of holding a microphone away from their mouthes while speaking into one. The inclusion of the original site's URL's and the exact lengths of the clips being described are also features that will surely set your loins to blazing.

So visit
Porn for the Blind
today.

Porn for the Blind: If this doesn't turn you on, you're probably normal.

Jehova's stalkers

I got something in the mail yesterday that frightened me. It was a piece of mail from some Jehova's Witnesses, or Jehova's Witlesses as Steve called them. But I didn't even have to open it to be frightened by it. You could tell it was not professionally put together. Someone was doing this from their home. Even scarier, it was addressed to us, as our names appear on the buzzer downstairs.

Think about that for a while. That means that someone had to stand down there, write down everybody's apartment number and names as they appeared on the buzzers, and then go out and carefully hand-mail all the junk-mail they wanted to send us. Doesn't that seem like a scary amount of effort? Why do they want to convert the people in this building so badly? And why not use that energy for something, ya know, productive?

Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Make Shitty Movie

When people ask me why I never go to the movies and why I don't care when stuff comes out on DVD, I always have a million ways to answer their questions. And as of this very moment, I now have
one more.
Yes, "Monopoly: The Movie" could soon be coming to a theatre near you.

FILM director Ridley Scott is preparing the most unlikely movie of his career: a feature-length version of the venerable board game Monopoly.

The 69-year-old British film-maker, whose hits include Gladiator and Black Hawk Down, has been offered the pick of young actors to help turn the property game into a comedy thriller.

William Morris, the oldest theatrical agency in Hollywood, has promised Hasbro, which owns Parker Brothers, the manufacturer of Monopoly in the US, that the cream of its stable of 2000 actors will help create a blockbuster movie.

Scarlett Johansson and Kirsten Dunst are being considered for roles. Hasbro, which claims that Monopoly has been played by 750 million people since the 1930s, wants the film to feature "sexy young people" in an attempt to attract teenagers to board games.

Comedy thriller? Ok then.

I'll admit I'm somewhat curious about this movie, mostly because I can't figure out how they intend to shoehorn the hours upon hours of madcap excitement that is an actual game of Monopoly into 90 short minutes. I'm not sure if that's the plan, but I hope that's what they've got in mind. If they try to go all true to life on us with this one we're going to end up with something slightly longer than watching Ben-Hur 3 times, and I don't think anybody wants that.

Tone Death

If the urge strikes you to go to the Philippines, and while you're there, you feel the need to go to a karaoke bar and sing, make sure you *can* sing. If not, you may die. That's what happened to a poor unfortunate soul named Romy Baligula. He was halfway through a song, I don't know what song it was, and 43-year-old security guard Robilito Ortega yelled to him that he was out of tune. He kept on singing, and our security guard just couldn't take any more of his caterwauling, pulled his service revolver, and silenced him with a bullet to the chest! Our singer will never sing again, he died instantly.

If you think that's too weird, the article says deaths and fights often happen in the Philippines because of people singing out of tune, and songs like Frank Sinatra's My Way had to be removed from the list because apparently, a lot of us can't do the song justice and violence breaks out too often because of people's warblings.

Ooo! I have an idea! I know how we can get rid of that warbling whore! Let's send her to the Philippines!

follow my nose to what?

Last night, we were watching Cops. I don't know what it is exactly, but something always draws us to watching crime shows, and I think the most amusing ones are Cops and To Serve and Protect, just because the people getting arrested come up with some pretty weird excuses for why they have drugs on them or why they're down in the alley where they got nailed.

Anyway, last night, they had to bring in a dog to chase someone down, which is always fun. But it got me thinking. Police dogs are supposed to sniff, right? That's how they find their man. But I know dogs love to sniff everything, and any scent is interesting to them. So how do the police know if the dog is really on the trail? How do they know it hasn't caught the smell of another dog, a nice plant, or who knows what? I know they're trained, yada yada yada, but they can still get distracted. It was just a question that crossed my mind last night.

You Have A Collect Call From...Your Cheap Offspring.

Isn't this a sad statement? According to snopes, Father's Day is the busiest day of the year for collect calls. Next in line is Mother's Day, followed by Valentine's day. Aren't we a classy bunch? We can't even pay a few bucks to say we love our parents and significant others. Tomorrow's Father's day, and I wouldn't think of calling dad up and then making him pay the bill. That's evil!

Every day, I am convinced more and more that we're doomed. Screwed, broken beyond repair, up the creak without a paddle. This is just another sign.

Beating A Who With A What Now?

Steve told me about this story, and he's right. The next passage contains the best words to be written down since a police officer said someone was punching vegetation.

Durango, CO
11:08 a.m. A man on Westwood Place said his girlfriend was beating a miniature Chihuahua with a spatula.

And that's the whole story. That leaves me with so many questions, and so many images. Steve said he saw this little gem somewhere, and my curiosity got the best of me. I through the words "beat chihuahua with spatula" into google, and voila!

So now, the questions, the images, and the fun! My biggest question is...why? Why would you beat a chihuahua with a spatula? Did it just eat part of your lunch off the spatula and you got mad? Why?

And...it was a miniature chihuahua. Is there any other kind? Have I been living under a rock and there are giant chihuahuas running around? I guess there are chihuahuas and teeny chihuahuas. And if that's the case, the spatula was probably bigger than the poor little creature.

And...how scary is this woman that her boyfriend didn't just stop her from beating the chihuahua? Why did he have to call the police? I can understand calling the cops if you saw your neighbours wallupping their little yappy mutt, but your girlfriend? Come on! Maybe he was afraid he'd get the spatula next.

And last but not least...how did it end? Did they take the chihuahua away? What happened to the girl? Don't leave me hanging like that!

All I know is that whole scene would have been odd to witness. Maybe the images in my head are funnier than it could have possibly been.

We Had the Hot Seat, Now You Can Have A Cool Seat.

First we had the USB missile launcher. Then came the USB nuclear missile launcher. Then we got less warlike in our USB gadgets with the creation of the secret base emergency button, and finally, our laziness was shown with the invention of the USB ash tray.

But now, we have something for the What the Fuck department to analyze. It's the USB...drum-roll please...bum-cooling cushion?

Yipper, that's what it does. Don't believe me? Then I quote.

How does it work? A built-in fan pulls in cool air from down near the base of your chair and pumps it up and out through holes in the seat of the cushion to cool your posterior down to a more comfortable temperature.

Have you ever sat in your chair and thought "Gee, my ass is hot. No other part of me is hot, though. If only I could cool my ass..." I never have, but maybe I'm in the minority. Or maybe these people are just weird. Either way, there it is.

Homeboy Got a New Cellphone!

I know, I know, that was only funny for Steve, the lady at Rogers who I talked to when I got this thing, and me, but that's never stopped me before, hahah.

Remember when I jumped up and down about Rogers's new phone that you could buy with the Talks software already installed? Well, guess who went and bought one? Yipper, that would be me, and I'm pretty damn impressed with it. I've already set my own ringtone, set the clock, put some contacts in the contacts directory, learned a whole bunch of the Talks functions, can check the battery level and signal strength...and I have much, much more to learn.

First off, to anyone who wants to buy one of these, if you choose to call rogers and buy it through there, be very very sure that the rep knows you want the Nokia 6682RVI, which is Rogers's cute name for the bundle with Talks. They will say they don't see such a thing, and try to just sell you the Nokia 6682, but you don't want that. So make sure they find it.

The box came with some pretty cool stuff in it. There was a Talks Manual in mp3 and word format, a little braille sheet that explained that the phone had Talks preinstalled and said the formats the user's manual was in, and a whole bunch of cool accessories. There was a headset, a USB cable, another cable that I haven't the foggiest clue what it does, a 64-mb memory card, a funky wrist strap, some cool Nokia software, and of course the battery and charger and such.

It is so nice to be able to monkey with my own phone settings. I was able to set the clock, the ringtone, see how much battery power I had left, turn on training mode so I could mess with stuff without it doing anything, and all in the first night of having it. Now I just have to figure out who I can send a thank you letter to for going ahead with this. God I'm going to be known as the thank you blink before too long, hahahaha.

Oh, My, God!

This is a truly amazing video.
A guy walks around asking people simple questions like when and where did the 9/11 attacks take place. if you've ever seen those Talking To Americans bits on the CBC, you probably know what happens next. Seriously, watch this thing and wonder along with me how it is that some of these people manage to function on a daily basis.

I Think Somebody's A Little Squirrely

Are squirrels super valuable in Israel? If not, do any of you have another way to explain
this?
I hope so, because I've got nothin', at least nothin' better than mental illness.

The victim, whose name was not released, said he was carrying his pet squirrel in his fanny pack when Surami grabbed it and tried to take it with him. The man stopped Surami and took his pet back.

Later the same day, the victim allegedly received a phone call from Surami in which he threatened to burn down his house if he didn't turn over the squirrel.

Afraid of losing his home, the man complied and met Surami, who allegedly proceeded to shove and slap the complainant, as well as attempt to attack him with a kitchen knife.

The man managed to escape, but two hours later, Surami allegedly torched his bike.

Bits of Trixie goodness I forgot about.

I knew I was forgetting some things about Trixie that I wanted to say. So here are the things I forgot.

I have now discovered she likes squirrels. They tempt her whenever we walk through the university campus. Always something new.

When we're playing, sometimes she pins my head down and sniffs my ear. I think she's imitating me when I sniff her ears. I can almost hear her saying, "How do you like that?"

She does the funniest things sometimes. She has this tendency to let out these huge sighs, and at the perfect times too. I will have just finished saying "Oh I have so much work to do." and from Trixie, I hear the biggest sigh. It's hillarious. Or, right after I correct her for doing something she knows is wrong, she'll shake her whole body as if to say, "What was I thinking?"

Whenever there's a sudden noise, she jumps. She especially likes to jump when Steve makes a beer bottle make that train whistle noise.

Have I got them all now? I think so.

Paging the What The Fuck Department

10 Jun, Sun, 03:10:34     
Google
:  girls getting smucked to sex

What does that even mean? What could this person possibly have been trying to find? The only thing I can think of is that somewhere out there, there was a person who got hit, [or smucked as some say], by a vehicle of some kind and just so happened to land vagina first on a penis.

More Trixie goodness!

I think it's time for an update on the Trixter, along with some things I've noticed because of her.

Because of her, I end up spending considerably more time loitering around the outside of the apartment building. I'm not really loitering, I'm waiting for her to do her duty. But anyway, it means more time downstairs, which means I get to observe more weird stuff. I got to see people yelling at our poor property manager and got some juice about someone having ridiculously noisy neighbours. I got to watch two people screaming at each other across balconies. I know all the kids' names in the apartment building. Speaking of little children in the building, they seem to be leaving me alone more. I don't know whether Trixie has simply become uninteresting, they got fed up with me going into the bushes, or maybe it's because a cat scared Trixie in the bushes and now she won't go in the bushes, only by the fense right beside them. Or maybe it's because the pool is open now, so they'd rather swim. At any rate, it's good for me!

I notice that, now that I have Trixie, people don't say hello to me. they just say hello to Trixie. Yep, she's the star.

People are funny. They get upset if I give Trixie a correction, but if Trixie is being goofy, they get upset because she doesn't seem to be behaving like a guide dog should. Well, the only way to stop goofy behaviour is to say no and give her a correction.

I feel sorry for people with pet dogs who Trixie takes an interest in. They feel guilty because their dog distracted mine. I tell them not to worry about it, as long as they have their woofer on a leash.

Speaking of woofers, there's a big one who, from time to time, thinks it would be a swell idea to bark at us from his yard and run in our direction. I have to ask someone if he's contained in any way, because he scares me sometimes!

As time goes on, Trixie evolves and I learn more and more about her. She has changed her morning routine. She will come out onto our rug we have in the living room, flop around like a fish and snort. She now likes tug toys, and has already laid waste to one tug toy and has done a pretty good job on another one. Man, those are some pretty lethal jaws. She also thinks that the towel is the biggest play toy in the world and attacks it when I wipe her down after a rain.

She did the funniest thing the other day, although I don't know if poor Steve found it so funny. She ran at him, sort of made a running jump and shoulder-blocked him right in the groin. He says it didn't hurt much. Poor guy, he wonders if she has it in for him. If I'm not right there to lay down the law, she'll try and lick him to death.

She barks a lot less now. Woohoo! That was easy...I hope.

It's weird that it took me a bit longer this time to find my rhythm. Just when I thought I had it, everything would seem like a ton of work. But I think now, things have fallen nicely into place and what seemed like extra jobs is just part of the daily routine.

Here's a scary thought. By Sunday, I will have had Trixie longer than I had Babs. During my time with Trixie, she has had no ear infections, and the only trips to the vet were made after I thought she stepped in glass, when my dad noticed her limping a bit, and one day when she wouldn't stop hacking and horking all over the floor and I wanted to make sure it wasn't anything serious! Things are looking good!

I think that's about it for now. Hopefully I'm not forgetting a whole bunch of things. Oh well, if I am, it makes for another post. Hope you guys enjoy this stuff.

Young Canada Works...to Be Confusing and Say the Same Thing in As Many Ways As Possible.

I always knew that anything to do with the government was full of redundancies and other unnecessary crap. But I had the point driven home this week.

I decided to join this Young Canada Works thing and see about finding an internship through there. I was filling out their 12-step aplication and it was making sense, until it got to the place where I was supposed to list my qualifications. This was the list of qualifications that I was supposed to look through, select 3 that I felt needed work and 5 that I was good at. I'll comment in between *'s.

Adaptable
Analyzing
Assertive/Persuasive
Assessing/Evaluating
Coordinating
Conceptualizing
Creative /Innovative
Decision Making
Dynamic
*what the hell does that even mean?*
Flexible
*isn't that being adaptable?*
Goal-Oriented
*wouldn't that be part of coordinating?*
Initiating
Interpersonal Skills
Interpretative Skills
*wouldn't that be called analyzing?*
Leadership
*wouldn't that fall under initiating? You can't very well lead without initiating something, and if you're initiating something, aren't you, um, leading?*
Learning
Listening
        *um, isn't listening part of interpersonal skills?* 
Negotiating
*I would assume that you wouldn't make a very good negotiator if you weren't assertive or persuasive.*
Observant
Organized
Planning
*um, planning? coordinating? Goal-oriented? Aren't they pretty much the same thing?*
Problem Solving
Public Speaking
Reading
Resourceful
*I guess it's a little bit different than being adaptable, but aren't they kind of in the same camp?*
Self-Motivating
Service-Oriented
Supervising
Teamwork
Time Management
*isn't that part of being organized?*
Understanding
*if interpersonal skills aren't listening and understanding, then what are they?*
Writing Skills
Other  

Ug. And I was supposed to pick 3 that I felt needed work and pick five that I believed to be my strengths. When there's so much repetition and overlap, how do you do that?

It asked you to talk about all kinds of things that I never thought belonged on a resume. It asked to talk about your intrests, achievements, leisure and travel! I understand the first two, but leisure and travel? What boss is going to care about the trips you took with your family?

Then, at the end, when I got to the employment equity section, I got another surprise. Having a disability wasn't on the list of minority groups of which you could be a member. I didn't know how to feel about that. I don't want a pity job, but I don't want an employer to run away screaming once they find out I'm blind, which some do. I was surprised that in a government program, that wasn't even mentioned.

All I could think was, yup, you can tell this was put together by the government. There's all kinds of extra stuff you don't need, and not enough of the stuff you do need.

Pencil Sharpeners Don't Kill People, Idiots With Pencil Sharpeners Kill People

Some days I find myself thinking that we really ought to just wipe the world clean and start over. After seeing
this,
it's safe to say that today is definitely one of them.

First it was the shatterproof ruler. Then came the compass with a soft point.

Now one of the UK's biggest stationery manufacturers is redesigning the pencil sharpener to stop it being used as a weapon.

Helix is producing a tamper-proof version of the trusty sharpener, which has been employed by generations of schoolchildren, after complaints from teachers.

Schools have reported incidents in which pupils unscrew blades and use them to attack classmates. Some head teachers have been forced to ban them altogether.

In an announcement yesterday, Helix, which sells two million sharpeners a year, said it was redesigning its products to allay fears over their safety. The new sharpeners will have a special screw head which the company claims, cannot be removed, even with a screwdriver.

A primary school in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancs, has banned sharpeners after a pupil slashed another child's neck and a Derby junior school imposed a ban after children were found stamping on them to remove blades.

With All Due Respect...

I thought this was hillarious, especially the end. Edit: Sorry for the bad link, it was good, and then it went bad. Now, it will never go bad again...unless something weird happens to the Onion. Anyway...
It made me think of that time Steve respectfully invited people to suck a dick. Enjoy.

A Question for The Wrestling Fans

Am I the only one who thinks that Monday's WWE draft lottery is totally useless and a complete waste of time? I must be, considering how excited people are getting about it. All of the analysis and argument I'm seeing and hearing over who should go where and why is driving me friggin nuts. Change this, revitalize that, freshen up storylines there, create new feuds here, just shut up already! And by shut up I don't mean stop talking about wrestling, I only mean save your thought energy for things that actually mean something.

Like I said up top, the draft is pointless. If you don't believe me, you need to go back and watch pretty much every WWE show from at least the end of 2006 until now, and especially everything from the Royal Rumble on, and then you need to answer a few questions. Questions like how many times have we seen someone from one brand show up on another for no good reason and then just stay there? Or why are there no single brand PPV's anymore if everything is supposed to be separate? Or how many times have guys from one brand come out on another's show and cut a promo or wrestled a match like it's no big thing, and how many times have the announcers treated it the same way, not even caring that some Raw guy is taking up valuable Smackdown TV time? And then there's the biggest question of all. If the wrestlers and announcers and management don't respect the boundaries of the brand extension, why should we?

In a world where until last Monday we had tag champions who were singles wrestlers on separate shows and where ECW pay-per-view angles are the most prominent thing on RAW, what good is a draft going to do for anything? WWE has done nothing but repeatedly pound into our heads that the brand extension doesn't mean a thing, so why should we care that they're messing with it? The only thing the draft is going to change the face of is the WWE.com roster page. Everything else is going to remain largely unchanged. Sure we might get some different match combinations, but we would have gotten those anyway without the 3-hour ratings grab disguised as a major event. You can't expect me to believe that without a lottery we'd never have the chance to see Jeff Hardy against CM Punk or Randy Orton in a feud with Jimmy Wang Yang. Anything you think the draft might make possible is already possible now. this isn't a real brand split like WWF and WCW was. What we have now are 3 shows produced by one company that tend to feature different guys from week to week, but whenever they want it to, that can change just because they said so.

So while everybody else is on the edge of their seats Monday night waiting to see who the next pick will be, I'll be watching Raw like it's any other show, and bracing myself for the hundreds of angry columnists and feedback contributors who'll be putting out articles in the next few weeks about how not much has really changed and how WWE sucks for the same reasons it's been sucking for years now.

Feel free to disagree and to take a shot at selling me on how great this is going to be, but I'm afraid you've got an uphill climb and it's all WWE's fault. I want to catch a great big case of draft fever and look forward to Monday night like I did when I was young, but when something is designed to be so obviously meaningless, I have no choice but to treat it that way.

Ok, I Think I've Just Officially Heard It All

this
is one of the most ridiculous explanations I've heard for anything in the entire history of ever.

A Rochester man who said his poor eyesight caused him to molest his girlfriend’s prepubescent daughter was ordered to prison today.

Monroe County Court Judge Frank P. Geraci Jr. sentenced Eric Kennedy, 38, to 12 years behind bars for repeated sexual contact with the girl from February 2001 through August 2004.

Kennedy was arrested last year after the girl, now 13, reported the abuse.

While being interviewed by police, Kennedy blamed the girl, saying she placed his hand on her body.

He also said he had poor eyesight that might have caused him to mistake the girl for her mother, with whom he was living.

I can safely say that not many people in the world have worse eyesight than I do, and in the nearly 30 years I've been around, even being as dumb as I am sometimes I've never managed to molest somebody by accident. I'm not sure who this goof thought he was going to fool with that one, but thankfully it turned out to be nobody. I hope they tack a few extra years to the end of his prison sentence just for being a humongous fucking idiot.

Today's Stupid Joke That Made Me Giggle Like A Moron

With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person, a death which almost went unnoticed last week.

Larry LaPrise, the man who wrote "The Hokey Pokey", died peacefully at the age of 93.

The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in, and then the trouble started...

Come On Baby Light My Face

Here's another one for the hahahaha! files.

A man broke into a convenience store, grabbed some lottery tickets, and set the place ablaze. But while he was spraying the surveillance camera, he set fire to his face. The camera survived and got a pretty good shot of our friend. By some strange feat, he still managed to get away, but now hospitals are on the lookout for a man with burns to his face, neck and possibly wrists.

I guess there have been a string of this style of burglary and destruction recently, so once they catch him, he may have quite a few charges to answer for. I'm sure they'll find him soon. I think he'll have a burning need for medical help.

Home Depot: You Can Steal It, We Can Watch.

I always thought that if you were caught stealing in a store, security guards and employees would chase you down, or you would start beeping and a voice would start saying that apparently the nice person at the counter failed to remove the tag from your stuff that you must have bought, you law-abiding citizen you. Either way, you weren't supposed to make it far before you were caught and the store got their stuff back.

But apparently, at Home Depot, there's a policy that says employees are not allowed to chase you down, or even call the police if you shoplift there. Huh? I gotta remember that's the place to go for some free building supplies.

Not only are they not supposed to chase you down, if someone does decide to call the police or help them catch you, they may get fired.

Is this some kind of evil parallel universe? What the hell? Is this to prevent criminals from suing the store for being roughed up while trying to steal stuff? But why can't they even call police? Apparently, they're supposed to ask the shoplifter for a receipt and then tell them to have a good day!

Have we lost our minds? Someone explain to me how this makes sense.

Today's Unintentional Hilarity

A man is suing the makers of the Boost Plus energy drink because he says it gave him an erection that wouldn't go away, eventually requiring him to have surgery to bring it down. the name of this poor fellow?
Christopher Woods.

I don't think any more needs to be said, and even if it did, you probably wouldn't be able to hear me over the laughter anyway.

Stuck In The Middle Of You

The thing that makes
this story
stand out to me isn't the whole people believing that there are witchdoctors who can make adulterers stick together thing, but rather that in the midst of the chaos that ensued when seemingly an entire village started thinking that it had happened and wanted to see it, the police got tired and decided to go home. Yes home, in the middle of a riot. You'd think that considering the situation they might have at least *thought* about calling in the night shift, but apparently not. The only reason they didn't wind up knocking off for the evening was somebody's wise decision to go back and investigate where the shooting was coming from. Good call, and it's nice to know that at least somebody on the force has a bit of brain power going on.

I'm trying to imagine, even taking into consideration some of the stupid police stories that come from these parts, something like this ever happening here. I mean what must that conversation have sounded like?

"Wow, this is some riot eh?"

"Yeah, sure is huge."

"So you know what time it is?"

"It's about 7:30."

"Sweet, shift's over!"

"Yeah, I guess it is. Cool shit!"

"So you wanna head out for a beer?"

"I dunno, maybe we should stick around and see how this all plays out."

"Oh come on, we're union, and you know how cheap management is. They aren't gonna give us our double time and a half let alone our danger pay, so screw 'em."

"Fair enough, but are they calling guys in to take over?"

"What do I look like, the boss? Let's just get out of here."

"Ok fine. Say, I hope they've got the news on down at the pub, I wanna see if we got on TV."

Seriously, read the story and try to substitute what's going on with something like the L.A riots, and then try to imagine what would have happened if the entire LAPD decided they were getting sleepy and that things would sort themselves and all would be well come morning.

Yes, I know I think too much, but if something's funny it's funny, and I can't get this damn visual out of my head now.

Imagine a Phone That Talks

Yea! This is pretty sweet! Singular started doing this in the states, so I was waiting for Bell or Rogers to follow, and now Rogers has.

Rogers is now selling the Nokia 6682RVI with Talks software! I hear you now. And this means exactly what? Talks software has been around for a while. You install it on the phone and it will read the menus, caller ID, all things on the screen, audibly. So suddenly, all those cool and wacky features of a cell phone are opened up and made available to people who can't read that print on the cell phone screen. This software, on its own, costs about $300 U.S. and then you had to buy the phone. So as keen as I was on having this stuff, it was out of my price range.

But now, rogers is selling a phone bundled with the software for $200 if you sign a 3-year term! Yea! Guess who's asking some hard questions about whether or not they can upgrade their phone? *grins from ear to ear* I'm such a geek.

I just thought others might be interested, so there it is.

Spank You Very Much

Ug. I know there are many and varied things on the internet, some of which are pretty nasty. but this looks like it belongs in a time when there was no internet, in a time when we rode on horseback, held town meetin's, and if someone got hurt, you had to ride to the next town to fetch the doctor. It does not belong here and now.

Here's a message to all women. If you find your husband surfing this site, unless he has a damn good explanation and you believe him, file for divorce immediately and run far, far away. Run fast and run far.

Here's reason 1. It's called "the Christian Domestic Discipline store."
Here's reason 2. At the top of each page are written the following words: Loving wife spanking in a Christian Marriage.

No, we're not talking about the folks who enjoy a little spanking during sex. We're talking about spanking for punishment. They wrote a book, and here is the table of contents:

• What is Christian Domestic Discipline?


• Advantages of Christian Domestic Discipline


• Introducing CDD to Your spouse


• When You Should Use Caution

and here's where I start to get disturbed.

• Setting Up a CDD Marriage


• Types of Spankings

You guys put way too much thought into this spanking thing.

• Common Alternative Punishments

like what? I'm scared.

• Common Implements

implements? I beg your pardon? What do you people have in mind? When I think implements, I think heavy equipment.

• Common Spanking Positions

Jesus Christ! And I don't mean that in theChristian sort of way!

• Spanking for Punishment

According to these assholes, I didn't think there was any other kind.

• How Much is Enough?

What? These people have to rein people in? I get the feeling these guys would rather beat their wives.

• Emotional Stages of a Spanking

For me, there would be one. What the hell was that? You just hit me! I'm leaving! Well, maybe you could divide that into 3. One for each sentence. Now that I think about it, there might be a fourth, in which I wondered how in hell I didn't realize I married a Chauvinist pig. I'm thinking about this too much. Let's move along.

• Uncooperative Wife

You'll find a lot of those in this day and age. Women don't accept being beaten much anymore. Well, sadly, some still do, but they're not the majority.

• Avoid At All Costs

I'm afraid to read that section.

• Bruising/Marks

What is this section? Is this the part where the husband tells the wife how she's supposed to explain them? I feel some rage suddenly.

• Aftercare

Can my jaw drop any further? How hard are they advocating hitting someone that they would need aftercare?

• Making Love

What is this? Make-up sex?

• Glossary

How many terms do you need? Or are they nice words to put on domestic violence?

• Appendix A: Introducing CDD to Husband

This section is likely rarely used. Can you imagine a woman asking her husband to treat her like shit? Come on.

• Appendix B: Introducing CDD to Wife

That section would be interesting to read. What kind of shit can we shovel?

Someone over at Boing Boing got an inside look at this book. This is an excerpt they posted.

Biblically, a man’s right to chastise and discipline his wife is strongly implied. Just as a parent would never stop to ask permission to chastise his child, a husband should not have to obtain consent to discipline his wife; however, our legal system has put him in the position of having to do so. Just as our culture is turned upside down in so many other things, the traditional Christian marriage is no exception.

It is worth mentioning that even Biblically, it is best if the wife submits willingly rather than being forced to obey her husband, and in giving honor to his wife as the weaker vessel, it is good that the husband listen to her thoughts and opinions and try to incorporate them into their lives so that she will be content. In that sense, this discussion of CDD and all it entails is Biblically sound.

Where do I begin? Right to chastize his wife? Where's the woman's right to chastize her husband? Our legal system has put him in the position...? Oh the poor guy, having to treat his wife as an equal. The world is going to end. It's suggested that maybe it's a good idea that the wife goes along with stuff willingly and it would be nice if the husband consider her thoughts...but that that's only a suggestion? What kind of marriage is this? Are they next going to recommend that the wife be considered a chattel? Weaker vessel? Words fail me. I just know some of us weaker vessels could kick some men's asses.

Here's a scary thought. Which gender does the name Leah conjure for you? For me,it's female. Since that 64 pages of horror was written by Leah Kelley, I can only assume that a woman wrote it!

This site also sells two products to help with "aftercare", a bunch of romances involving spanking, some "delicate clothing for the lady of the house," and that's about it.

Why did I look at that site? I think it's more disturbing than any porn you'll ever see. Well maybe not child porn, but you know what I mean.

Tease Someone About Their Religion = Good, Call Someone or Something Gay = Bad. Got It.

Here's another one for the we're so stupid files.

It goes like this. Teen is made fun of for her Mormon beliefs. Teen gets mad and says "that's so gay." Teen is disciplined. NO action is taken towards the people teasing her. Parents sue school to have reprimand removed from teen's report, and judge stands by school's position on the issue, saying that it's a normal part of growing up to be taunted by uncaring bullies. I shake my head and look perplexed.

I know that people don't like the term "that's so gay" and I understand why, in principal. But first of all, anyone with a functioning brain should know that in order for something to be considered hate speech, it has to be looked at on a case by case basis, and I don't think this would be a situation that would warrant a written reprimand and formal discipline. Why not use that on stuff that actually, ya know, needs it?

Second, let's be fair. If you're going to reprimand one person for their use of bad words, discipline the ones who were bullying her, and give them more of a punishment because they had been taunting her for a while before she spoke those horrible three words.

Schools really seem to suck nowadays. I'm glad I made it out when I did.

He's a Sad Panda

Man, we're dumb. I sometimes wonder why we do studies, because we never learn from them.

China is trying to replenish the giant panda population. So their plan is to breed a panda in captivity, give it 3 years of survival and defense training and then release it. They did, and released Xiang Xiang. Because his defensive training was pretty weak, some biting and howling, and they may have released him too close to another male panda's territory, he was attacked by some wild pandas and died less than a year later. He was actually attacked twice during the year, and one of those times, people at the facility that released him came, rescued him, patched him up and rereleased him. They think that other males viewed him as a threat. I guess he wasn't much of one.

Ok, I appreciate that the pandas' numbers are low. But haven't we learned already that things raised in captivity don't have a chance in hell when you release them into the wild? I remember when I took the psych rat class, they told us that no matter what we may think, if we release the rat into the wild, it won't survive. It won't know how to fight, and it will wait for food. I know the panda at least was taught how to find food and how to make shelter, but I think humans teaching a panda something is different than being taught by another panda, I.E. its mother. It doesn't understand that it's going to be released some day. It just thinks that today's session of how to build a den and how to howl at Chinese dude over there is just another game. It doesn't know what it faces in the wild. It probably thinks that any other animal is its friend!

Now they're saying they should have taught it how to fight. Gee, ya think? It's going out into the *wild*! They think they should have released a female because she would have been more easily accepted into the wild panda population. They also think they shouldn't have released him so close to another male's territory. Did they do any research at all? I know I wouldn't have had a clue about raising pandas, but I would have at least thought that releasing a friendly, practically tame panda with a collar next to a wild one might not be the greatest idea.

And is raising pandas in captivity and releasing them into the wild really smart anyway? What would be smarter, although I doubt it would work, would be to capture a couple of wild pandas, keep them until they breed and release them. Then the baby learns how to survive from its own mother. But sadly, the pandas would probably lose the will to live before they made babies. When will we learn that we can't shape the future of another species? We just can't. We can screw up the future of another species, but we can't save it. It's a sad fact, but I think it's a fact.

My email Crashed My Car!

Ok, I don't know how to feel about this story that Jen sent me. I feel like it's a good idea, a bad idea and a really bad idea all at once. Let me try and explain.

Voice on the Go Inc. has come up with a system which people can use to check their email by phone. This, in itself, is cool. I have occasionally found myself thinking "Gee, I wish I could quickly check my email and zap the junk or see if Person X emailed me. But I can't, I'm on a greyhound bus. It would be cool to check it by phone." But it's probably something I only wished for because, at that moment, I couldn't check my email and felt I wanted to for some reason. I don't know if I'd actually pay for the service though. But it might be a cool thing for someone who couldn't use a computer for some reason or another.

The next second, I'm slapping myself, laughing at myself for wanting to be that connected all the time, and thinking about all those people with BlackBerries. Ug. Can't people leave their email where it belongs? Maybe this is a bad idea.

And here's where it falls into the really bad idea category. One of its selling points, according to Voice on the Go, is its ability for someone to safely dial in and check his email by phone, while driving! Nonononononononono! If you're driving, you shouldn't be doing anything else that requires a lot of concentration. End of story. Whether or not you're looking at a screen is irrelivant. You're thinking about your lunch with Bob, reading Sue's funny poem, and composing a message to your boss. You're not thinking about whether the light is green or red, fully paying attention to that kid that just ran in front of your car.

What is with people's need to multitask while driving? Driving is supposed to take the majority of your focus. I'm waiting for the first email sent from one of these things that reads:

"Hey Bob. Lunch sounds...hey! Don't cut me off! Good. Where would be good too...meeep meep watch where you're going! go? Do you like Chinese food? I like this little place called erherherher smash clang clang clang honk...call 911!"

I wonder how long Bob would be wondering if that was the weirdest name for a Chinese restaurant known to man?

Don't get me wrong, I think this thing has cool applications. I'm just not sure if one of them should be driving around reading email.