Total Nonstop Awful

I just saw the stupidest thing I've ever seen on a TNA program, and as anybody who watches that train wreck from week to week knows, that statement
covers an awful lot of ground.
This might be old news to some of you, but I'm a couple weeks behind on my Impact watching so I didn't get to see it until right now.

I'll try to describe this as best I can. Junior Fatu is cutting a backstage promo about his upcoming Fight For The Right tournament match against Robert Roode. It's a good thing I know what the tournament is called, because Junior cared so much about it that he referred to it as something along the lines of the Right Fight For, Uh Fight To Right. That's not a quote, but it's pretty close. And if that wasn't bad enough, he stumbles over his words a little more, stops for a second, looks to the interviewer and says "What's that jobroni's name?" To her credit, she recovers well for somebody who hasn't been around wrestling that long and plugs the match again to remind him of what he's supposed to be talking about. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to help, as seconds later poor old Junior loses it again and says that next week he's going to beat "Rick Rude or Robert Roode or whatever his name is" and go on to face whoever is the champion.

Let's run down all of the reasons why this was completely retarded and never should have aired.

• Rick Rude has been dead since 1999.


• Not knowing the name of the tournament makes you look like an idiot.


• Not caring what the name of the tournament is makes the company and the title look even worse than you do.


• Not knowing or caring to get the name of your oponent right makes him look like a geek, which is bad at the best of times but made even worse because the company is actually trying to push the guy.


• If you don't care who you're fighting or why you're fighting him, why should I?

But most of all, this never should have made it to TV because...

• The fucking show is taped! Yeah, I said taped! And not only is it taped, it's taped days in advance! There is absolutely no reason why they couldn't have shot it over again. And even if there was, there's definitely no reason why somebody couldn't have looked at it, decided it was not at all what they were looking for and cut it from the broadcast. Maybe it would have been different if The Rock had cut the promo or if it was done in a less bumbling fashion by a heel, but as it is, it accomplished nothing aside from making Robert Roode, Junior Fatu and TNA all come across as bush league which should not be happening when the goal is to build an audience and draw money. Whoever green lit this abortion should be fired, along with whoever's call it is to cut away from major events like victory celebrations where the crowd is going insane so we can cram in another interview segment.

Between this and some of the other illogical dreck they've pulled out of their asses since, they've likely pissed away most of the good will and positive press they got from their Bound For Glory pay-per-view, and that's a shame because that show was good and the praise was deserved. With all of the talent they have, there's no reason why this company shouldn't be lighting the world on fire. Unfortunately though, because of the utter incompetence of the writing team, the only fire they're responsible for is the stuff that comes out of my ears every week when I watch Impact. I hope that management catches on and fixes the problem before it's too late, but given their track record, I'm not holding my breath.

Yea! New Cover Letters!

A new batch of
Cover Letters From Hell
has found its way online, complete with misspelled words, hideous grammar, and my personal favourite, the guy who not only took the time to create a table detailing his likes and dislikes, but also decided to show off his comedic writing skills by making jokes about pictures on Facebook.

Have Fun.

I Want To Ride It Where I Like

I had no idea this was a crime and haven't the foggiest clue why anyone would do it, but a UK man has been registered as a sex offender after being caught
fucking a bike.

Robert Stewart earned himself a hearing at Ayr Sheriff Court following the incident last October when two "extremely shocked" cleaners at local Aberley House Hostel discovered him getting down and dirty with the bike.

Depute fiscal Gail Davidson told the court: "They knocked on the door several times and there was no reply. They used a master key to unlock the door and they then observed the accused wearing only a white T-shirt, naked from the waist down. The accused was holding the bike and moving his hips back and forth as if to simulate sex."

The cleaners duly alerted the hostel's manager, who called in the police.

Stewart on Wednesday admitted to sexual breach of the peace, and was placed on the sex offenders' register. Sentencing was deferred until next month.

Maybe next time he'll use the do not disturb sign.

Cancakes

Society's quest to cram everything imaginable into a time-saving box has taken another step forward with the release of the
Batter Blaster.
Yes, pancakes in a spray can. Add some
pre-cracked eggs in a milk carton,
and you've got yourself a true breakfast of champions.

I'm not sure what's more distressing, the idea of spraying an aerosol can over a hot griddle or the fact that this stuff has somehow been certified organic by the
USDA.

May I See Your Burner's Permit?

I know we tend to rag on Britain a lot around here, but think for a few minutes about the idea of
charging people £200 a year for a smoking permit,
and then try telling me that you honestly don't think they deserve it.

I doubt this idea is going anywhere considering that the brains behind it are the ones pointing out at least some of the flaws in it, but still, this is proof positive that there is not one single aspect of human existence that the British government will not attempt to regulate in some form.

The War Of The Moral Compass And the Golden Compass

Why does this thing I read in Snopes demand to be put up? It doesn't surprise me, not in the least, but every time the logical part of me says it doesn't need to be talked about, another part of me screams that it does.

There's apparently a movie coming out in December called the Golden Compass, and a bunch of religious folk are sending up in arms emails about it, telling their fellow Christians to boycott the movie. Bla bla bla. They say the book on which it is based is written by Phillip Pullman, an English writer who is an atheist, can't stand C. S. Lewis's Narnia books and wants to write a rebuttal. For this, they say that no good Christian should watch it. But here's why something in me screams that I have to blog about this whole campaign. They say the reason no one with any religious belief in them should watch the movie is because people may like the movie, which is watered down, and then go buy the book on which it is based for their kids for Christmas, selling Atheism and dooming the kids to want to kill god.

How is what Pullman is doing any different than sending the kids to Sunday school, forcing the bible on them, simplifying things to the point that they will understand it in the way you want, thus getting them to believe in it? I think if you're going to make your kids read the bible, at least let them read the other side.

And this really speaks to how stupid the religious higher-ups think their "sheep" are. Well, they do call them sheep, after all. They think reading one book is going to turn them from being pro-God zombies to anti-God zombies. Come on, guys. It's a book. It's designed to make them think. Oh yeah, that's bad too in the eyes of religion. See what I mean about this whole thing being not that big of a surprise? Oh well, it's written down. Now that other part of me can stop screaming.

Driveways and Playgrounds, And...Bears? Oh my!

Hmmm. When bears pee in your driveway and play on your backyard play equipment designed for your three and four-year-old sons, maybe it's time to move.

Fahrenheit 198451

Here's some advice. Just don't go to Britain. Don't even go near it, and if you're there, get out, if you can that is. Why? Cops want to increase surveillance to the point that if you even go in a direction that might suggest that you might be up to something, they will chase you down.

Apparently, all the CCTV's aren't good enough. So now, they want to centralize their data, make them good enough for face-recognition, and recognize patterns and start tracking the person who apparently fits the pattern. Are they going to get out the mechanical firehouse hounds of Fahrenheit 451?

And if you're a kid in a British school, you might be RFID tagged like warehouse inventory. Isn't that special?

I hope that the servers being used to store all this potential data die from overload before they can really use all this. IT's too much!

Spineless Robber May Have Less Of A Spine Now

Wow. I'm sure the robber in this story wasn't expecting to be shot in the neck by a 75-year-old blind man. I'm wondering if the shooter was Carey McWilliams' grandfather. I guess that blind man was a good shot. The shootee is in serious condition with a bullet lodged close to his spine and they don't know whether they should take it out or leave it in. Well, that'll teach him to mess with an old man, that's for sure. I still can't believe the shooter was able to walk into another room, grab his gun, come back, threaten the dude, and shoot him. The robber really underestimated his opponent. Bad, bad mistake.

More Parental Disasters

I wouldn't bother writing about this particular loser, except I know I've ranted about the number of crappy parents out there before.

He was driving drunk, in the wrong direction down a busy highway, with some open booze, in an uninsured car with an invalid license plate...oh, and his two-year-old daughter just hangin' out in the back seat with no seatbelt or anything on. *Collapses in a heap.*

Travelodge: A Good Naked Sleepwalk Isn't Far Away

Ok, sleepwalking must be on the extreme upswing, and wearing pyjamas must have gone out of fashion, because in the UK, Travelodge staff have been trained to deal with naked sleepwalkers. What I find the weirdest about this whole thing is sleepwalkers don't just sleepwalk, they come out into the lobby asking for newspapers or wanting to chekc out. I think the most I managed to utter the one time I sleepwalked was something about Steve being a sneaky devil. I certainly had no idea where I was going, and managed to almost collide with my filing cabinet. I wouldn't have made it to the hotel lobby. How do these folks get all the way to reception and manage whole sentences? And why are there so many? And why are they all naked?

Glad They're Thinking Ahead

Preemptive Memorial Honors Future Victims Of Imminent Dam Disaster

Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest

Wow. This is just stupid. Not a single person in this story looks smart. Not a one.

Lets' begin, well, at the beginning. It all started in the town of Swanville, Maine, when an 18-year-old woman decided that the only way to get rid of those bastard fleas would be to shave the cat. Appalled by this, her brother tried to stop her. What did he do? He tried to cut the chord that led from clippers to electricity. He didn't try to unplug the clippers. No no no. Get a knife and hack the chord was his solution. Luckily for all involved, he failed, only succeeding in cutting himself, because she kicked him. He supposedly retaliated by choking her and pushing her down. She called 911 and said he hit her, and they're looking for him through the woods, even with dogs!

Oh come on. Deploying tracking dogs for a scrap between siblings that she started? Give me a fucking break. I'm sure he'll come home at some point and they can talk to him then.

My oh my, don't visit Swanville, Maine. Your IQ might suffer for it.

Now That's A Lucky Boy

Picture this. A three-year-old kid somehow gets out of his apartment at 3 a.m. and wanders into the street wearing only a diaper. It's cold out. He ends up on a traffic island. He gets rescued by a sex-offender who was convicted of assaulting a four-year-old boy, and he is returned, unharmed, to his home.

That kid is one very, very, very lucky kid. Those parents seem a little slow, and are apparently facing child neglect charges. But holy crap that kid is lucky. Hopefully, he never gets loose again. He might not be so lucky next time.

These People Aren't Smokin' In The Brains Department

Most of this article was pretty uninteresting. It said that a lot of women in West Virginia smoke while pregnant. Apparently these women just don't know it's bad, and campaigns to bring them up to date on this just aren't working. Other women are suffering from depression, so that wouldn't be a really easy time to quit either. But there is actually a pocket of women who say they smoke while pregnant so their babies will be smaller and delivery will be easier.

Can I strangle these women? I hope they're ready for the lifetime of consequences this could creat for them. Wow. that's all I can say.

Hey Hidey Ho, Where’d The Old Lobster Go?

This has to be a setup. Somebody really wanted these lobsters to run wild and free. They had to have.

In the middle of the night in Stuttgart, Germany, dozens of lobsters who were going to be sold to people to be made into a nice dish made an escape from an Asian supermarket. This is what they had to do to get away.

1. crawl out of their poorly secured crates.
2. squeeze through the shutters at the front of the store.
3. Slip out the front door, which had been left open by mistake!

Ok, I can understand the crates not being secured properly, maybe someone didn't put the mesh on right, but who leaves the front doors of stores open by mistake?

Police were called when people noticed the lobsters running down the street, and they have been scooped up and sent to "an animal home" whatever that is. So maybe they won't be dinner after all.

Weird. I can't imagine looking out my window and seeing a bunch of lobsters scurrying down the street. That would be...hmmm...fishy? Yeah, that's it.

The Bad Idea Graveyard Is Expanding

Let's visit the graveyard of bad ideas again. If you look to your left, you'll see the don't touch me cell phone program, and...oh! What have we here? There's a new resident! Strangely enough, its creators are also from Japan. It is the portable zebra Crossing crosswalk mat. I'm laughing too hard to speak. So this is their description.

* The Pedestrian's Best Friend

The tyranny of the automobile makes life increasingly tough for ecoconscious pedestrians, and finding a safe place to cross can result in inconvenient diversions and wasted time. Now the pedestrian can fight back. When you've found the crossing point that best suits you, simply roll out the the Portable Zebra Crossing in front of you and cross confidently and in safety at your own pace. Warning: on busy roads where there is no break in the oncoming traffic, attempting to roll out the Portable Zebra Crossing can be hazardous.

And these folks are actually asking for money for this. I assume there is no risk-free trial period, and they'll want their money *before*their customers try this ingenius little plan for the first time.

Those Pants Must Have Really Meant A Lot To Him

All I can say is, good!

I don't think we blogged about this anywhere, but I'm sure everyone has heard about Roy Pearson, Jr. the idiot who sued the dry-cleaners to the tune of $54000000 for supposedly losing his pants, and even though they said they found them, he said they weren't his, and on and on it goes. Well, because of all the bullshit he's caused, including causing them to close that particular shop, he may not be able to keep his judge's job. Good! There is some justice in this world.

Shall We Head To The Graveyard Of Bad Ideas?

I need somebody to explain this
Anti-Groping Appli
thing to me, because I'm just not getting it.

Snip from the article, which is trying but failing:

The application flashes increasingly threatening messages in bold print on the phone's screen to show to the offender: "Excuse me, did you just grope me?" "Groping is a crime," and finally, "Shall we head to the police?"

Users press an "Anger" icon in the program to progress to the next threat. A warning chime accompanies the messages.

The application, which can be downloaded for free on web-enabled phones, is for women who want to scare away perverts with minimum hassle and without attracting attention, according to Takahashi's website.

Ok. You're being groped on the subway. I say subway because the article specifically says that this system is meant for use on crowded public transit. Anyway, rather than jump, scream or try to nut the guy, your first instinct is to whip out the trusty cellular and poke at icons as if you're playing a videogame? Not to mention that all the while you're having to do your best to ensure that Professor Happy Hands has a clear view of the display. Riiiiight. I know that's exactly what I'd be doing.

Just for fun though, let's pretend for a moment that this is in any way practical and that for whatever reason you wouldn't want to attract attention in case things were to get out of hand. Oh, and for our purposes, we need to assume that the you're grabbing my ass and I'm not enjoying it chime isn't going to cause concern amongst your fellow passengers.

You're riding along on the train when suddenly you feel a hand. Doesn't matter where it is, use your imagination. the important thing is that it's an uninvited hand. Realizing that Father Bad Touch has joined the party, you do what any safety conscious woman would do. So, out comes the phone, and flashbeep go the messages.

Realizing he's been busted, your new friend Bobby Boobtugger wisely figures out that it's time to get out of dodge. Being the nimble fingered miscreant that he is, he makes a break for it...with the cell phone you've been waving at him the whole time. Not wanting to draw attention to the situation however, you say nothing, and off he gets at the next stop, and you're out a phone and some dignity.

Not sure about you, but I'm wondering where I sign up.

I know this is made in Japan where technology is king, but sometimes things happen that all the fancy gadgets in the world aren't going to get you out of. At least they're giving it away for free, because this is definitley one of those times when I'd imagine you'd be getting what you paid for.

Would You Go For A Mygo?

As I write this, I can hear my mother talking in my head. "Don't be so hard on them. Be grateful they're even trying something. Whatever comes out of this will be good." Ah hell. I'm writing this anyway.

Sebastian Ritzler of the Muthesius Academy of Art and Design in Germany has come up with a design for a wacky new cane that he calls Mygo. I'll describe it first, and see if anyone else starts thinking the same way I do. It's a cane with a wheel on the end and motors. Inside it, there is a camera and smart sensor combo that measures ground area and perceives objects there, and I assume some kind of speech synthesizer that sends audio feedback to headphones. It is supposed to be extremely tough, waterproof and height-adjustible. It has six hours of battery life, and is estimated to cost $200. He hopes that it will not only replace canes, but dogs as well.

Ok. Let's break this down point by point. Look at all the technology packed into a stick that the user will slam into hard things repeatedly, some of us at a high rate of speed. It may be in something that thinks it's tough, but may change its mind after a few days at the office. I'm sure it's waterproof, I think they've mastered waterproofing. I'm just worried about the tough part. I have never heard of another piece of technology that you're encouraged to swing around and smack into things. You usually handle technology with care so as not to break it.

And, if it's tough, and filled with gadgetry, how heavy is it? I know it has motors, but are they in it for the same reason Spike, the 200-pound robot, walks back to his docking station to recharge?

Now, where does the audio feedback go? To headphones. What have I said about headphones before? They obscure sound, and inventors of any navigational system being used by the blind should remember that. Think of my ears as your eyes. Would you slap on big crazy video lens-like things over your eyes that would send you special infrared information while driving, even if it meant obscuring your regular vision? How am I supposed to hear traffic and other things around me if this thing is babbling in my ears? Why not use an external speaker you clip to your shirt?

I really like the height-adjustible part. It would be cool to have a one-size fits all cane, that's for sure. What I don't like is the battery life, and the idea of having to recharge my cane. I don't want to leave my house and find out the battery is low on my cane. It's my cane! It's kind of critical! If the battery goes out on a GPS device, that sucks, but you can still navigate. If the battery goes out on this thing, and you're back to using it like a standard cane, and it's heavy, you'll curse it all the way to an electrical outlet. And what kind of batteries does it take? Can you get them anywhere? Or, do you have to send your primary means of navigation in for repairs when the battery finally kicks and you need a replacement?

I guess, for all it does, the price-tag isn't bad. I just find that price a little high for a cane, especially if it has the potential to get damaged. I'm going to use this thing every day, and the risk just seems too much for me to pay that amount.

And we reach the final point, the one that made me want to rip this guy a new one. He thinks his device is going to replace dogs, and canes, "for the few blind people who still use them." Hmmm. This leads me to believe that he got 0 input from the blind community, because although there are a lot of us with dogs, there are still a lot of us with canes! And you can never even dream that your device will *replace* other stuff. It will only provide another option. Maybe somebody doesn't want a dog because he just isn't a dog fan, but he wants to move faster than he does with his cane and thinks this might do it. There are always people who would prefer their cane and people who do the dog thing. It's a bit arrogant of him to think his device is going to take over completely.

I really do appreciate people trying to build new technologies to help us. I'm just sceptical of some of the new creations, and I hope that when someone gets a brilliant idea, they consult blind folks for some practical suggestions. Maybe this Mygo thing will take off like mad. I just can't get excited about it personally.

You're All Gonna Hate Me For This

Q. What goes 'AAAAAAAAAAAAAA'?
A. A sheep with no lips.

Q. What do you call a fish with three eyes?
A. Fiiish.

Sorry, it's just been way too long since I've done that. Besides, somebody said to me the other day that I needed to start posting more jokes again. I hope that man is happy.

Talking about Updating Talks

Ok, I'm about to geek out, so hope I don't bore too many.

Remember back when I said I got a new phone? Well, it came time to update the part that makes it talk, so I was going to figure out how. It was a bit tricky, so I figured I'd save some people the trouble of jumping through hoops.

What you have to do is go to the free trial area of the Nuance Talks site, which is here, and select your phone. Then they put the premium stuff first but if you scroll down, you will find the standard area. Pick the US English eloquence, and the link actually comes before the synthesizer it corresponds to. So, the link above the words "ETI Eloquence" that says Sis files US is the one you want. Yep, I said this was confusing. Or, apparently you can get to the Talks install faster if you go to a section of the Blind Sea site, the one I'm linking to. In case the site changes somehow, the files were under the mobile corner and then second edition third party software. Anyway, my model of phone's version of Talks was there, so anyone who got the same deal as I did, that's where you can go. There is also other cool stuff there, so have a look around.

So, now you have the file. If you're paranoid like me, you'll want to back up your Talks serial number so if something goes horribly amiss, you can put it back in. To do this, on your phone, go to Nuance Talks and zooms and go into the register menu and hit register manually. There, you'll find your phone's IMEI number and the serial for Talks. If you're nuts like me, you'll write them both down.

Ok, nutsitude over. Here comes some fun. Apparently, because of the design of newer phones, you can't install applications on them via the computer. You can put the file on the phone, but you can't go through the install that way. So you have to do it through the phone. And, Talks hasn't mastered the art of making its installers talk, probably due to the fact that the whole thing has to be much smaller. So how much of a clue would I have on how to install the software without any speech? Zip! Nada!

Lucky for me, there is this enormous genius/geek who has somehow managed to memorize the sequence of key presses and has done an audio demonstration. So if you follow his demonstration exactly, you'll be good to go. You can either listen to it, or download the thing. I did choice b so I could pause it when I needed to.

Got your files? Got your Phone? Got your USB cable? Got your nice tutorial? Good. Off we go! Surprisingly, this was the easiest part. First, you have to disable Talks to put the new version in. The site still calls this process using Talx-off, which apparently was an older program you had to download, or something, to disable talks. Now, the option is right there in the Talks menu. Anyway, the result is the same, it's just confusing when you read about this mysterious Talx-off that you've never heard of before and can't find anywhere.

One thing to know is the order of things. You have to install the synthesizer file first, and then the main screen-reader part. I don't know why it goes in that order, but there it is.

All you have to do to move the files to the phone and start the install is hook up the phone to the computer and press enter on the files. The Nokia PC Suite comes up and wants to know what you want done with the files. You move them over to the phone, and it says its work is done and you'll have to continue on the phone. Then, you just follow the man's instructions in that handy dandy tutorial , and in a couple of minutes, you will have nice, updated Talks!

Whew! We're done! Is your head spinning? Hope that wasn't too confusing. I know it took me forever and a day and a few people's help to find all the info I needed. I hope I've made someone's life a little easier by compiling all of it here. Happy updating.

They Crawled Out From Under Their Rock Again!

Wow. Whenever these people show up, my mouth falls open.

Remember the citizens of Herouxville? Well, they're at it again, and they're just as bigoted as before.

Apparently, because of that code of conduct they wrote up back in January, there was a commission convened to study reasonable accommodation of immigrantss, and of course, Herouxville sennt representatives. They tried to say that the Canadian Charter will destroy the country. Hey, newsflash there sparky, I'm pretty sure you have rights in there too. I know you used to like the good old notwithstanding clause, but your rights are in there too. Watch your footing on that slippery slope. Don't take a header off the cliff.

Where everyone else got 15 minutes, the councilors of Herouxville got 35! What I find most disturbing is after they spoke, they actually got a warm ovation! Yuck! Herouxville-itis is spreading!

Praise The Lord!

I'm glad to hear that President Bush
had such a good visit with the Dalai Lama.
Er, actually make that "Dali Lama".

Are We There Yet?

Do you ever find yourself wondering gee, is it Christmas right now? Me neither, but if ever such a thing does happen to you,
you now have an easy way to check.

Now that EatFruit.com seems to be down, this is far and away the new most useless thing on the entire internet. That said, if you think you can top it, let me know. Sorry, links back here don't count, smartasses.

Finally Some Good News

Not-So-Horrible Thing Happens In Iraq

More About Patty Cooper

I just got an email from Patty Cooper. I guess she read my post about her situation with Earl the horse. She says that she didn't ask the landlords to pay for hay or the stall and that the horse can be housebroken. I tried to email her back and tell her that if that's the case, she needs to wring some reporters' necks, but my email bounced. So hope she's still reading.

She gave me the address of her blog so I could follow along. Since a ton of people have been searching for that very blog and landing here, I figured I'd point them in the right direction.

I love it when the subjects of my posts actually pop up and say hello.

Close, but No Cigar

Well, this one's just too close to not go into the fitting names in the news files. There's a doctor who has designed a device to use to see if someone who said they've quit smoking actually has stayed away from the bad stuff, or if they've been sneaking a few ciggies. The doctor's son's name is Ashray! Come on, you can find what letter's missing.

A Crappy Invention

Wow. Here's a new one. I just got emailed a link to the weirdest USB thingamabob I've ever heard of. And, you can't just buy this little gizmo, you have to build it yourself! So what are you building? That would be, drum-roll please, a USB tird!

Tird? Yup, tird. Apparently if you connect enough lights and cables and wires and resisters with the right voltage to a fake tird, which is never really clearly defined, you can have yourself a nice glowing USB tird. Why you would want that, I don't know. But there it is.

Have You Hugged Your Boss Today?

Man this story killed me.

I guess somebody in Taiwan read some psychology books and gathered that military personnel were more likely to be more comfortable if there was an atmosphere of love and camaraderie. So, they decided to manufacture one by ordering the new recruits to hug their squad leaders on a regular basis.

Not surprisingly, it didn't take long before they were getting feedback that the recruits weren't fans of this. How did they put it? It made them feel sick and uneasy?

The funniest part of this whole story was the way the program's creater, Lee Tien-yu (李天羽), reacted to the criticism. He tried to defend it...until a minister in the opposition asked him to hug the Director General of the Political Warfare Bureau. then, everything turned on its head and after stammering that he wasn't that close to him, the policy was brought to a screeching halt.

Damn, some news stories are just too funny.

Which is Worse? Plane Crashes or Confidence Crashes?

Ok, let me get this straight. NASA is commissioned to do a survey about air-travel safety. They survey 24000 pilots over 4 years. they find out that incidents of near collisions and runway interference is much higher than government statistics, so...they decide to withhold the results and purge them?

Apparently, they just don't want us to know because it would undermine the economy. Um, don't we have a right to know? Or, at the very least, doesn't the data need to go to someone who can do something about lowering these horribly high statistics? God, maybe the things that happen on Mayday happen more than we think!

Sing A Song of Synth Clips

We have known about something for years that just has to go up here. Hell, I think we knew about it before there was a vomit comet. Why it wasn't already up here, I don't know, but better late than never, I guess.

There is a site, the owners of which have way too much time on their hands. On the site are mp3's of their creations. They have gone to dictionary.com, with lyrics of songs in hand. When this site was created, you could hit a button after looking up a word and dictionary.com would use synthesized voices to let you hear how it should be pronounced. Apparently, you have to pay for this now, but that's beside the point.

So, the strangely talented makers of this site, who are funny but must be very, very odd, captured all the synthesized representations of all the words to a song, set them to music, and voila! We have dictionaraoke.org!

Um, yep. I don't know what's funnier, Take On Me, or Waterloo. Yeah, these folks are total geeks. Enjoy, if you can stand to listen very long.

There's A Market For More Than One Of These Things?

Rememberr that goofy
USB cented oil burner?
Don't ask me how or why, but I guess the idea must have taken off, because
another company is now competing with the original.

Wacky Word Fact Of The Day

Irregardless, the almost universally hated bit of English that it is, is a real word that is recognized by more than one dictionary. But before you start thinking that all those people who ever called you stupid for using it are the dumb ones, consider that the dictionaries that list it actually
all but tell you not to use it because it's so ridiculous.

I never would have thought in a million years that irregardless was in any way thought of as real vocabulary, but then I saw
this
in my email and figured it had to be some kind of joke. Guess not.

Now That's An Early Start To Drinking

Wow. What's most amazing about this story is that the baby managed to live for 15 minutes even with having a blood alcohol level of 0.17. I can't believe it could even be born alive.

No Thanks, It's Not That Important To Me.

Yikes! Someone has got it into their head that us blinks need braille tattoos. The method? Surgically putting implants under the skin! Ugugugugug! No thanks. I'll pass. Now I have something you can feel on my skin. They're called goose bumps.

Don't Mess With These People

Tajuan Bullock should consider himself a very lucky man. He doesn't, but he should. Why? He robbed a house, and when the owners caught him at it, they made him clean up his mess at gunpoint. They didn't shoot him. they just made him clean it up...and wait for the cops, of course. When the police arrived, the burglar actually had the nerve to complain about how he was treated. Not surprisingly, he didn't get any sympathy.

All I can say is it's a good thing he wasn't in Texas robbing Dennis Baker, or he'd be dead right now.

This Deal Stinks

This is a message to everyone on Facebook. If you have the sudden urge to throw poop at your friends' facebook walls, you might want to think about whether it's worth it.

Here's how the poop throw works. It's apparently part of this thing called Food Fight. In Food Fight, you pay virtual dollars to fling food at people's Facebook walls. How do you get those virtual dollars? You provide them with personal information. Now, guess what they do with that personal information. If you guessed give it out to advertising companies so they can very carefully target ads at *you*, and do who knows what else, you win a prize.

I can hear you now. "Where's the poop?" you say. You need a hell of a lot more virtual dollars to be able to throw a big ol' chunk o dung at Buddy Joe. So, that means giving up more personal information, and perhaps information about Joe who receives the splat bomb.

Here's where I start to get scared. People are doing it! People are willingly handing over mass amounts of private information just so they can fling fake feces. Honestly, folks, does sacrificing personal data for a virtual shit-fling seem like a fair trade? I certainly don't think so.

Fools, all of them. But the advertisers just think it's wonderful. While Seth Goldstein, the one who created this monster, says the thought of what his own creation is capable of makes him cringe, he still lets it continue and says it's by the people for the people. I don't think it makes him cringe too much. It's amazing what money can do.

I hope no one who took part in this launching of Lincoln logs wonders why their personal information ends up who knows where and they get spam messages with their private details in them. They brought this on themselves just so they could be juvenile for one fleeting moment. Smart move. Real smart.

What A Load Of Horse Shit!

Here's one to twist your brain a little. Patty Cooper needs a service animal. She's broken her back twice, um, ouch, and is now in a wheelchair. But the animal she has chosen is a horse!

Ok, I can handle that, sort of. It's a miniature horse, and I've heard of guide horses for the blind, even though that seems a little weird to me. If you read more about it, it does make sense. I just wouldn't want a horse, like some people wouldn't want a dog. But she wants to keep this beast in her apartment! This would be perhaps fine if...

1. she didn't have to have part of her living-room made into a stall.
2. It didn't require hay that she wanted the landlords to provide,
and
3. it didn't pee on the floor and require the landlords to put in pee-proof flooring!

Ok, there comes a point where accommodating a service animal is too much. What does she say she's going to do in this whole deal? It sounds like she's expecting the landlords to do everything. I mean, she's not even getting the hay!

If she wants a horse, one that is going to urinate and defecate all over the inside of an apartment, maybe she shouldn't be in an apartment. If she knew how to properly train her horse, she wouldn't have this issue. the folks at the Guide Horse foundation figured it out. They also said that the horse should have a barn or fensed yard. Maybe she needs to figure out how she can have a place that's more suitable for....a horse!

I know some people are probably thinking that somebody had to pave the way for service dogs to be accepted in buildings that don't allow pets, and I agree. But this isn't paving the way, it's ripping up the foundation. dogs don't pee on the floor and need hay and a stall. They crash out on a blanket and do their duty outside. This is, well, a whole different animal!

Will You Marry Me? For Yes, Press 1. For No, Press 2.

Here's one for the other side of the coin. Now there's a ring box with built-in LCD screen. So, if you're an especially lazy prick, you can pre-record your wedding proposal, and let the fucking box do it for you.

Hopefully, for the sake of the girl, there's a nice sparkling rock in there so she has to at least give it some thought. Aha! I've got it! If you have a girl who goes and gets her own ring and makes you pay for it, propose to her with one of these as revenge!

Give Me A Ring Some Time

Steve sent me an article about four months ago that I keep meaning to write about, but for some reason, the idea of ripping it apart seemed like too daunting a task. So I'm going to try today.

It's articles like this that make me ashamed to be a girl. I guess because it was June and lots of people get married in June, the Guelph Mercury decided to run a story about choosing a wedding ring, and the trends that are going on now.

Apparently, girls aren't happy with the idea of the one they love proposing and getting them a simple wedding ring. No no no. They want a big, sparkling rock so they can play a nice game of "My Ring's Bigger than your ring" with their friends. . It's quotes like

People love a big sparkly ring, especially coming from the person they love most in the world.

that make me sad. How about it's pretty special that the person who you love most in the world wants to get you a ring at all. To sit there and demand glitter for something that's supposed to symbolize love and commitment is pretty shallow. It's special because it's from him.

Here's another priceless gem, ha ha.

It's really in everyone's best interest to make sure the bride gets a ring
she loves. She wears it for many, many, many years. It's not like the dress that you wear for one day.

And what about him? Presumably, he has to wear his for just as long. Doesn't he matter in this whole equation? I get the sense the poor sap doesn't.

The whole thing's become way too much of a fashion extravaganza. The guy is expected to "have done his homework" and figured out what ring she wants by following her little hints or looking at her friends' rings. If the poor soul stumbles onto brides.com, look out! He's going to get asked by all the other brides what her other jewellery looks like, what her "lifestyle" is, ug!

And the girls don't want to be surprised. hell, they want to pick it out! But if they want to pick it out, do they want to pay for it? Nope. That's the man's job. Some even go so far as to buy it, wrap it, hand it to him...and then give him the receipt! Um, pardon? I was fine if the girl wanted to switch roles and surprise him with a ring, but to get your own ring and then tell him what he can pay is, well, just a little over the top for me.

We seem to be missing the point of this whole exercise. Hell, if girls went way back to see the point of this whole exercise, they might not want the sparkling rock after all. But the sanitized, modern point of this whole exercise is to think of the ring as a symbol of how much the love means. It's not about all this superficial shit. Also, people forget that just because someone can go out and find a pretty ring doesn't mean they're a good person. A prick can ask all the right questions and be oozing with cash, and still be a prick. I hope all the girls on their quests for the big, sparkling rock remember that.

Big Brother Is Watching You Eat Lunch

Note to head teachers at schools in England: If China thinks that fingerprinting kids so they can get their lunches is unnecessary, maybe you should too.

What's with the need to use fingerprints to give kids their meals? They say it will help process the kids and not stigmatize them, but they never explain how that's supposed to work. Personally, I'm creeped out.

Nice Going, Ontario!

I figured the voter turnout for last week's election would be low, but
52.7%?!?!?
That's pathetic!

All of you who didn't vote can consider yourselves lucky that those of us who did gave you a government much better than the one you deserve. Hopefully the day never comes when we don't or can't. Maybe then you'd feel stupid for not using your rights, ya jackasses.

Why Would They Run That?

So the other morning I'm sitting around reading
The Merc,
and I notice a mistake. No big deal, newspapers make them all the time. But being the decent citizen that I am, I decide it would be a good idea to email them and let them know just in case nobody else has caught it yet. I dash off a quick message telling them what I found and what's wrong with it, also throwing in a bit about how much I enjoy reading the paper each day. I send it off, figuring that's the end of it until they print the oops message in a day or so.

Jump ahead to Monday morning. I get an email back from the editor asking me if I could send along my telephone number so that they can varify that I wrote what I wrote so it could be used as a letter to the editor. I've written letters to the editor before and this was not supposed to be one of them, but ok, whatever the news man wants, I'll play along. I send off my number, and sure enough, a few minutes later I get a call. Carin talks to them for me because my voice is shot, but they're fine with taking her word that I said what I said. Wow, they actually called I say to myself. I can't believe this. They can't seriously be considering printing that, can they?

The day is now Tuesday, and I manage to gather enough energy to pay attention to things and decide to take a look at the news. and there, in the editorials section, I see this:

Six political candidates were running in Guelph

Dear Editor - In your Oct. 12 editorial, "Assign negativity to the trash heap," you start out by saying, "Sandwiched among the multiplicity of campaign signs with sky-high letters proclaiming the names of the various candidates, motorists and pedestrians could have been forgiven for thinking there was a sixth candidate running in Guelph in the just-ended provincial election."

Unless I've got something horribly wrong, there were six candidates running in the Guelph area. We had Liberal, Progressive Conservative, NDP, Green, Communist and Family Coalition candidates running in our area.

Just thought I'd point that out.

Steve Wettlaufer

Guelph

Yes, they actually put it in. I put correction in the subject line, I didn't send along the information needed to make it a letter, hell, I didn't even start off with Dear Editor. I did everything I could think of to help them save face quietly, and they were having none of it. And to make it even stranger, the only parts of what I wrote that they changed in any way were the ones about them doing a good job. Ok, maybe changed isn't the right word, let's go with purged. Yeah, that's more like it, because that's exactly what happened. Anything complimentary was completely removed, never to be seen or heard by anyone, ever.

I'm sure some of you are reading this and wondering why it is in any way odd or interesting? Well, you'd have to know the Mercury to understand. They always print corrections, but rarely if ever do those corrections come in the form of hey idiot letters. They usually slip quietly into the local news section to be seen once and never again spoken of unless they need to correct the correction, something that has actually happened before. But for some reason unbeknownst to me, this one was different. Granted getting the number of election candidates wrong is a pretty stupid mistake, but why, unless they're really trying to make somebody feel bad or like an idiot, does it need any more play than any other stupid mistake they've ever made? Are they hard up for letters? Is the guy responsible for the letters leaving and in a kind of I don't give a fuck anymore phase? Is there a new employee shaming policy that says errors reaching a certain stupidity threshold must be corrected by sharp-eyed locals who's names will no longer be withheld? And if so, is it only a matter of time until they stop withholding the names of the person responsible for writing the given editorial and the editor who let it slip through? I hope somebody knows, because my flu-ridden brain can't stop wondering about it.

Violated All Over Again

If you get raped in Philadelphia, and your case goes before Teresa Carr Deni, you'd better pray she likes you. Otherwise, she may not take your case seriously at all. If you're a prostitute, regardless of whether the circumstances indicate that what happened was clearly gang rape at gunpoint, she'll just call it armed robbery because you didn't get paid.

The worst part of this was her attitude. The judge had no problem saying "Why waste taxpayers' money for what some people consider an occupational hazard? There are enough sympathetic victims without wasting time on prostitutes who ask for trouble, right?"

It's not about goddamn sympathy. It's about what happened. If these four men did this to her, they will do it to others. Do we want to be all nice and give them a break just because we didn't like the victim?

Yeah, I agree that prostitution is a dangerous job, but rape is rape.

I wish I had more to say, but I'm too mad.

Hammering The Point Home That He's An Asshole.

Here's a story for ya. 57-year-old Jayantibhai Patel was living with his father and caring for him. He was thinking of heading back to India and his father didn't want to move with him. So he thought maybe this would be a good time to put dear old Dad in a nursing home. Unfortunately for dear old Dad, he thought the only way to go into a home was to be in the hospital first. So, he picked up a hammer and clocked dear old dad over the head with it.

To make sure the poor fellow would need medical attention, he waited an hour and a half before calling paramedics! Unfortunately for him, all his dad needed was a couple of stitches, and quite clearly told the ambulance folk that he did not fall, his son hit him over the head with a hammer.

And here's where I start to get baffled. Being appalled at what he did, the judge at his arraignment set bail at $500000, and his dad wants to put up all the equity in his home to post the bail and get him freed! Other relatives are saying he shouldn't be kept in jail. Why the hell not? He hit his dad over the head with a hammer for Christ's sake! I don't care if he didn't intend to kill or seriously injure him. He hit him over the head with a hammer, and then waited forever and a day to get him help, all because he wanted to put him in a home.

And, if you had any decency and thought the best place for your dad was a nursing home, wouldn't you, um, do some research? It wouldn't take you long to realize that you wouldn't have to inflict bodily harm on him in order to find him a nice place to live. And wouldn't you want to choose one, instead of having the hospital put him in some random home?

All I can say is people are weird animals.

How Loud Was She Screaming At Her toilet?

If you live in Scranton, Pa. Next time you want to move to a new place to live, a good question to ask is "How thin are the walls?" Another one would be "are their any prickish cops living near me?" If they're too thin and the answer to question no. 2 is yes, you might want to reconsider moving there. Why? Because if one day, your toilet overflows and you swear at it in frustration, your prickish neighbour cop who is off duty could call the police and have you charged with disorderly conduct. Seriously. This woman could possibly go to jail for three months and have to pay $300 for something she said in the privacy of her own home. Now, if she was screaming and screaming and screaming and it was going on for a prolonged amount of time, I could understand calling in a noise complaint. But does it need to be a charge of disorderly conduct and a possible jail sentence?

Here's the best part. When her prickish neighbour heard her swearing, what did he say through the wall at her? That would be "shut the explitive up." You figure out what the explitive is, I don't want to jump to conclusions, but I'm pretty sure I know what it was. Slap a ticket on him too, then.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

I Bet He's Doing A Dance. Well Maybe Not, But I'm Sure He's Happy Just The Same

It looks like
John Wood
will be
getting his leg back.

As strange as this whole thing was, I'm surprised they didn't wind up working out some sort of joint custody arrangement.

As Long As There Are Rednecks, I'll Always Have Things To Think About

I can't decide what the weirdest thing about this story is. Is it that somebody left his amputated leg in a barbecue, that the barbecue in question somehow made it to auction, that the man who bought it decided that he had a money making venture on his hands, or that the 2 are now fighting over ownership and the leg is living in a funeral home until it ghets sorted out?

Police in Maiden, N.C., said a man found a portion of a leg, including the foot and most of the calf, inside a barbecue smoker that he bought recently at an auction.

Authorities said the leg belongs to John Wood, who once lived in the Maiden area.

But Shannon Whisnant said he wants to keep the leg if Wood isn't willing to pay to get it back. The leg is currently being kept at a funeral home, but Whisnant said he previously charged people to look at the severed leg.

"It's mine, I want it back, I have a receipt," Whisnant said.

Wood wants to get the leg back so he can be buried with it. Wood's mother told police that doctors amputated the leg after a 2004 plane crash in which his father was killed.

Whisnant said that if Wood cared about the leg, it wouldn't have been left behind in the smoker.

Full article
here.

Pedo The Clown

People really seem to be banking on the fact that the collective IQ is going down.

Paul Carlock, who has spent 20 years in law-enforcement and who now works as a clown, came back from the Philippines. Since he said he was visiting an orphanage, and the Philippines is considered a high-risk area for getting child porn, police checked his computer and camera, and what did they find? Lots of pictures of kids naked or clothed but revealing their private parts. His defense? He was going to edit these pictures and show them to his church so they could see that kids were too poor to even have clothes! Riiight! He sorta got busted because one of the pictures that was labeled as edited was only enlarged.

This is about as good as the story about the man who was claiming he was too blind to know who he was fondling, or better still, Monsignor Stenico who, after being caught on tape hitting on a young man, insisted he was only pretending to be gay to understand it better. Yep, uh-huh, sure, whatever.

My Name Is Sue! How Do You Do? Now You're Gonna Die...Of Fright.

Picture this. You're an 88-year-old woman. You need help with basic care. You ask for a female. They send you Sue, who has recently undergone a sex change operation. How would you feel?

People are saying that Sue has to be treated as a woman. Fine, but maybe Sue shouldn't start out bathing old ladies. Maybe she should start by bringing meals, playing cards, doing things that aren't so...personal. Once people get used to her, and realize she is a woman, then she can graduate to giving baths and doing things that involve nakedness. Common sense, people!

Did Dr. Mom Get her Medical License Out Of A Box Of Crackerjacks?

The U.S. has recalled a whole bunch of cough medicines designed for kids under 2. Why? Is it because they have some toxic chemical in them? No. Is it because a study found out some unexpected side-effect happens when kids take them? No. It's because parents don't know what they're doing, so they give their kids an overdose. Seriously. Apparently, parents confuse a tablespoon for a teaspoon, and before they know it, their kid's in the ER.

How stupid are these parents? If they can't measure out medicine and read instructions, then they shouldn't be having kids! Didn't they have to measure stuff to mix formula if they fed their baby formula? How did they manage that?

What does this mean for us? Are products going to be recalled because we might not be able to follow the instructions, so the company might get sued when someone does something stupid? I'm frightened for our future.

Toronto Adventures

Last Thursday, there was a free workshop at the CNIB in Toronto about human rights, disabilities and the workplace. I figured I'm sure there was something I could learn, so off I went. It was a pretty good trip, full of adventures, so I thought I'd write about them. Hope it won't be too boring.

First, Trixie was absolutely awesome. When we got off the bus, she had to walk past pigeons and a hotdog stand. Nothing could distract her. She followed the person helping us get from terminal to terminal without even batting an eye.

I needed to get money at the bank machine because I didn't get a chance to get it the day before, and now I will never, ever, ever, use the bank machine in the departure terminal at the Toronto bus station again. If you aren't lightning fingers, it starts beeping and asking you if you need more time. Plus, there is no dot on the 5 so you can't even have a hope of being somewhat lightning fingers. It's just an indiscriminant pad of buttons. Thanks a lot, bank machine designer.

I eventually had to let some stranger key in my pin because I had been yelled at several times, both by the beeping bank machine and the guy who helped me get there. He insisted that I should just take the subway because they'll help blind people down there. That's great, sparky, but I have never been on it in Toronto, and that thing waits for no one. I don't feel like getting lost on Yonge Street in Toronto, thank you very much. I'll pay to get where I'm going. Anyway, I felt I was holding up everyone, so I let her key in my pin, and wow! I got money! Then she helped me find a cab stand, and then she missed her bus! I felt horrible!

When I first arrived at the cab stand, I got a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. Every single cabby in there was foreign, and sounded like he was from India or there abouts. Now now, before everyone calls me a racist, I have no problem with people from India. But, I have heard a lot of stories about people with guide dogs in Toronto getting refused cab service by cab drivers who are Muslim and don't want the dog in their car for religious reasons. Not all Muslims do this, just some, but it happens a lot. So I was afraid that I was going to have to whip out the access law cards, call the police, do my first hell-raising on denial of access. But nope, I had no reason to fear. The first cab I got to had no problem taking me, and off we went.

The cabby was nice, talking to me about what route he was taking and how he was avoiding all the lights. That part of the trip was pretty uneventful.

Since I got there early so I could give the dog a chance to pee and such,, I spent a bunch of time in the technical aids store they have. A few things made me raise my eyebrows.

First, there was the simplified TV remote for super simple folk, I guess. It only had power, volume up, volume down, channel up, and channel down. Can you imagine how frustrating that would be with digital cable? Just envision the number of presses of channel up you would have to do to get from channel 12 to, oh, say, channel 282. Then, add onto that that it skips past any channels you don't get, so forget counting! The only people who wouldn't want to heave this remote out a window would be my parents with four channels.

As the poor man was showing me everything he had, and watching me make fun of various gadgets that looked ridiculous, he showed me a phone with huge buttons with braille on them. But the braile dots were spread so far apart that they didn't feel like braille to the touch. Maybe, to the eye, they still looked like the symbols they were to resemble, but they didn't feel like them anymore. The 7 looked like an = sign, so much so that I asked him why there was an = on a phone. I had to show him by having him compare the same thing on the braille labeler to the braille on the phone.

They had a talking compass on display, but he said it was broken, to which I just about had a heart attack. Those things are friggin expensive! How did someone break it? And, why why why didn't they have it replaced?

I think the poor tech aids guy was happy to see me go. I don't think anyone has asked him so many questions about all his products. I think most people just sort of walk in there and say "I need a magnifying glass" and leave. But I did get to tell him about my talking cell phone and told him what company is selling it. Maybe, just maybe, I helped him just a little.

Now, on to the workshop! I didn't learn a whole ton, partially because the guy running the workshop only had two hours, and when you cover something like human rights, you're barely scratching the surface when you only have that amount of time. What I did learn was the fellow listeners to this speech were either bitter, sad, dorky, or all of the above. That's not entirely true. There were a couple of cool people. But oh me oh my oh me oh my. One guy would go off on rants and try and turn them into some kind of question. One lady seemed so broken down. I admit that it's hard getting turned down alot, but this just broke my heart. One guy only had a job when the funding was there so the company didn't have to pay him. He seemed like a perfectly smart man. Another recognized his beeping car horn from the meeting (not all of these people were blind) and ran from the room to shut it off. The speaker was a very good, very patient man who put up with all of us throwing him off course with our questions.

At break, everyone wanted to pet Trixie. I decided this was ok, so took off the harness. Instantly, she went wild and frisky. She would run to some people and give them a greting as if they were old friends. But the speaker got no such love, even though he seemed to want it. I don't know what it was about him that she didn't like, but she would not go near him. Poor guy. Or maybe I should take that as a sign that I should be careful of him.

After the workshop was over, I waited in the lobby for a lady who said she would help me get back to the bus station so I could get back home. A woman came into the lobby with crutches and started coming over. Not knowing how much she could see, I pulled Trixie in all nice and close. The lady with the crutches told me not to worry, that she could see and wouldn't step on Trixie, and sat down beside me. Instantly, Trixie started shaking like mad! The shaking didn't stop for a long time. Not knowing if I had scraped her on something when I got her to sit up and move, I took the harness and asked the lady to have a look at her. As soon as the harness was off, she ran to the lady and squished into her, quivering even more violently. She said she couldn't see anything wrong with her, so I put the harness back on and Trixie settled down. The lady said that's the second time that has happened to her. The first time, a seizure alert dog did it. Now she's starting to wonder if she has some kind of medical condition that needs addressing.

The way to the bus was pretty uneventful. The lady who offered to help me helped me take the subway, and got me to the bus. The worst thing was trying to go through those clicky gates that are all over the subway stations. Trixie got bonked on the head! Poor doggy.

We got back on the bus, and I tried a little experiment. I asked the bus driver if he could drop me off at a corner near my house. He said he could, and he did, but we weren't on the side of the street I was expecting to be. We stood for a second, and then Trixie turned us towards the convenience store I sometimes go to. Way to go, Trix, getting me unlost again!

So that was the trip to Toronto. Hope it wasn't too boring to read about. I just thought enough wacky things happened in it that it deserved a post.

If You're Reading This, My Net's Up!

There were a few things floating around in my head, and I thought maybe I should write them down before a monster starts to develop, so off we go.

I finally figured out what that singing alphabet commercial was all about. It wasn't an attempt at improving literacy. Why would I think such a thing? It was a commercial for zellers. What a letdown.

When I went to my parents' house for the long weekend, I realized how much I've gotten used to certain things in my own house. Take the water and how much quicker it heats up here. I would turn on the tap and wonder why it was taking so long. Then, it would hit me. Oh yeah, mom and dad are on a well.

Next, there was their crappy computer and dialup internet. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just their dialup internet. But the stupid thing would go up, and down, and up, and down. So while it was going down again, I would just assume it was the slow internet, and that I just had to wait a bit. Then I'd find out it was down, and disconnect the dialup, and reconnect, all of this while I'm working with a demo of JAWS that only runs for 40 minutes before I'd have to reboot the whole computer...at which point I would need a set of eyes because they're using a cracked version of xp...raaarr!

Then, there's their silly TV. Dad ran out and got a high definition TV. What he didn't go get was some kind of service that would show things in high definition. So they're still watching the four channels they get, in standard def, on their fancy shmancy new TV. Good job, fellas. I love ya, but good job.

I don't mean to rag on being home. I loved being home. It's been a while since I've been in that house, and it was sure cool to just slip out the back door when it was time for Trixie to go pee. But there are some little things that tell you this is not your house anymore and you haven't been home for a while.

Does anyone else besides Steve and me think that it sounds like the CTV guy is saying "closed captioning of this program is brought to you in part by...AIDS." when he's saying eggs? You do a double-take, and then realize that that can't be possible. At least when you do figure out that it's eggs, you remember it. Was that all part of the plan? But then I think that maybe the eggs are AIDS-laiden. Do I want to eat AIDS-eggs? CTV guy, what have you planted in my brain?

Speaking of thoughts planted in my brain, it always amazes me how deeply a smell or a sensation can bury itself in the deep dark recesses of consciousness, and how smelling or feeling it again can dig up old memories that I didn't even know were there. The other night, I was taking Trixie out to pee, and noticed how crisp the air smelled, and how much it smelled like winter. For half a second, scenes of being about five years old and running through the snow, drinking hot chocolate, skating, and waiting for Santa Claus flashed through my head in the fastest and most vivid movie ever imaginable. Then, the voice of reality came back. "That smell means winter. You don't like winter! Have you forgotten that?" and the movie reel came to a grinding halt.

I've noticed something weird that people do when I'm in a store with Trixie. We'll stop in an aisle while someone's helping us get something, and people will want to get by. But they will do one of two things. They'll not say a word and hope to hell we move soon, and when someone else tells us we should move, thank them for letting them through. Hey! Here's a novel idea for ya! Say Excuse me, or ask me to move over. That would make things infinitely faster for both of us, and make me feel less like some kind of vegetable. Or, they'll make kissy noises at the dog, and then grumble when she doesn't move. I have two problems with this one. First, don't! call! my! dog! If you want *my* dog to move, then talk to *me*. She moves when I tell her too, not when some random person says stuff to her. Second, I don't even get the logic of the kissy noises and gestures. Most dogs, when you make kissy noises and gestures at them, come to you. So she'd be walking straight into your path. I'm so confused.

Trixie did something else really goofy yesterday that I thought just had to go up here because it's funny. I was in the grocery store, and my friend didn't know where the chicken would be. So as ajoke, she said maybe Trixie would know. Sure enough, she stopped right at the chicken! What the?

Jen sent me a link to a wacky file, and just because it freaked me out, I thought I'd link to it, for as long as it lasts. So, put your headphones on and go get your virtual haircut today!

I think that's about it. Who knows when this will make it up, we're having weird internet problems. I can receive email, but I can't send any, or go on msn, or browse the web...or maybe I can...no I can't...yes I....nope, scrach that.

How Do You Write Up, The Sound Of Your Voice?

So we're watching a Barenaked Ladies concert on TV right now. It's been pretty good in case you were wondering, but that's not the point.

After one of the commercial breaks, a message came on the screen that said "closed captioning for this program has been brought to you by...". It got us both to thinking, so we thought we'd put the question to you, our all knowing public. Why are they closed captioning a concert, and what deaf person is watching it? Isn't that kind of like us blind folk watching something on mute? I get that deaf people can watch and enjoy TV, but why would they take the time to watch a concert, where even though they can read the words, they still don't have any idea why they're so cool? Couldn't you accomplish the same thing by looking up the lyrics on Google?

Sorry if we sound like assholes, but we're both really curious. It's one of those
braille on a bank machine
type things, one of those things that just makes no sense at all.

Eastern Standard Time For A Kick In The Nuts

I nearly committed a homicide this morning. I would have had to take a 7 or 8 hour flight to Europe to do it mind you, but it probably would have been worth it.

It's 4:45 AM and Carin and I are happily sleeping when suddenly the quiet is shattered by the din of a telephone ringing long distance. In our groggy states we don't quite make it in time to see what the hell is going on, but the blaring proclamation from the talking caller ID has informed us that the culprit is calling from a number that neither of us recognize. When we finally manage to pick our way through the haze of sleep and the shock of being roused from it, we are greeted by the following:

"Hey guys, it's me, Douchenozzle. I've called you before when I've needed to get in touch with Dude Who Used To Live With You. I seem to have lost track of him and was wondering if you'd give me a shout and let me know where he's at these days. I've got a new phone number myself now, so if you could give that to him that'd be great too."

This is a perfectly reasonable request, but so is the one I'm about to make.

If you need to call somebody far away, before you pick up the phone, for the love of God look at a clock and do some simple math, would ya please? I'm glad that it's 10 AM where you are and that a new day has begun, but some of us are still trying to sleep off the events of the old one over here!

Seriously, how hard is a concept like a time zone? You live in one place, I live in another one. The sun can't be with both of us at once so for one of us it's later or earlier than it is for the other. If the difference adds up to a sufficient number of hours, put down the goddamn phone and watch some TV for a while or something!!

I should probably be used to this by now because my family has relations across the pond who do the same dumb shit sometimes, but it never gets any less rage-inducing.

I think when I call him back I'm going to make sure I do it at about 11 PM our time. Not sure if it'll teach him anything, but it might make us feel a little better.

Who Doesn't Love A Good Country Song?

Bomb New York.

Finally!

Today, October 11th, 2007, is a historic day in the history of broadcasting. For it is on this day that I heard something that I thought in all my years I would never hear.

During a contest on
Y108
called Verse In Reverse, where part of a song is played backwards and you have to call in and guess what it is, 2 people were actually told they were wrong when they didn't get the name of the song right. I've been listening to radio for years and it's always driven me nuts having to sit through people winning countless prizes they don't deserve just because they're kinda sorta close to correct and some goofy DJ feels sorry for them. I never thought that was how it should work. If you're right you're right, and if you're wrong you don't get the gift certificate or the concert tickets, it's that simple. It doesn't matter if you're off by 1 or 2 words, you're still wrong. You wouldn't be praising your doctor for performing surgery on one of your fingers if he worked on one a couple over from the problem area would you? You wouldn't give your mechanic a big thumbs up even though he fixed your carburetor instead of your radiator just because they were both tors and hey, at least he tried, right? Yeah, I didn't think so, so why should this be any different?

So congratulations to you Y108, you are now my new favourite radio station for no other reason than you had the guts to flash a big fuck you to the radio establishment and do the right thing.

Oh, and for the sake of historical completeness, the answer was Alive by Pearl Jam and I would have been right had I called in. Aren't I awesome? No need to answer that, because the truly awesome ones today work at CJXY-FM in Hamilton. Cheers to you, fellas!

And While We're On The Subject Of Politics...

It seems President Bush has a new health care plan.

Make sure you've got your speakers turned up for this one.

4 More Years!

Well, all things election are in the bag, and I have to say that I'm pretty happy with the way things turned out. The Liberals won another majority including gaining 4 more seats, Liz Sandals won Guelph, and in the most interesting turn of events, John Tory won nothing, losing the race in his riding to Liberal Kathleen Wynne which could make the next little while extremely interesting to watch.

To all of the people complaining about how nothing changed and how we've stuck with the status quo, all I can say is wait and see. I think you'll get your change, just not right away and perhaps not in the ways you had expected/hoped for. Tory said last night that he plans to stay on as PC Leader, but we'll see how long that lasts. The Conservatives aren't the Green Party, and I'm not sure how long a leader with no seat will be considered the right person for the job, especially when he managed to take the party from a possible position of power in a minority government to an even bigger majority for his closest competition and a gain in support for both the Greens and the NDP. And speaking of the NDP, Howard Hampton is apparently
hinting
that he might not stay on as leader much longer even though his party made gains in the popular vote over 2003. So change is probably coming, it's just a question of when and for who.

As I figured, the referendum on changing our electoral system didn't come close to passing. The CBC is
reporting
that only about 37% of voters were in favour of the idea, far from the 60% it needed to become the law of the land. My prediction was 30% with 35 being the absolute max, so I'm a little surprised. I'm not sure if the question will ever come up again, but if it does I hope that more thought is put into educating the voters than was this time. Nobody understood the thing, and that's unacceptable when the future of the province rides on what those people say. I spent a decent part of my long weekend trying to explain to people how it worked, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one. The way it seemingly came out of nowhere makes it appear that it was doomed to failure from the start, and that's sad. No matter how you felt about it, any time a decision is put to the voters it should be given a fair chance and we should be given a fair chance to figure out what it is we're deciding and how we feel about it. Anything else is robbery funded with our money.

I don't know what turnout was like at the polls, but hopefully it winds up better than 57%, which is an absolutely ridiculous number. If you voted, good for you, and if you didn't, I hope you've got a good excuse, like a coma or a long stay out of the province. We're given plenty of chances to voice our opinions around here, and we need to take advantage of them if we want a change or even if we want nothing more than to be able to complain later on. With the world in the state it's in currently, the right to vote is not one that can or should be taken for granted. In closing, even though I doubt that many of them are, I hope that all of the people who didn't make it to the polls out of apathy or laziness are as ashamed of themselves as I am of them, because they should be.

More Talk About the Trixter

Well, here I am again, wanting to talk about Trixie. I forgot a few things in my last post, and then, more stuff needed mentioning. I have so much Trixie goodness that I've started making lists so I don't forget stuff. I really hope these aren't boring to people. Sometimes I wonder if people groan when they see one of these. But so far, no one has groaned in the comments section, so I guess this is a good sign. Allrighty, off we go. Justa little warning. This one's suuuuuper long!

I think Trixie really enjoys going to the drugstore down the street for one reason and one reason only. She can open the door! It's one of those automatic doors that you step on a mat and trigger it and the doors slide open. Well, every time we go past it, she makes a special effort to trigger that door. Ah, the little things that make a dog happy.

She has also figured out how long the elevator doors will stay open, and based on that, whether we should gun it, or slow down when getting close to them. I think she was a gambler in a previous life, because she tries to guess which elevator is going to open, and turns us that way. Sometimes she's right, sometimes she's wrong, but she definitely takes a guess.

She is such a curious, observant dog. If she were human, she'd be that neighbour who always knew when you came home, when you left for work, and on what days you went over to other neighbour Bob's house for a visit. She's always watching everything around her. Even when I first met her, she was so busy staring out in the hall that I was a little worried that she didn't care about me. Nope. She just has to have her eye on everything all the time. Sometimes, I wonder if she ever truly sleeps, because it doesn't take long for her to wake up and snap into action.

One of those things that makes her wake up and run to the window is a siren. I think the only other sound that can bring her over to the window is a dog that's barking strangely. Her reaction to Sirens is the funniest, though. It's like she's saying, "ooo! An accident! I gotta see, I gotta see! Come on, I can't miss any action! Lemmy see!"

Remember how I said she figured out our buzzer? Well here's something else she figured out. She's learned that the cuckoo sound the light at the corner makes means we go. Luckily, she just sorta gets ready, but doesn't bolt out, and still waits for me to say "forward," just in case I'm at a light where we're crossing with the chirp instead of the cuckoo. But she's figured out that sound means we usually start going, and she knows to book it across that street like there's no tomorrow.

You know how I was raving about how flawless her work is? Well, it's taken a bit of a down-turn lately. Not a huge one, I just think I'm entering a new phase of testing. This one's more sneaky. She likes to wait until my hands are full, and then go for everything she can. The most embarrassing incident was when I went to vote last week. The workers at the polling station were all eating turkey dinner, which Trixie was being really good about not going for...until I reached for my ID! Then she gave it a shot! Luckily, someone was quick to warn me, so I could stop her, but that little devil! Tricky, smart little devil! Ah Trixie, if you think you're learning, I'm learning how to counter. Next time I have to reach for something and there are tempting items at nose level, guess who's going to lie down? Ha ha, I win. Let's just hope there aren't more tempting items on the floor.

Another trick she likes to pull is when we're out relieving. She'll walk around looking for her perfect spot, leading me around a couple of poles on the grass. As she's doing that, she'll go really wide and end up on the grass that's further in on the sidewalk! No! That's not all for you! She'll do it all subtle and stuff, just sort of edge over...until I'm telling her no.

While we're out there, her curiosity gets the best of her sometimes, and she will freeze and look at someone coming down the sidewalk. She will just fixate on them, until I either get her to sit until they walk by, or remind her why she's out there.

While in the house, she's getting sneaky too. If she's about to lick some part of the floor hoping to find food, if we catch her at it, she will run to us and wag her tail as if to say, "Who, me? Lick the floor? Innocent little waggly me? What would ever make you think I would do such a horrible thing as to lick the floor?" Oh, I don't know, Trixie, maybe some past history.

I always knew Trixie was smart, but there are some things she does that just solidify it for me. One time, there was a truck blocking a whole bunch of the parking lot. Trixie looked at it, surveyed the area, thought for a second, then dragged me up onto the grass until we passed the truck and then went back to the parking lot. How cool is that?

Then there are the not so cool moments when you realize how smart she is. I think she's starting to not like the vet so much. The other day, she pointed out the parking lot. But as we crossed it, she decided she was going to make it hard for me. Instead of intuitively knowing how to go around the cars to the door I wanted, she decided to take me straight as an arrow to a wall and then I had to tell her to make all the little turns to get to the door. She was going to make it as hard as possible to get in there. Note to self, must remember to give more kibble at the vet door.

This weekend was cool. Trix and I went home to mom and dad's for Thanksgiving. Trixie got to ride in my brother's funky jeep! I think she enjoyed the trip. Everybody loves her...everyone but the cat. Ah, the poor old, cranky, almost xenophobic cat. She does not like new people, and she likes new canines even less. I tried to introduce them, and the cat thought a fine introduction would be a nice, healthy, hissssss! So, the poor cat spent the weekend in hiding. I think she was happy to see the dog go.

The dog enjoyed herself quite a bit, and I was so happy that she didn't get in any trouble. One night, Trix even put herself to bed! That's when you know you have a cool dog.

Remember how I said that because of Trixie, I remember all the kids' names in the building? Well, now I'm starting to remember the names of dogs in the building, and whether they like or don't like Trixie. There's Oliver, who loves everyone, and Trixie would love to come meet him. There's Jacks, who I wish would hurry up and grow up, because he runs in front of my feet and he's so small that I'm afraid I'd crush him. There's Precious the pug who doesn't really care about Trixie. There's Daisy who does not like Trixie. There's Teddie the confrontational lab puppy. There's Mable the dog that someone called a pit bull and then said, "Er, sorry. English Bulldog!" Um, that's a big difference. There's Morgan the schitzu who knows how to wrap my legs up in his leash. Then there are the ones I know by their bark but not by name. There's one who likes to bark at us when we go play, whose bark sounds like some kind of robot. There's one whose growl sounds like a cross between a pull toy and Winnie the Pooh's stomach growling. Yep, that's an odd description, but it's an odd growl. God, I could go on and on. The point is I couldn't identify a single dog in this building before, and now I know a bunch of their names!

Remember how I also said that people say Trixie's name before mine? Well, here's a new spin on it. I was on the bus when at one point, the bus driver said, "Hey! Trixie's owner! What stop do you want?" After telling her, I laughed and told her my name. She said she felt guilty, but wanted to ask me before the stop went by, and couldn't think of my name for the life of her.

In that post, I also mentioned people's extreme attitudes on corrections. Well, I'm finding the same thing goes with her work. Some people are absolutely astonished that she knows to stop at steps, or can follow them. This seems impossibly good. Um, that's what she's for. If she was just a dog and wasn't trained to do those things, well, I'd be a human projectile and that wouldn't be good. But if she does one bad thing, the reaction is "I thought they weren't supposed to do that." You're right, they aren't *supposed* to do that, but they are dogs, and they will try. Can't we meet in the middle somewhere?

Then there are the people who, no matter how many times you explain to them how much training, including obedience, and temperament-testing goes into finding guide dogs, think they can go out and buy a puppy and it will end up being "a Trixie." My neighbour keeps saying "I want a Trixie!" To that, I say, are you ready to do a whole hell of a lot of training? "No, I can't do that," she says. Well, your dog won't be a Trixie. She seems to think I've done all the work. Oh no. No no no no no. It started long, long, long long long long long, before they even knew the two of us were to meet. I'm just trying to keep up all of their hard work. And then there's the issue of whether the puppy she went to get from the store was the right temperament. god, how many dogs are dropped from the program because they just won't do certain things? A whole ton! So, it's not easy to get a Trixie. I'm lucky to have her.

And I think that's about it for another edition of Trixie updates. I'm sure I'll be back sooner rather than later with more. That just seems to be the way things go.

Back From The Weekend And Feeling Chatty

Well, I'm home, I'm alive, and I had a pretty dandy long weekend. Although when you've got a good family, lots of good food and a few good drinks, it's hard to end up with something you could describe as anything other than dandy. Maybe if you prefer words like smashing or fanglorious you could use one of those instead, but I wrote dandy and I'm not changing it now.

I guess since I've mentioned it, I should probably tell you about it if you care to listen, or I suppose read if you want to get technical about things.

Jim Cuddy got the weekend off to a fine start on Friday night. His set was fantastic, and there's no way I could say enough good things about it. He's one of the best voices around, he writes damn good songs, and he knows how and when to talk to an audience which is something that gets overlooked a lot but can go a long way towards either making or breaking a show. He also managed to not lean too heavily on the Blue Rodeo stuff. There was some, but it was sprinkled in just the right spots and it took nothing away from his solo work, which when you're on a solo tour should be the focus. His band was also great. They were bang on and tight all night, not even missing a beat when a small amplifire broke out. God, I can't believe I just wrote something that stupid. But yes, there was a problem with one of the amps and it started smoking a little. It was all taken care of quickly and it didn't throw anybody off one bit. Hell, they even finished the song they were playing at the time and most of the crowd didn't realize what was going on until after it was all over and people onstage started laughing about it.

There was even an opening act, something I wasn't expecting until they came out and started playing songs. They were called Oh Susanna and they were also quite good. They had some sound problems during their set which took away from things at times, but over all I was pretty impressed with them. They were one of those bands that I'd heard of but hadn't really heard, and now that I have, I'm definitely interested in hearing some more. I wasn't able to get a CD at the show, but I've got one now, mainly because I figured out how to spell their name correctly, which kind of made the whole internet search thing go a little better.

And quickly while we're on the subject of music, if you're at all a fan of swing or blues, you should definitely check out the Colin James & The Little Big Band 3 album. I'm listening to it for the first time as I type this, and it's sounding pretty good so far. I really like the first 2, so I'm glad this one is looking like its going to live up to that standard.

Ok, back to the weekend.

I spent most of Saturday visiting with my dad, who I've talked about here
before.
He's doing ok, but still largely the same as ever. He has his good days and his bad days and I don't think that's ever going to change. There are times when he seems completely with it and on top of things, and then there are times when you wonder what the fuck he's talking about and what world he's living in. this might seem like a horrible thing to say, but it's kind of like he was before the stroke, only to a greater extreme and with a quieter voice.

The strangest thing about spending any length of time with him is getting to see both of those sides at almost the same time. Talking to him on the phone you usually get one or the other rather than constant switches back and forth, but seeing him in person for more than a few minutes is kind of a mind fuck. He'd show me a picture, say "check this out", then stop for a second as if he's thinking aww shit that's right, you're one of the blind ones and then say "it's a picture of your cousin's wedding, they got married back in August." Then there were the times when he'd say things and it would take me a second to realize that yes this is 2007 and no, he didn't not have the stroke. But then just as quickly he'd be back talking about how him and his buddies had to take the snow into the barn before dinner so that the cocksucking mice wouldn't eat all the shoes.

And in case you're wondering, yes, he's still drinking, but it doesn't bother me anymore, at least not very much. He drinks less than he used to for one thing, but more than that, I've again come to accept that that's just who he is and nothing short of death or a miracle is going to change him. It sounds weird I'm sure, but I'm at the point now where I can have a beer with him and not feel all that bad about it.

Sunday was family Thanksgiving dinner day. It was pretty much what you'd expect out of a family gathering so I won't bother with details, I'll just say that whenever there's food on offer and I don't have to cook it, I'm a happy guy.

We ended up ordering the No Mercy pay-per-view because my 8-year-old cousin is starting to get into wrestling and wanted to see it. Of all the reasons to talk your dad into dropping $40 on a pay-per-view, he picked Batista and The Great Khali in the Punjabi Prison Match. Oh how great it is to be a kid, and oh how lucky it is for the kid that pops knows nothing about wrestling, otherwise Steve would have been downloading a torrent right now rather than writing about the thing after watching it live.

My thoughts on the show? Other than the Last Man Standing main event and the chance to watch a few kids get as excited about wrestling as I did when I was young, the thing was completely and utterly fucking useless. Here's some free advice for WWE even though they're not really in the habit of listening to the fans anymore. when booking a PPV, a good rule of thumb is to make sure that what you're serving up is better than what we can see for free. Then again, it's also a good idea to make sure that what we're seeing for free is better than the dreck you're passing off as television nowadays so that we'll want to part with our $40 in the first place. When it feels like I'm watching a horribly shitty Raw that's going on way too long, that's bad, especially when it has such a hefty price tag attached to it.

If you missed this show and you're thinking about ordering a replay, don't. You'd be better off pissing on your 40 dollars or setting it on fire and saving 3 hours of your life. But if you insist on experiencing the feeling of those of us who wound up watching it, I'll wait here while you glue your scrotum to the frame of an automatic door and let it open and close a few thousand times.

The main reason aside from the epic incompetence of the "creative" team for the sucktitude of this show was Triple H. Yes he was in the best match on the card and he did lose in the end, but did we really need him wrestling 3 times and making Umaga look like a worthless douchebag after all the work they put into building the guy up and actually getting something right for once? Note to the H's: As much as you'd like to think otherwise, you are not The Rock and you are certainly not Steve Austin. When they blew through guys on their way to a title or just because they could, it made sense most of the time. If one of them was fighting Umaga, it would have looked like a struggle. I know you were selling the ribs, but I don't think one person watching that show thought for a single second that you were in any danger of losing that match. If that were Steve Austin, that match would have looked like a war and when he finally won you'd have gotten the sense that he was in a fight for his life and somehow made it out because he's just that awesome. Watching you in there was like watching another day at the office. It's ok to come off as vulnerable now and then, it adds depth to the character, not to mention preserves the characters of the guys you won't have to squash to serve your own interests.

But enough about that, and enough of this post. Other than spending some more time with the family and having dinner with Chad from
Band.Zero
who you need to check out immediately because they're good people and turning into a fine musical act not to mention that I can take some credit for the song on their main page right now, not much else happened that needs mentioning. So thanks as always for reading, and I'm sure I'll be back sooner or later. for now I'm going to check out the news, eat some supper and try to find out more about the car accident that happened outside a few minutes ago. Have a fine evening, and if you're in Ontario, don't forget to get out and vote while there's still time.