One Letter In, One To Go

Remember yesterday when I said I wrote a letter to both papers? Well, it's been published in one of 'em. I even got in the opinions section, not just the letters to the editor! Woohoo!

The Man Behind Me Is A Crazy Pitchman

When Carin and I wrote the lateststupid commercials postyesterday, there was mention of about six billion spoofs of the Everest College ads. Just for fun,here's the good one.

It's about 4 and a half minutes long, but stay with it, it's pretty funny all the way through. Besides, what else do you have to do with your life?

Barfool

Please tell me there's a picture of this motorized barstool. Please say there's a photo. We need to get a description of the barstool-lawnmower hybrid.

The Fact That She Shouldn't Be Driving Hit Her Like...A Freight Train Perhaps?

How the hell do you mistake train tracks for the street you want to turn down? Ask June Griffith, who is lucky to be alive thanks to the quick thinking of some passing folks.

Let's Hope These People Never need Assistance From The Police

Wow, did GUTS move to Oakland? This sounds like something they'd do. Lovelle Mixon shoots four officers, and his family accuses *the police* of genocide? Ok.

Maybe It Wouldn't Be Free Speech If He Asked Them To Check Out His Tickle Trunk

Remember Charles the Tickle Monster Douglas? Well apparently a judge has ruled that his requests to tickle kids are protected under free speech. I still wouldn't recommend he continue, or at least I'd recommend he stop asking the strangers for permission to do the tickle monster routine on their kids. I'd Stick to kids I knew if I were him. who knows, he might end up injured by a protective parent one day.

Don't Throw Your Junk In My Backyard, My Backyard's Full...And So Is The space Under The Julia Tuttle Causeway

I understand the need to restrict where sex-offenders live, but is it justifiable to force them to live under a bridge in conditions not even suitable for animals? Sure, they have to pay for what they've done, but isn't this a little much?

What Is This, A Pyjama Party At A Bar?

Here are three uncomprehensible words to me when they combine to make a sentence. Snuggie, Pub, crawl. Why? What's up with the Snuggie fad? Even if I owned a snuggie, I would wear it strictly in my home.

Drive-Through Shooting

More food-induced violence, this time, somebody shot up a drive-through because the menu had shifted from dinner to breakfast. Yikes. Just go somewhere else to eat.

Where's My Kazoo?!

I found this video of a woman named Amy Gordon playing "america The Beautiful" on the kazoo, but not the way one would expect. One person says she plays the kazoo with her vagina, another says she's playing 3 kazoos from 3 orifices. I'm frightened. Any way you look at it, she did a fine job of the song.

This Post Is Brought To You By...People Who Can't Write Ads.

A little while ago, I put up a compilation of stupid commercials Steve and I had noticed. Here we come with more.

Have you ever noticed in a certain commercial for Everest College, there's a spot where the girl says "The man behind me? he taught me everything I know..." but the way she says "The man behind me?" sounds like it should be followed up by "Call security. he frightens me. I don't know why he's following me..." I can't find a damn video of it. there are about six billion parodies, as well as complaints about how bad the school is. Well, um, that's what you get for going to a school that puts ads all over TV. but I learned they used to be CDI. Interesting.

There seem to be a million yogourt companies making these probiotic drinks, and they all ream off their code name for whatever exclusive formulation of stuff they've decided to put in them. My question is what is that supposed to mean to us? My theory is they're just trying to baffle brains with bullshit, but I hear that and think, "So? You have 10 billion bla bla bla probiotic cultures. what does that mean if I don't know what bla bla bla means? And how is that different than the other company's exclusive brand of foo shee shee shhees?" By that theory, I could decide I was going to sell a special diet pill. But I'd justmake a placebo and tell everyone it's the only pill with 10 billion rammalammadingdongs in it, so it's good. If you don't know what a rammalammadingdong is, what does that mean? It could be a molecule of air for all you know.

I'm going to pick on Air Wick again because it's fun and they make it so easy. They apparently now have some kind of air-freshener with a motion-detector on it. Why? What has motion got to do with making the air smell good? does this owl make it make any more sense to you than me?

there's an Avon commercial for some anti-aging goop, I can't remember its name, but at the end of it it says "Call your Avon sales person and say, 'Hello, tomorrow.'" I wonder how many would know what you were talking about if you said that to them. I also wonder how many times they've been pranked because of that commercial?

Here's another one for the I'm purposely being dopy for effect department. There was a commercial for William Mattar that told you that to get a hold of his associates, you should "keep dialing 4." I've noticed I don't see it anymore. I wonder if the William mattar folks found themselves picking up the phone and hearing people repeatedly pounding 4. Maybe somebody told them "keep dialing 4" was false advertising and they were going to go call Kenneth Hiller and sue them.

Here's my last one from the wording department, I promise...at least for now. There's a commercial for Fido that says "Get plans from $15 and phones and text mesages from $0." Why are they giving away other people's text messages? Who's giving away their text messages? Why would anyone want to get them. If they said text messaging, I would understand.

the Pepto-Bizmol commercials have bugged me for a while, but not just since they've rolled out their stupidest commercial ever. It's because of their slogan. "Nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea." Hmmm...if I'm not mistaken, aren't nausea and upset stomach the same thing? And aren't heartburn and indigestion the same? And they made doubles of everything except diarrhea. I guess there's no other polite word for that affliction. I've thought way too much about this.

I've also thought way too much about this commercial for BlackBerry Curves with Direct Connect. I wouldn't want to go to that school. I almost feel sorry for Callahan. Jesus, is it high school or...reform school?

and that's it for now. I'm sure everyone's looking at me like I'm nuts.

Whatevermania

Show of hands. Any wrestling fans reading this looking forward to this year's Wrestlemania? Honestly looking forward to it? Looking forward to it because of what WWE has done to sell it to you and not just because it's Wrestlemania? I don't see any hands,but that could have more to do with it making no sense to write show of hands in something you're not watching people read than a lack of interest in WWE's biggest show of the year. Then again, maybe not. Maybe you all feel the same way I do, that this year's show doesn't feel special or like a must see.

Looking at the lineup, I don't see one thing that makes me say gee Steve, shelling out $55 would be a good idea even though you can watch the thing for free a day or 2 later. I don't even see anything that makes me say gee Steve, you should have a few buddies over to the house and split the cost and have a good time. The second one in particular is really, really bad for WWE. One person not wanting to spend 55 dollars on something is understandable, but when a huge wrestling fan can drive the cost of the show down to a few bucks a person plus booze and snacks and still can't be bothered, something is very wrong.

Let's take a look at the card. Would you pay for any of this?

WWE Champion Triple H vs. Randy Orton.

WWE would have to work a miracle to make me care about this match. It'll probably be decent, but the storyline just isn't doing it for me.

First of all, Stephanie McMahon is not a sympathetic babyface character. Never has been, never will be. Whenever she speaks, I always find myself spending more energy on wishing that somebody would dig out her voicebox with a rusty spoon than paying attention to what she's saying. She flat out sucks as an actor, and anybody who beats her down and takes her off of television is an automatic hero.

But even if she was good at her job, they lost me at that stupid Triple H breaks into Randy Orton's house thing. Why were their random folks scattered all over the place? There were people in every room and in corners, just kind of hanging out. Is that normal in the Orton household? Is he so rich he can afford to hire real people instead of buying statues for decorations? This is the kind of thing I wouldn't have to think about if the angle was good, which it was back in 1996 when HHH and Orton wereSteve Austin and Brian Pillmanand WWE wasn't afraid to be edgy. the video kind of loses something being edited together the way it is and not stretched out like it was when it originally aired, but you'll still get the idea that Austin and Pillman were far more believable characters than either Orton or HHH will ever be.Here's the overly scripted and poorly acted dreck from a few weeks ago so you can compare.

Which brings me to my biggest problem. I don't care about Randy Orton or Triple H. I feel like I've seen them wrestle each other a million times, and I don't need to see it again. Even though Triple H is capable of having good to great matches and Orton isn't that bad, I never need to see either of them on my TV ever again no matter who they're fighting. It sounds awful, but I always get a little sad whenever Triple H comes back from an injury. My heart never grows fonder when he's absent, it just breaks a little more when he returns. At least he can cut a decent promo though, which is more than I can say for Orton. I've seen oak trees with more charisma than that sleep inducing fuck.

World Champion Edge vs. John Cena vs. Big Show.

Like the other title match, I'm sure this one will be just fine. It seems impossible for Edge and Cena to have a bad match with each other, and Big Show can definitely step up when he needs to. But like I said above,there's nothing I haven't seen before, and we're missing that hook that's supposed to dig the money out of my pocket. I understand that it's supposed to be the love triangle or if nothing else cheering Cena on to victory, but both of those things get a big no from me. I'm so done with all the who cheated on who stuff, and Cena winning Vickie Guerrero even though he can't stand her might be fun for 2, maybe 3 weeks tops if competent people are writing the comedy. With WWE Creative on the case,I give it 45 minutes before I want to kill myself.

World Tag Team Champions The Miz & John Morrison vs. WWE Tag Team Champions Carlito & Primo Colon in a title unification Lumberjack match.

This one has the potential to be a lot of fun, but it won't be any less fun watching it on tape on Monday or Tuesday. Unifying titles should be a big deal, but it isn't because we have no reason to care about the tag belts or the brands they're supposed to be on since everybody wrestles everywhere no matter which roster they're on. for example, follow this. Primo and Carlito are Smackdown tag champs. Miz and Morrison are Raw tag champs. I know Carlito and Primo are Smackdown guys and I think Miz and Morrison are Raw guys, but I could be wrong. In any event they hold Raw's tag titles, so they're Raw guys today. The feud leading up to this Mania match started on Smackdown, but in the last few weeks has been largely progressed on ECW, a brand that doesn't even have tag titles or teams to put them on if they did. So why should we care that one brand is losing it's tag titles? It leaves one set of belts the company doesn't care about instead of two, and any brand lines that still exist aren't any stronger.

Intercontinental Champion JBL vs. Rey Mysterio.

JBL should be calling matches, not wrestling in them. I hope the rumours that he's retiring are true, he really seems like he's hurting bad whenever he's out there.

Money In The Bank - CM Punk vs. Kane vs. Kofi Kingston vs. MVP vs. Shelton Benjamin vs. Christian vs. Fit Finlay vs. Mark Henry.

I'll admit I'm morbidly curious to see Mark Henry in a ladder match, but not $55 worth of curious. I'm sure this match will have quite a few oh my god moments, but I can wait to see them.

Jeff Hardy vs. Matt Hardy in an Extreme Rules match.

They've done their best,but I'm just not feeling this one. I can't put my finger on why, but I think it might have something to do with neither guy being all that convincing. I know it's a work,but I'm not sensing the hate. The overly dramatic promos full of words that nobody would ever use in this kind of situation aren't helping either.

25 Diva Battle Royal to determine the first Miss Wrestlemania.

Next.

Chris Jericho vs. Roddy Piper, Jimmy Snuka & Ricky Steamboat, with Ric Flair at ringside.

It's always nice to see guys I grew up watching again and some of the stuff leading up to this has been really good, but I have a bad feeling that this is going to be not so much a match as a segment designed to get Mickey Rourke on the show to play off of the Wrestler. That kind of thing belongs on free TV.

The Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels.

I can't complain one bit about this. Everything has been done as well as it can and I'm sure that the match will deliver. It just doesn't feel as special as it should, probably because the so so to outright wretched booking of the rest of the show is bringing it down.

None of this is to say that the show will necessarily be bad. For all I know it could be show of the year and I'll be kicking myself come Monday for not seeing it live. No Way Out was like that. It looked like a gigantic shitfest on paper but turned out to be the best show since No Mercy a few months earlier. Things like that happen all the time in every sport. Something that's supposed to be no good delivers beyond everybody's expectations when push comes to shove. But when you have 0 expectations going in, $55 is a lot of faith to put in people who are hit and miss in terms of giving you quality for your money.

Did he Want To Get Caught?

The other day, Randy Cassingham said that he wanted a new word to refer to the people so stupid that they don't even know they're stupid. Somebody suggested"obliviot", and he loved it. so do I, and I've been itching for a chance to use it. Here's my chance. I like this one better, but it likes to send you to their contest page, and when you want to come back and read the story, it sends you to the homepage.

Yes, indeed, this is a hearty serving of stupid. A 19-year-old man decided to rob somebody. Who did he rob? An x-cop. Where did he rob him? At a police convention. Let's just say he didn't get away. But he's still convinced he's smooth. Yup, definite obliviot.

Do the Letter To The Editor Dance

I've talked about Roundabouts a little bit before. Well, now they want to put one on a major road in Guelph that basically would be at a pivital spot leading from anywhere to downtown. I'm not happy about this because of pedestrian-safety for the reasons I explained, sort of, in that post before. If you want a roundabout, put it in a place where pedestrians don't often walk, like leading onto a highway or somewhere else that's very car-friendly and not so much into the pedestrian traffic.

The implementation of the roundabout had been getting a lot of newspaper coverage, this article, this one, and this Trib article were the most recent ones I'd seen. If you notice, there is very little emphasis on pedestrians, we're just sort of mentioned in a passing fashion. so I decided to write a letter to the editor of my own to each paper. I hope it gets published. If it doesn't, it's here.

Dear Editor re: roundabouts

After reading the recent article concerning the roundabout at the five points, I would like to raise another viewpoint, that of the pedestrian, especially the pedestrian with a disability.

As a blind pedestrian, this roundabout greatly concerns me because of the way it works, and because it is being planned for an arterial road. The way a blind or visually impaired person is instructed to cross streets is like this: they stand at the corner and listen to traffic. When the parallel traffic is moving, they go. There is an order of things. The perpendicular traffic stops, the parallel traffic moves, the pedestrian goes. There is no guess work involved.

With a roundabout, the first rule for pedestrians to safely navigate it is that they make eye contact with the driver. As you can see, this creates an absolute barrier for the blind pedestrian. I cannot make eye contact with the driver because I can't see him. Therefore, I cannot even hope to cross that street for the same reason I never j-walk. There is too much risk for me to not hear a car coming until it is too late. Since the five points is the major means for me to get downtown since I don't always take the bus, I would be prevented from getting downtown if this roundabout is installed. This saddens me, since I hear so much talk of wanting to creat a walkable community.

I fear I will not be the only one affected by this. What about seniors and people in wheelchairs and walkers who don't move at your average street-crossing pace? Will they have enough time to get to the island and then get across the rest of the street safely? And what about children? With them being relatively short, will cars see them? As well, children are taught to follow traffic lights, not judge when they should step out and then run like a frightened squirrel through the circle.

I understand the usefulness of roundabouts. I also understand that corner is horrific. What I don't understand is why a roundabout is the solution, since it is an area that is highly used by pedestrians.

Carin Headrick
Guelph

I hope that makes at least a few people think, especially the ones who think we're just being a bunch of folks afraid of the unknown.

Suck It

I really need to come up with another way of saying here's another story about somebody humping something, but since I have to this point been unable to do so, here's another story about somebody humping something.

29-Year-old Michigan resident Jason L. Savage has been sent to jail for 90 days after pleading no contest to a charge of indecent exposure arising from being caught in the act by police whilemakin' it with a car wash vacuum cleaner hose.

Asked for comment on the case, Savage told reporters that "It's been horrible. I've been keeping my nose clean and staying out of trouble."

Not sure about his nose, but he was definitely trying to keep something clean.

Ringing Some Alarm Bells. Get It? *Bells*?

Carin posted a couple of days ago aboutour latest go round with the fine folks at Bell Canada Repair.I left a comment under that post that I've decided to put here on the main page. Hopefully somebody from Bell will find it and be ashamed of what the company is becoming,but failing that, maybe it will get some of you to tell your worst customer service stories. They don't even have to be about Bell though I'd love to hear more of those. Any sort of company will do.

Here's what I wrote. When I mention primary person, I'm talking about me. That's probably obvious, but you never know.

Primary person thanks you for handling that. Primary person, in the mood he was in that day, would have set the record for the most beep laden quality purposes recording they'd ever had were he the one to make the calls.

And you're being pretty charitable with your description of the blind thing. I remember you saying "I can't see the screen" at least 3 or 4 times before you finally said listen, blind guy over here. She didn't even think to ask what you meant by can't see, which is amazingly stupid in itself. If somebody says I can't see anything here, the first thing I'm asking is why not?

If all of the other phone companies out there weren't so god awful, I would honestly consider switching at this point. I used to tell anybody who would listen when the subject came up how good Bell's people were, but it's gotten harder and harder to say that since 2007 when I called to switch our phone plan and they turned off our bundle by accident causing our bill to rocket to heights not seen since...I can't even remember since when. It took me 4 or 5 phone calls over the space of as many months before I finally got somebody good who not only credited me for the rates I shouldn't have been paying, but was also sympathetic to what I'd been going through with her idiot coworkers...(including the douchebag who kept me on the phone for 45 minutes trying to sell me TV service I'm not allowed to have in this apartment building and internet I told him for many reasons I didn't need or want), but also gave me an even better deal than the one I'd aimed for in the first place. I'm glad that in both cases things turned out ok, but there's no good reason why anybody should have to call anywhere that many times to get things done. When I say things turned out ok, I shouldn't have to follow that by saying eventually. Do better, please.

the Guide Dog Story to Trump All

Barb left a comment the other day under my latest dog post. It was the stupidest guide dog-related story, and it was so jaw-droppingly stupid that I felt it had to be preserved forever. Here it is.

My friend ***name removed*** was walking with her dog ***name removed*** the other day, and she got lost somewhere. When someone came to help her, they got down on the ground and showed the dog a map of the Queen's campus. Useful eh?

That, my friends, trumps any stupid story I have ever told by far. A map? Yeah, because dogs are amazing map-readers.

I don't have any more words. Just looking at that has once again rendered me speechless.

YUNiTi Update

wow! All these people are fast. I just posted that thing about YUNiTi's new captcha scheme. I have already heard from Marcos boyington, YUNiTi's co-founder. He says the following:

Hi Carin,

Thanks for taking the time to send us an email, and I'm terribly sorry for not providing you with an alternative to contact us! I'm sorry and sad to say that, unfortunately, I know of no way to make it easy for users who are unable to see be able to get through such a captcha.

If we use the usual audio captcha of a voice badly muffled with static, I'm afraid we leave a big gaping hole for bots to crack. Why make a complex software that tries to establish what a 3D object is, when it simply can work through some static and do an audio comparison?

It is truly sad that spammers have made the situation so difficult for all of us - I sure do miss the days when you could fill out a form without having to make out strange characters on an image. Our idea is meant to make that a little easier for some of us, so at least we can simply identify objects with ease (instead of straining our eyes to see a horribly mangled letter).

My brother and myself not being blind, our experience has mostly been with visual captchas (and they, over the years, have gotten on our nerves, thus our new kind of captcha). If you have an idea for making a captcha that is just as effective but for the blind, we'd love to hear it!

- Marcos Boyington

so, if anyone has any ideas, please let me know. I don't think I have the brain power to develop a captcha, but someone out there might. I have asked him if I can give out his email to people who ask for it. I certainly wasn't going to post it here and cause his spam to potentially skyrocket. That wouldn't be a good way to get into his good books now would it?

So there we go. Maybe we have the guy's ear. Maybe something can come of this.

I Smell Captcha Trouble On The Horizon

Remember back when I was celebrating the arrival of WebVisum, and I said I knew I wouldn't be putting those stupid verification thingies in their place forever because they would always evolve and cause more misery? Well, here comes the pain. YUNiTi has come up with a new captcha that's supposed to be easier to solve because it's based on 3D images. It's easy for all of those with eyeballs, but once again, if these take hold without a viable alternative for blind and deafblind users, we're screwed all over again.

I tried to contact the folks at YUNiTi, but of course, their contact form is sealed by one of these captchas. So I emailed the author of the article and asked him...I think it's a him...to pass on my message, or let me know the email address of someone to contact at YUNiTi. He did both of those things, with stunning speed. I also contacted the folks at WebVisum to let them know of this new captcha style.

If others feel the same way, I hope they will do the same. Maybe if YUNiTi hears enough voices, they will realize that although we're a minority, we're not that small, and if WebVisum hears from enough of us, they might be able to dream up something. who knows?

Is Carin Crazy? Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope....

In a couple of posts, this one and this one spring immediately to mind, I went yip yip yip yip yip yip yip, uh-huh, or something similar in the title. then I thought "I wonder how many people don't know what the hell I'm on about." Maybe they never saw Sesame Street, or maybe they saw it either before or after those silly aliens. That would be a shame to miss out on how funny those odd little creatures were.

Basically, these things supposed to be martians would land somewhere on Earth and come across a common object or something, and they'd have to look it over in detail and see if it matched what they knew about it. It was dumb, but somehow funny.

So I thought I'd find an example. It's not quite as funny as the one about the radio, but I thought it had more uh-huhs in it. If you type "sesame street aliens" into YouTube, you'll find quite a cache. There ya go. Now I should get back to watching more alien clips, er, doing something useful.

Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip, Merci Louis, Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip...

I don't understand our need to launch things into space. the latest one everyone's all excited about is the Louis Braille commemorative coin. I think the coin's a great idea, go nuts about the coin. But why in hell launch it into space? Do we need to create more spacejunk that can float around and hit the spacestation and damage other stuff up there? don't we have enough litter down here?

I'm sorry if I seem ungrateful. I just can't grasp how the coin being sent to infinity and beyond is going to help anybody.

If I Kissed A Girl Was A Big Band Song

I profoundly suck. W.S.G sent this Songsmith butchering of Katy Perry's 'I Kissed A Girl a week and a half ago. I've been meaning to post it, but I keep forgetting. You know what's scary? It's been songsmithed more than once.

Did rogers Buy Bell?

Back years ago, if you called Bell repair to report a problem with your line, you actually got a smart person who listened to what you said and responded appropriately. Now it seems that Bell is having their tech support handled by Rogerbils.

On thursday, we noticed that our Call Display had stopped working. Neither of our call boxes said anything when people phoned. We waited until we'd had a few calls to make sure it wasn't a fluke, and then, when it wasn't, we phoned to ask what had happened. I mean, we pay for the service, I want to make sure it's on.

The first person who picked up the bell repair line didn't know how to use a phone and promptly hung up on me without even saying hello. I did, however, catch snippets of someone having a big conversation about what happened in her social life recently.

So after being hung up on, I called back and got another. She would have been ok if she had understood the words caller ID box and "I can't see." Seriously. I said the Call Display wasn't working. She asked me what was showing up on the screen of the phone. I said we don't have phones that are caller ID-capable, but we have caller ID boxes. "Caller ID box?" she said back to me. I tried to explain that you hook the box up to the phone jack an the phone into the box and then when someone calls, the caller ID info goes to the box and the call goes to the phone. She didn't seem to understand. After checking to make sure that we in fact did have Caller ID enabled and it hadn't been turned off, she came back and asked me what it said on the box's screen when we get a call. I told her that I can't see, so all I could tell her is that it was working last night, and then it stopped, and when the phone rings, the box isn't talking anymore. She responded with "Well look at the screen! what does it say?" After taking a deep breath, I made things simpler for her. thankfully, she understood the word "blind." Otherwise, I'd be worried about everybody's ability to get their phones fixed. But then, she had to go through the spluttering of "Oh I just thought you, er, weren't looking at the box, er, um. Uh, hmmm." After her heart returned to a regular rhythm, she said she wanted me to make sure it wasn't our equipment. No, that wasn't how she phrased it. It was more like "The problem isn't on our end, so it must be your equipment. Unplug it and plug it back in." I tried to explain to her that the two call boxes are in separate rooms, on different fuses, and we hadn't had a power outage or surge because we have other devices hooked up to both fuses and they're all on and fully operational. then she said I should check the batteries, right after I just talked about electrical and she told me to unplug them. Gaaa!

But I understand tech support people needing to make sure the solution isn't forehead-slappingly stupid, so I said I would check, but I asked her if I could have a reference number or ticket number or something because I was 99 percent sure I would be calling back. She didn't like that one bit, and told me everything would be tied to my phone number, but I'd probably have to repeat myself anyway. Fine system ya have there.

So, we unplugged each damn box and plugged it back in, with no success, and then I remembered that our chordless phone can do caller ID. So now I had to get a set of eyeballs to come over so they could read the screen and tell me what I already knew, that it wasn't receiving any caller ID info. When my neighbour was finally available to do that, she told me the magic words that I wanted to hear, "No data." So, with this new info on hand, I called back.

I tried to be as efficient as possible. I mean, if I was going to have to repeat my shit, I might as well just start off and explain things and not wait to get asked dumb questions. So I phoned up, and got another lady. After stating my phone number, address, postal code, name, the primary person's name on the account, and satisfying her that I was authorized to call them and talk about phone stuff even though I wasn't the primary person, I started to talk. I said something like "hi. I phoned earlier to report that my Call Display was broken. the woman I spoke to told me that the service was in fact activated, and to check my equipment. I have, and there is nothing wrong with my equipment, and when someone calls, the words 'No data' show up on the screen. I need you to do a little more digging." there was a pause, a long pause. She then asked me if my phones were caller ID-capable. Here we go again. I said I had call boxes and one chordless phone that could do caller ID. then she started quoting phone models sold by bell. I told her I didn't buy my phones from Bell. She put me on hold and beeped me to see if my caller ID would work. Of course, it didn't. then she quoted more phone models, and I told her I didn't have those. She put me on hold, and after returning, she said she checked and everything was on, so it must be my equipment! Raaarg!

It was then that I lost it. I said that I had told her all of this at the beginning of the call, and if she'd listened to me, she would know the reason I was calling was because I had just finished checking my equipment and it was fine, so she needed to do something else, maybe send someone. Then she started plodding away about how they don't send someone because if they do, there will be a service charge. I told her that I had bought Wire Care and Phone Care, the maintenance plans that are designed for just that purpose. but did she listen? Nope. She just kept telling me that there would be a service charge, someone would be sent tomorrow, and hung up on me before I had a chance to know when they were coming.

So, I called back a fourth time. Good god, and this was for something simple. thankfully, I got someone who was using her ears, was smart, and treated me like a human being, not a toolchest who doesn't understand the words "plug it in." whenI told her the stuff I had gone through, she was pretty appalled too, and surprised I was still laughing. I said the only reason I was laughing was because she was smart and listening and doing what I had hoped for from the beginning. She said that they would try and fix it remotely first, and if that didn't work, they would send someone. If they were able to fix it remotely, we would get a call from the phone tech saying it was done. She also assured me that there would be no service charge.

A couple of hours later, holy crap, it was working! Not only was it working, but some other glitches we had been having with other services were suddenly gone. I waited for a call from a tech, but no call came.

then the next morning, I got a call from a tech who was completely prepared to come over and check things out asking if we're still having the problem. I told him that it appeared to have been resolved, and surprise, nobody had notified him either. I quickly relayed to him what I had gone through, and said that was why I hadn't called back in to say it had been resolved, since maybe if I said that, they would break it again while trying to fix it. He laughed.

Sheesh! all of that back and forth was what happened because Call Display was on the fritz. I'd hate to go through having an actual problem with the line.Oh yeah, I already have.

This Trixie Is Much Bigger

When I went to get Babs, and then later Trixie, the jokes went around about how I should bring home a big enough dog that I could jump on its back and ride. Some other people joked that I should go get one of those guide horses. Of course, in the case of the ones you might have heard about, those are miniature horses and you would never ride one of those, but that didn't stop the jokes.

But Tabitha Darling isn't joking. She apparently is legally blind and has trained a full-sized pony and wants to ride it into stores. I found a YouTube video of Darling and her pony Trixie. Apparently the first part of the video is of her and a full-sized horse that isn't Trixie. You'll see Trixie later when she starts going through store aisles. Jill had sent me the story and I asked her to describe the size of the pony to me, since her descriptions always super rock. she said it's a big pony, at least 14 hands. I don't know crap about horses, but for those who do, there it is. I sure believe her when she says it's big. Apparently Darling has to heave herself up on a fense to get on the thing's back. that's just weird.

At first when I saw this, I was conflicted. I know dogs were met with resistance when they were first introduced, and people had to show that this would work, but a horse is a whole different animal, har har. first of all, a person and adog can often fit down an aisle no problem. Try doing that with a horse. Second, there's a lot more danger to the rider and everyone around her if the horse spooks in a building than if a dog gets a wee bit startled. I can't speak to the housebreaking issue because I don't know what the deal is there.

In the end, I have to agree with Carolyn Finefrock. There are other things she can do. If it's hard to walk and she's legally blind, she can use a wheelchair and get a dog that can do guiding and assistance with the wheelchair. That is possible, and would take a whole lot less room and cause less problems than a pony.

Doggy, follow The Beep boop!

Here's a new one for ya. I ran into someone last night who thought those audible signals, ya know, the poles at intersections that go peep peep or cuckoo were set up for...brace yourselves...are you sitting down? Ok, ok. She thought they were set up to help my dog get me across the street!

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Ok that felt good. Just the image of the sound guiding my sighted dog across the street made me giggle.

I'm so used to comments about how the city should have an audible at a given intersection, or people asking why my dog didn't move when the light changed, seeming to not know that I tell the dog when to go and the dog just makes sure I don't become squashed to a pulp by a car. But never have the two come together in such a strange way.

But all was not lost. After I bit my tongue and refrained from either laughing or getting frustrated, I was able to explain to her that those "beepers" as everyone calls the accessible pedestrian signals, which is apparently their newest technical name, are for the blind pedestrian. I explained that they chirp for one direction and cuckoo for the other direction, and you can sort of hear the other pole doing the same, so you know that you're going the right way. and miracle of miracles, she listened to me! We actually exchanged ideas and heard each other and things ended well.

I do have to laugh at what happened next, though. I was heading up to a place to help another blind guy learn how to type. I walked in and said to him. "Hey! Here's a new one for ya! the beepers are for my dog!" what ensued was him laughing so hard I thought he might fall over. He completely understood what had just happened to me. A sighted dude nearby acted as if we'd just spoken another language. After explaining to him what we were on about, he laughed too. But what was weird was we completely understood each other with that one sentence. It was a funny moment.

So to everyone who wonders what those audible signals do, they're for me, not the dog. Oh, and that beeping sound they make all the time is not a signal for anyone to cross the street. That's just a sound to say "I chirp and cuckoo if you hold the button for five seconds." Once someone does hold the button for five seconds, then when the light is good for them, there will be a chirp or cuckoo depending on which street the pedestrian who pushed the button is crossing. the other pole on the other side also makes the same sound, sort of loosely letting the person know where the other side is. That's how they work. I hope that helps at least one person understand why the lights beep.

Incidentally, the Shaun Majumder bit where he talks about those "beeping lights" makes me laugh really, really hard. I wish I could find it so I could link to it. If anyone finds it, leave it in the comments and I'll put the link in.

If Real Politicians Had This Kind Of Foresight, The World Would Be A Much Better Place

Congressman Offers Preemptive Apology For Extramarital Affair

Next He'll Be A Cyborg!

Remember back when I joked about the thumb drive that looks like a thumb? Well, here's one that isn't a joke. Jerry Jalava, a bigtime software-developer and hacker, lost part of his finger in a motorcycle accident, so surgeons built a USB key into the prosthetic finger they gave him. So when he needs it, he just pops it off and sticks it in the computer. That's bound to weird a few people out.

David And the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day

David Maksimik may have been able to rob the bank, but the rest of his day profoundly sucked.

First, he crashed his getaway car. Then, he took a bus and a taxi back to his town, at which point his sister gave him a ride to his house. Upon arrival, he found his room-mate unconscious on the floor, so he called 911. Can anyone see where this is going? Hell, who am I kidding? Everyone probably can...except him. When the police arrived, they had heard about the bank robbery, and I guess the description of the robber described dear old David perfectly, and what do ya know? the bank's missing money was inside a bag on his bed! Busted...oh yeah, and his room-mate wasn't unconscious, he was dead, and it looked like a suicide.

At least he decided to confess. Maybe he won't go to jail for as many years as he might have if he chose to not say anything.

I guess Size Matters

there's not much to this story, but I can't stop laughing at the image of someone hucking a five-foot inflatable penis at a police horse. I'm sure it wasn't funny at the time since it spooked the horse, but um...what an image. I also like the idea that after some woman smacked another police horse in the head, it stepped on her foot. Hmm. which would hurt more? I'm betting her foot was in worse shape.

Brings New Meaning To The Old Ball And Chain

Wow. That's some crazy thinkin'. Helen Sun decided that the only way to get her estranged husband Robert Drawbaugh to listen to her was to sneak up on him while he slept and handcuff herself to him. She also changed the lock on the bedroom door. I don't know what she thought biting his torso and arms would do to make him listen, but she did that too.

Yikes. the video, which includes some snippets of the 911 call, makes me feel scared for him.

Did I Miss Something?

A long time ago, I read about a case where a 72-year-old woman, Laura Stewart, and her 76-year-old boyfriend, Earl Cross, were arrested for kidnapping Stewart's 83-year-old sister Evelyn Poynter. They had her tied up in the back of the car and the poor woman had to relieve herself in plastic containers as they drove her for eight hours. They claimed the reason they took her against her will was she refused to leav her house that was in need of repair, so they took her. They were arrested and charged and I thought "good!" You just don't do that, and they could have killed her from the stress.

Now I see that charges are being dropped and our elderly kidnappers are going to enter some kind of probation program, at the end of which they'll have no criminal record.

What? why? Huh? I know it was their first offence, but it was one hell of an entrance into criminal behaviour! How could they not know it was wrong? At 72 and 76, unless you've gone senile, you know that tying someone's hands and feet with duct tape and forcing them into the back of a car isn't close to right by any stretch of the imagination, no matter how stubborn the victim is, and these two didn't seem senile. they were able to construct a story, and I guess it was convincing enough to get the district attorney to drop the charges. I know it could be argued that these old folks aren't a threat to anyone, but I beg to differ! They're at least a threat to ms. Poynter!

I appreciate the fact that there is some room for different levels of punishment for the same crime depending on circumstances, but the different levels of punishment need to fit! this one seems way too lenient.

Did He Duck And Cover?

Tsutomu Yamaguchi is one lucky and unlucky man all at once. Now 93, he survived not one, but two atomic bomb attacks.

He was on business in Hiroshima when that big caboom happened, and after recovering from serious burns, he headed home to his hometown of Nagasaki and arrived just in time to be there for the second big caboom!

I think it's amazing that he survived both of 'em. He must be meant to do something awesome. Well his name has gone down in history.

who has A More Profound disability: Cerrie Burnell or These Closed-Minded Parents?

Wow. there are a lot of stupid people raising kids right now, as demonstrated by the outrage expressed by several British parents at the sight of a TV show host who only has one arm. They lodged complaints, they left horrible messages all over blogs and message boards saying that the sight of Cerrie Burnell, a woman who was born with only one arm, was going to give their kids nightmares and was forcing them to talk about disability issues before they were ready.

Ok, let's start with the nightmares part. If someone came in with a chainsaw and rendered Ms. Burnell minus an arm on live TV, yes, that would give your kids nightmares. but the sight of someone who only has one arm is not going to scar a kid. Toddlers are about as un-scarable by disabilities as you can get. There was a guy who came and spoke at our school who was born with no arms because he was a thalidomide baby. He said that kids consistently do the same thing. they walk up to him, go "Woe! Where are your arms?" and when he explains that he was born that way, they don't care and want to watch him play the piano with his feet. Yup, sounds pretty much the same as their reaction to my eyes doing the wabble jjiggle dance routine they do all the time. they ask about it and then they don't care. I think the people having the nightmares are the closed-minded parents.

and as for the having to discuss disabilities before they're ready thing, waaa waaa waaa, cry me a river. You never know when you are going to have to talk about something difficult. I'm not a parent and even I know that. You don't get a warning. If you're a good parent, you'll figure it out and you won't fill your kids with fear about the subject.

thank you, BBC, for having enough balls to nicely tell these parents to go stuff it and not fire her just because a few closed-minded individuals find her unsightly. and to all the parents who complained and left vicious messages all around the net, shame on you. I hope your kids never become disabled, because I'm afraid of how you'll treat them. Open your eyes, come out of your safe bubble and realize that people with disabilities are just as human as you, me, and your poor, supposedly fragile little tykes who can probably handle the issue better than you can.

I Didn't Hear the Train A comin'

How exactly do younot hear a train? I don't care if you have headphones on or not. It's a train! It goes chugga chugga choo choo loud enough to wake the dead for what seems like a 3-mile radius! If you don't hear it, how do you miss the vibrations under your feet?

I love that the headline says that these two people *may* have been wearing headphones. Wow. they got smoked so hard that whatever devices they could have been listening to cannot be found.

This Blood's For You, For Clocking Off The Job And Not Buying Something I Like, You No Good Sons Of...

Amilcar H. Guerra, 50, is facing charges of aggravated battery after throwing punches at and then stabbing the 3 people he was drinking beer with in a mobile home. Yes, I'm shocked too.

So why did he do this, you ask. Seems hewasn't a fan of the brand of beer they had purchased for the evening.Which brand caused the trouble wasn't reported, but if it was Coors Light I can sort of see his point.

Bonus fun fact: One of the stabbing victims is named Corona, which makes this a VC double!

Let's Review. No, Make That Let's Revieeeeewwww!

If you've been following the site for a while, most of the stuff on this6 strangest things people have been caught humping listwon't be news to you, but sometimes it's nice to review,and it's just common courtesy to catch the new folks up now and again.

I'm pretty proud of Carin and I. It appears that out of this entire list, we only missed posting one incident. For extra credit, feel free to try figuring out which one it is. You won't win anything, but it'll be an extra hour or so that some of you bastards aren't out getting in trouble.

I Think A Few People Want To Kill Her For Causing All This Trouble...

Amy Dallamura sounds like quite the sad one. that's a lot of suicide attempts, and she can't seem to stop herself from doing it. The only question I have is how the hell do you enforce an ASBO like that? I mean, the beaches and the sea are pretty big areas to bar someone from. I understand why they want to keep her from going there, but how do you do it? Do you make her wear a tracking device? Do you microchip her like a dog? I keep picturing her wearing one of those Invisible Fense collar thingies, and as soon as she gets close, zap!

Hopefully some day she can get some help that actually works.

She Once Had His Heart But She's Keeping His Kidney

Phew. that guy who wanted his donated kidney back isn't going to get it. It's been ruled that the kidney was a gift. Thankfully somebody had some sense.

And what's up with the guy being called a "matrimonial referee"? Is that a new type of job, or just a new term for those mediators that get called in in some divorce cases?

You Can't find It, Duffy Moon!

Ok, I'm going to add my voice to the small group of them that I've found while googling for this. they all say similar things. It's kinda creepy.

Every now and then, I catch myself saying "You can do it, Duffy Moon!" to Steve while he's trying to get something to work, at which point, he asks who the hell Duffy Moon is, and I exclaim "You don't know?" and he says, "Uh, no. I think I'd remember a geeky name like Duffy Moon. who the hell would name their kid Duffy Moon? You're telling me Duffy Moon is a boy?" And I say yes, Duffy Moon is a boy.

there was this video that I watched in school. I have learned that it was an ABC Afterschool Special and it was called "the Amazing Cosmic Awareness of Duffy Moon." It was supposed to be inspirational. I think the message was if you put your mind to it, you can do anything. Every time Duffy Moon, who I've learned through my googling was a shorter, wimpier-looking boy, really wanted to do something hard, he would puff out his cheeks and a voice would say in a sing-songy way, "You can do it, Duffy Moon!" I never really got inspired by the video, I was only inspired to make fun of it. but I guess the "You can do it, Duffy Moon!" chant stuck with me more than I thought.

I was starting to question whether I was remembering it correctly, because every time I would whip out the "You can do it, Duffy Moon!" sentence, people I said it to would stare at me as if I had just spoken in some incomprehensible foreign tongue.

I started to google to see what would happen, and I found out that I am in fact not crazy. Lots of other people have had carbon copies of the same conversation that I've had with Steve and others. Lots of other people were either inspired by the movie, or thought Duffy Moon was a big loser and they liked to laugh at the way he puffed out his cheeks. There was no middle ground. either he was awesome, or he was a dork.

but what I can't find is a copy of the movie! I can't find it on YouTube, I can't find it on Daily Motion, I can't find it anywhere. what the hell? There are copies of all kinds of old movies. How come this one isn't up anywhere?

so, is there anyone here who has had similar Duffy Moon experiences? Does anyone know where I can find this video so I can show it to Steve and everyone else who thinks I'm on crack? duffy Moon needs to come out of secrecy!

The Tea Pot Calling The Kettle Black

wow. Someone thinks the teabag revolution thing is stupid, but for different reasons. I love how this guy keeps calling the supporters of the teabag revolution "teabaggers" and isn't doing it by accident. It sounds like they really need to reread some history, and not just the ancient stuff.

Advertising Fails

Here are some things Steve and I have noticed in commercials that bug the hell out of us. Yeah, I think we think too much.

There's a commercial for Delsym cough syrup that says "When America coughs, America has Delsym." So, I should take from that wording that Delsym is the name of the cough? Maybe it's the name of the disease that causes the coughing. Wow, I learn something new every day. No? that's not it? Ok then.

I saw an ad for something called Bio Oil that's supposed to eliminate scars and stretch marks. But that's not what the commercial says. According to the ad, Bio Oil improves the appearance of scars and stretch marks. Who would want to have more obvious blemishes?

Here's an ad that shouldn't have made it out of the studio. It starts off with the words, "You are what you eat, so make it a hungry man." I have three visions, none of which are what they had in mind.

My first is the idea of someone eating a canibal. I mean, if you're eating a hungry man, and you are what you eat, he must have eaten other hungry men...and so it goes.

My second is the thought that this meal is just going to make me more hungry. I am what I eat, right?

The third is the idea that I heard somewhere that those Hungry Man dinners are full of things that are bad for you. So if I am what I eat, hmmm...I shouldn't make it aHungry Man.

Burger King really needs to rethink the name they gave to those little tiny burgers. They have chosen to call them burger shots. Eeew. Burger shots? that sounds like something the drivethrough guy might do to your burger if you piss him off or he's had a particularly bad day. Ug. I certainly wouldn't want to order up some burger shots. And those girls in the ad are really annoying.

The commercial for the Air Wick aqua essences thing bugs me. I actually found the damn thing. the narrator, who apparently is a frog, is going on and on about how you can take the girl out of the rainforest, but you can't take the rainforest out of the girl, and that's why she loves these Air Wick Aqua Essences things. then it says "available in aerosol." Yeah, because that sounds so eco-friendly.

And does anyone else want to throttle the makers of this attrocity? My teeth may thank me, but my ears sure don't. I don't know what it is about these chipmunk tooth voices, but they have this way of grating on my ears in a rhythmic fashion that sounds like someone's punching me in the head every time they say "Thank Yooooo!"

And that's all I have for now. When I was writing them down, it seemed like I had more ideas. Oh well.

Doggy Day Is Here Again

Well holy crap, can you believe it? Two years ago today was the big day when I received my Trixter. Sometimes I can't believe it's been that long, but it sure has. Last year, I summed things up pretty well, so I'll let that stand on its own. But yup, it's been another year, another winter, and we've made it. since I have no deep words to say, and no doggy journals to revisit, I figured I'd write a doggy hodgepodge.

Mom and dad just came down for a visit, and mom says that Trixie is developing some grey on her chin. Um, eek. She's only turning 4 in April. Is it normal to already have a bit of grey?

I had something weird happen to me once when I called a cab. I always tell them I have a guide dog with me, just so they won't send someone who's either deathly alergic or deathly afraid of dogs. I'd like the one driving me around to be able to focus on the task at hand and not on the fuzzball at my feet. So anyway, a guy showed up and said, "oh! They told me it was a guard dog. I thought it was a little weird, but I came anyway, I'm used to guard dogs..." I told him he deserved a medal, and thanked my lucky stars that he came. I then promptly called the dispatcher and tried to explain to them that it is essential that they not make a mistake like that again. She kept making light of it, saying "Oh oops, I guess the person was in training and didn't understand." I told them that that means they have an opportunity to explain things better, because a mistake llike that could land me, or another guide dog handler, cabless in the cold. Eventually I think I got it through their head that guide dog and guard dog are two very different things, and if they're not sure, they should ask the customer to repeat what they said and not assume. But am I ever lucky there was a brave cabby who was willing to pick me up that day!

Ok, here's a chance for me to get a little annoyed. Lately, I've been running into problems with people bringing their pet dogs into stores, and I'm not just talking pet stores. A while ago when Barb was down to see us, Barb and I went to the bank. We each have a guide dog. As I was getting money, a large dog came into the ATM area and started roofroofroofing and lunging at our dogs. thankfully nothing happened, but the dog barked and lunged several times, and I had a chance to yell repeatedly "What is that dog doing in here?" before the owner quietly and o so gently urged her dog out of the ATM area. "Oh come on. come on. Let's go." No! that's not the damn tone you use when the dog is threatening other people. How about showing some assertiveness? That gentle tone isn't going to make the dog stop if it really wants to take a piece out of us.

then it happened again at a diferent bank. Somebody came in with their puppy, and when the puppy started freaking, they said "What's gotten into you?" I looked over and loudly said "I think the puppy sees my guide dog..." at which point human and puppy had made themselves scarce.

I went next door to a convenience store, and as I was walking up to the cash, I heard the cashier say "Watch your dog." I was puzzled, and then noticed someone was in front of me with another goddamn dog! Not one of these people explained that this was a service dog puppy in training. they just skittered away.

Ok, we have access laws that say only service animals are allowed in stores for a reason. Service dog handlers had to fight for that right. For one thing, the service animal is serving a purpose. They're not just there for fun. for another, they know how to handle themselves in a store and won't confront another service dog. At worst, they might try to say hello, but not usually in an aggressive way and then handlers get things under control. If the dog isn't trained, it shouldn't be in the store! I shouldn't have to walk in somewhere and be afraid I'm going to meet some dog who isn't socialized well. I just don't understand why there's such an upswing in people disregarding laws and bringing their pets everywhere.

trixie's been really weird about our apartment elevator lately. sometimes if the left one opens, she will start backing away from it. Then I have to wait for it to almost close and then reopen it and then she's fine. the only thing I can think is that elevator might open slightly up or down from where it should and she doesn't like that. Once it's almost closed and it reopens, it might have adjusted itself and now she's happy. That's the only thing I can figure.

She's been really loving the fact that spring has sprung. One day when we were out flexiing, she was still walking all tentatively, as if she wasn't sure if ice was going to pop up. then the next time, she must have realized it was all gone and then she took off like a shot!

Her newest goofy thing she's started doing when she's out relieving is completely bury herself under the big bushes out there and then pee. How is that pleasant? Her body is completely draped in prickly bushes! You're a weird dog.

I think I finally figured out why she was acting like a mountain goat when relieving at the end of the winter last year. She did it this winter too and I should have known. At the end of the winter, the flat spots are more slippery and it's hard to get traction. It's easier to dig into the snow banks while dancing around the way she does when she poops. Well at least there's a reason for the wierd mountain-climbing.

Is that really all I can come up with? That's just lame, especially for such a special day. Well, happy dog day Trixter. You're the best.

It Worked In South Africa?

Wow. the act of wheeling a dead guy in so they could get his pension cheque actually worked in South Africa, unlike what happened with those guys in the states who tried a similar trick. Can you imagine getting the dead guy's thumbprint?

Foul Lawsuit

Here comes another lawsuit that shouldn't have gone forward, but it is.

It's been a long-standing thing that if a fan gets hit by a foul ball or an errant piece of bat, they can't sue. But apparently 5 supreme court judges said that wasn't true anymore in the case of 8-year-old Tara Sweeney, who got hit in the head by a flying bat. What's even crazier about this is Mrs. Sweeney signed a waiver protecting the city and the organizers from lawsuit. so this shouldn't have a chance. Why does it? This is about as bad as that case of that guy who dove into a foot of water and ended up paralyzed.

Going Down!

You know, something tells me David Senior wasn't able to ease that girl's fear of heights when, while telling her that leaning over the hotel balcony was safe, he leaned over it and fell four storeys onto the roof of the hotel's restaurant. Woops. I love the description of the guy falling. "I heard this big 'clump!'" That's just great.

If The Walls could Talk, they'd Scream

This story about a family suing their real estate agent for not telling them a murder was committed in the house they just bought makes me think of that Simpson's episode where Marge is selling real estate and ends up selling the house where someone was murdered to the Flanders family. but it also makes me wonder how realistic it is to expect the agent to reveal that information. I mean, how should they tell you about the murder? "this house has 2 and a half baths, 4 bedrooms, oh, and the guy killed his wife in one of them..."? How exactly do you give that information?

I do admit that it's kinda creepy knowing the murder happened in 2007 and the dude was just convicted in 2008. I'm just not sure about the whole lawsuit thing.

Might As Well Revise the "Might As Well Go For A soda" Lyrics

More fights over food, only this time it was something to drink. Specifically, two brothers fought over a coke. The funniest part is the guy who was originally angry about the drinking of the coke ended up shot dead by the other guy. It's a coke, guys. Now you have one less family member. Just great.

Secret and Stolen Identities

Oh boy. This story just keeps getting better and better. Can it get any more awesome?

First, there was the whole pistol-whipping of a customer at Goomba's Pizzeria by the owner, then the revelation that the owner was a mobster, now the victim wasn't being completely honest either. No, he wasn't in the Witness-protection program, but he was trying to shield his identity. You see, he wasn't really Richard Phinney. His name was Jack K. Kilburn Jr. and he was trying to avoid getting busted for not paying child support. And whose name did he use? That of his new wife's former husband. Yeah, very smart, very very smart. Now he's in jail, prosecutors are looking at filing identity theft charges, and he decided to sue the mobster dude on top of it, and he wasn't honest with his civil lawyer either.

Can this story get any better? Well, there is the part where you get to listen to the mobster and his family whine about what damage this has done. Well, maybe he should have thought about that before unleashing a holy beating on a customer.

Getaway Fail

This burglary gone horribly wrong reminds me of that old story of that shoplifter getting smoked by her getaway car while trying to get into it. Only in this story, Derek Clark didn't do so well. He was shot by his would-be victim, and then got run over twice by his getaway vehicle before it,well, got away, leaving him for dead. He's in intensive care now.

Cue the Yackedy Sax song.

I'm Taking It Easy When I Take...Out The Trusty Gun

An Ontario Liberal backbencher is calling on the federal and provincial governments to pass stricter laws to prevent violence on public transit after a string of incidents involving Toronto's bus and subway system.

Mike Colle is proposing a bill that would impose a fine of up to $50,000 for anyone carrying a weapon onto a public transit vehicle.

Full story.

Two problems here:

1. The type of person that would walk on to a bus and start shooting at people or throwing punches doesn't strike me as the type of person who cares much about laws.

2. Have you seen some of the people who ride the bus? Some days I'm not sure if the entire group of riders on whatever bus I'm on has $50,000 between them, so how is one person ever going to come up with it?

Stupidi-Tea

Last week sometime, I noticed a search on our tracker thingy that said something to the effect of "snopes teabag protest mailing." I looked at that, befuddled and confused. I went to snopes, and found no entries. So I gave it no more thought. Today, I get my snopes newsletter thingy, and Voila!" I now know what they were searching for. And what ahorribly misguided attempt to effect change.

Apparently some numbnuts have decided that to express their disgust at stimulus packages without any transparency, every American should send a teabag to the Whitehouse on April 1, without any note, and they will all arrive by april 15, the tax deadline.

Uh-huh.

I'm sorry, but sending teabags to the Whitehouse is not going to do anything. If they get through at all due to security reasons, all that'll happen is they'll get heaved. Or maybe the president will have a lot of free tea.

If you don't like the stimulus package, write a letter and express yourself. Don't send a stupid teabag. Protests with no effort behind them don't work most times.

Well at least I know what that person was googling. I hope they come back.

Hopefully They Can Find A Way To Stop Them From Marrying Each Other Next

This is a major victory for science.Gay scientists isolate genetic cause of Christianity

public Transportation Survey

It's been a slow day for the blog, so I thought I'd at least post this. I get the sense this survey is only intended for americans, but what the heck, I filled it out and it didn't ask me where I was from, so they can do what they want with my data. It's about public transportation, and since the ADA seems to have an effect on other countries' accessibility laws, I didn't think I was totally out of line. So here's the info and link.

In conjunction with a grant received from the Federal Transit Administration, Meeting the Challenge, Inc. is conducting a survey designed to collect information from people with disabilities regarding their experiences with public transportation. We would like to invite all people with disabilities to participate. Information gathered will be used to determine what barriers still exist in public transportation for people with disabilities and will be used to create Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) technical assistance materials directed toward alleviating those barriers. This is an on-line survey which can be accessed from this link:
http://mtcinc.transit.sgizmo.com. It is estimated that it will take from 5 to 15 minutes to complete the survey. If you do not have internet access, you can participate by calling Meeting the Challenge at 1-800-864-4264 (select menu choice #2), Monday through Friday between 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM (MT), and a staff member will assist you with the survey by telephone.

If you prefer a paper copy of the survey, one can be obtained by calling the same phone number. Responses to the survey will be collected through March 31, 2009.

Please forward this e-mail to any individuals with a disability or to any groups serving individuals with disabilities that you feel would be appropriate respondents.

We thank you for your participation and assistance!

Cristi L. Harris
Special Projects Director
Meeting the Challenge, Inc
(800) 949-4232 (CO, MT, ND, SD, UT, WY)
(719) 444-0252 ext. 108

So there ya go. If you feel inclined, help them out.

More Impaired Judgments

Last year Iwroteabout a drunk driving related case that really made me angry. I won't go into all of the details, you can click above if you want to refresh your memory.

If you recall, in that post I questioned the competency of the judge who made the ruling, Justice Colin Westman. Well, it looks like I need to do so again. Have a look atthis storyfrom the March 11th Guelph Mercury.

Justice Colin Westman cut off a prosecutor at a sentencing yesterday for talking too much about the harm a drunk driver caused.

Prosecutor Sydney McLean was reading the victim-impact statement of a woman injured by a drunk driver in November 2007. She said victim Ksenia Osmolovskaya suffered a fractured skull, was forced to use a wheelchair for a while and had to learn how to take a shower and grocery shop all over again.

McLean was reading the statement at the sentencing hearing of Adam Young, a 29-year-old Kitchener man who pleaded guilty last year to two counts of impaired driving causing bodily harm. Young had almost twice the legally allowable level of alcohol in his blood when he rear-ended a car on Highway 7-8 near Fischer Hallman Road on Nov. 10, 2007.

Osmolovskaya and her fiancé, Stratos Georgiou, were badly hurt. He needed surgery for a broken elbow.

Westman broke in just as McLean was saying that Osmolovskaya can no longer dance.

He asked why the Crown had to focus on the negative consequences of Young's actions.

"Your approach is to describe the damage,'' he said. "I could have sent him to prison for three years if I just read (the victim impact statements).

"If I get caught up with vengeance, you can give him a life sentence. That's not the way we operate.''

Westman is considering a defence request for a conditional sentence for Young. The law at the time would have allowed it.

Since then, the legislation was changed to prohibit a conditional sentence in cases of drunk driving involving serious bodily injury.

Westman said the sentencing principles of denunciation and general deterrence can be satisfied by a long conditional sentence.

People convicted of impaired driving usually get a fine or a short jail term, he said. Why should the sentence be so much harsher when someone is injured, he asked.

"The only facts you have here are the serious injuries,'' he told McLean. "I worry I'm not doing my job if I just react to emotion.''

He said Young's moral culpability was no worse than any other impaired driver who gets in a car after drinking. There was no evidence of recklessness or speed, he said.

McLean disagreed and asked for a jail term of 12 months.

Young will be sentenced at a later date.

A few points here:

1. Who cuts off a victim impact statement? I'll grant that I haven't attended many court proceedings, but I do read a lot of news and I can't remember ever hearing about a judge doing that. Is this a common thing? To me it comes off as disrespectful to the victims.

2. "He asked why the Crown had to focus on the negative consequences of Young's actions.

"Your approach is to describe the damage,'' he said."

That would be because it's a victim *impact* statement. Seems like pretty basic stuff. If I'm asked how getting crushed in a serious car accident has impacted me, odds are I'm not going to write a sonnet about hearts and flowers.

3. "People convicted of impaired driving usually get a fine or a short jail term, he said. Why should the sentence be so much harsher when someone is injured, he asked."

That would be because somebody was *injured*, thus making the results of his actions worse than they would have been had he simply got busted heading home from the pub. Again, pretty basic stuff, especially given that courts have been dishing out harsher sentences in injury cases of all kinds for years.

4. "The only facts you have here are the serious injuries,'' he told McLean. "I worry I'm not doing my job if I just react to emotion.''"

What?

Seriously, what?

Serious injuries...is that the best you got?

That's essentially what he's saying here. That can't be what he was aiming for...then again, it probably can given who we're dealing with.

5. "He said Young's moral culpability was no worse than any other impaired driver who gets in a car after drinking. There was no evidence of recklessness or speed, he said."

No evidence of recklessness...other than that whole driving drunk and getting into an accident that could have killed 2 people thing, but that's no biggie.

7. I missed this when it happened, but it seems that Mr. Westman has even more of a history with this type of thing than I thought. Here's acolumnfrom the Mercury for last August 22nd detailing a case in which his "honour" (that's in quotes for a reason) blatantly disregards the criminal code in order to hand down a non-custodial sentence to a man who yelled at, punched and shoved a police officer. The reason? The defendant was too drunk to know what he was doing.

After reading all of this, I can't help but wonder if Justice Westman might have some alcohol issues of his own. Why else would he take such a soft stance on the actions of dangerous drunks and be willing to make so many ridiculous on the record statements in their defence? I'm not trying to level any accusations or make a statement of facts, but something just doesn't smell right about this guy.

Ok, who Omelet-Burped In Here?

I've been meaning to post about this burp gas-filtering device for the last couple of days for two reasons. I could use that silly title and make an inside joke, and I could laugh at the text quoted by the folks atWeird Universe where I found it. This is the description they quoted.

It serves two functions in one. You can deodorize your burp, and if your dinner companion needs a pen to sign the check, you'll have one to offer.

Burp or eructation odors have been a source of annoyance or concern in polite society for hundreds of years. Far too often, the foods that we love most cause us to belch. To the person who is belching, the odor may be a trifling annoyance, especially if the burp was the result of an enjoyable meal. However, for persons in the close vicinity of the burp, the burp is simply an unpleasant odor of someone else's partially digested food. Many people wish to eliminate the burp odor so as to avoid offending others...
The burp filtering device has the body of a writing pen, with an intake port at the upper end of the body, a plurality of exhaust ports adjacent the writing tip and a filter disposed within the body. The filter may be made of activated charcoal or other media for filtering and adsorbing or absorbing eructation odors. In use, the user holds the upper end of the pny body to his lips, releases the suppressed burp and the filtered, deodorized gas is exhausted through the ports at the writing tip... Still another object of the invention is to provide a device for eliminating burp odors that also serves as a writing instrument.

Man, the people who invented this thing sure have thought a lot about burps. Wouldn't it look weird if people were always holding pens to their lips? I dunno. Maybe if this thing caught on, it wouldn't. But I guess it didn't.

Here's What I Think of Conflict Resolution

This story reminded me of an old story Steve posted about where some dude clonked a random woman with his anger management book. In this case, some kids were trying to resolve a conflict with the help of some administrative officials and parents, and one of them managed to inflict pretty serious harm with a pair of scissors. Gees! You know a conflict is bad when the kid can't even be civil about it in the presence of teachers and stuff. Now the stabber is in jail and the stabbee is in serious to critical condition. what a mess.

Pay It Forward?

Does anyone else think the idea of "pay it forward" is kinda demeaning? Am I the only one? Is the idea of doing a good deed so gone out the window that we need gold stars to tell us to do a good deed and show off that we've done it?

Somebody told me this story about how this random dude came up to her and asked if he could carry her bag. She let him, something at which I was a little surprised given the area of town she said she was in, and then he handed her a "pay it forward" card. Basically he said "I did a good deed for you, now you do something for someone else."

So let me get this straight. This system is assuming that without this handy dandy little card, I will be a prick. I need to be reminded to do a good deed for someone, in the same way that I have to remind myself to pick up milk at the grocery store or drop off my library books. Doing a good deed has become a chore. I won't just see the opportunity to do something nice and do it.

Last night, I held the door for a woman and her daughter who were running through the rain trying to get inside. Why? Because I thought it was the right thing to do. I didn't have a good deed card. I just heard them coming and thought it would sure be nice to be getting in out of the rain sooner rather than later, so I held the door. The other day, I heard a couple of people wandering around wondering where a certain bus was. I told them and gave them directions. I didn't need a card. I just know how confusing the buses are, so figured I could help. I'm not trying to brag. I'm just trying to emphasize that people shouldn't need some kind of obligation system to do good things for others. Shouldn't it simply feel good to do something nice for someone? Or are those days gone? If so, what a sad state of affairs. I have been helped out by random strangers and haven't been handed "pay it forward" cards, so I guess I can take from that that there is hope.

McUnhappy Meal

Oh boy, another food fight. this one was a McDonalds Mcgriddle. Not much else to say. At least this time we know what kind of sandwich was used.

More Great Moments In Journalism

It's a pretty slow day around here, sohere are some of those funny news bloopers I love so much.I wouldn't call these the top 10 funniest, but there's some good stuff here.

I feel sorry for the guy in number 1. Having This happen to you would definitely be the number 2's.

Me? Saving For when I Get Old?

I've been meaning to write about this all week, but for one reason or another, I couldn't do it. Now I guess I'll try.

For a while now, I've been thinking that I should probably be putting away some money in some kind of a savings plan. Hopefully before I'm 65, I manage to get a decent job. But if I don't, I began to realize that as far as I know, all I'll get is the Old Age Security money, which isn't much. So I figure I'd better figure something out for the worst case scenario. But I was a big old chicken and figured if I plopped myself in front of a financial planner, they would laugh in my face considering I'm not exactly made of money.

Then, out of the blue, my mom read about some new program that the federal government had for folks with significant disabilities where, depending on their income, the government would either match or triple whatever contribution the person or their family made. My first reaction was utter disbelief. I figured there had to be a catch. first I thought it was only for those being taken care of by their families, and then I thought for sure they'd want to kno my parents' income, and our taxes would become entangled in an ugly mess that would probably be more painful to sort out than it's worth. So I wasn't really jumping at the chance to sign up. Plus I wasn't quite sure what it was called, so I didn't want to walk into a random bank and say "Do you know anything about that disability savings thing where the government matches your contributions, er something? I just read about it in the paper." I wanted to read up on it, but it's hard to read up on something whose name you don't know. So I didn't really jump aboard super fast.

Mom was all gung ho about it and was asking her financial planner what he thought of this program. At first he didn't have a flaming clue what mom was on about, but he figured it out and said it looked like something I shouldn't miss out on. This got me thinkking. Now an independent financial guy who's done stuff for 2 generations of our family thinks this is a good idea. Maybe I should look at it harder. Plus, now I had the name of it, it was called a Registered disability Savings Plan or RDSP. But I thought I'd missed this year's deadline for starting one.

Then at the end of last week, I got a frantic call from dad saying the deadline had been extended to March 2, so if I moved fast, I could get in. I was sure I was screwed, since the application was 16 pages long, or so it appeared, and I was sure I would need to dig up supporting documentation. Government forms *always* need supporting documentation.

But I found out it wasn't that bad. here's how it works. To be eligible, you have to be a Canadian permanent resident and you have to have filled out a T2201 Disability Tax Credit form with your taxes at some point. If you were approved, then that's all you need to qualify as having a disability. If you don't know if you had that done or not, just talk to the person who does your taxes or call Canada Revenue Agency directly and they'll let you know. Then you fill out this big form, and apply for the government grant which makes it so they will ad contributions when you make contributions up until the end of the year when you turn 49. How much they add depends on your income. You can also apply for the bond, which means as long as your income is below $21000, the government will put in a grand each year. Once you apply the first time for the grant and the bond, it will happen automatically either each time you add money to the account in the case of the grant, or at tax time in the case of the bond. After you're 50, you can keep adding money, but the government doesn't match your contributions anymore. You can start taking it out after you're 60. When it's time to take it out, your contributions are tax-free, but any grants, bond and investment earnings are taxed.

I didn't even have to bring proof of income. they said they would get all of that through tax records. Kinda cool. You can only open an RDSP at certain banks. I believe right now, you can open them at Royal, Bank of Montreal, CIBC, and maybe Scotia, but I'm not sure. The person with the disability can open one themselves, or that person's family can open one. I was so happy once I realized that my family didn't *have* to open one on my behalf. Here's the government page that has all the dirt on the program, including income breakdowns and places where you can open one.

Since Bank of Montreal was the first bank to jump aboard the train, I figured it would be safest to go with them. Here's their page on how to open an RDSP. I got really excited when their webpage said I could do it right over the phone! I picked up the phone, called them, and asked to open an RDSP. The guy who answered the investment line said he'd love to do it over the phone, but since today was the deadline, I'd best march my butt into a bank branch and do it there. I was sad, but here's where their customer service started to rock my socks off. He phoned two or three bank branches to ask if they could help me, and even asked them which branch was easiest to get to for a blind person, because I expressed a bit of concern about getting across a giant parking lot to the one branch where he wanted me to go. How awesome is that? I almost considered switching banks because this was beyond anything the TD phone people had ever done. I mean the TD tellers in the branches are cool, but the phone people are often times confused if you ask them for anything remotely complicated.

He phoned me back and told me which branch to go to. He told me to print off the application and take it with me in case they didn't have it on file or something.

So, after printing a mass of paper, I went to the bank. I was worried that since this program was new, they might not know what I was on about. But the investment lady knew exactly what I was talking about, and was awesome about everything. She got all my paperwork filled out and tried her best to explain everything and answer all my questions. After giving her a void cheque from TD, we set it up so every month, a little money would be put in. She even made sure I'd have phone access so I could check on the status of the account. Not only that, but the next day, when I had more questions, I could call Bank of Montreal and they would actually give me her direct line! That would never happen at TD.

I just managed to get it open in time to make my contribution for 2008 but it was a tight squeeze. I asked if there was a specific time window when people had to open them, and she said no, that people can open them at any time and start making contributions for that year. So to any other Canadians with disabilities out there, there's something to think about.

Wasted Trip

That has gotta suck. A dude who didn't want to be identified went to a rest stop and used the john. Then he couldn't find his keys. Thinking they had gone into the john, he decided to get 'em back. Oh dear. That's when the trouble started.

He unscrewed something at the base of the waste tank and went in after them, and promptly found himself stuck. He had to wait in there for 10-15 minutes until someone else came by. they called 911 and he was fished out through an access hole used to pump the, um, crap out of and was allowed to clean himself with the fire hose. That's when he discovered that his keys were right where they should have been...in his back pocket.

I don't know about you, but I'd think before diving into a tank of crap, I would have checked my pockets a little more thoroughly. But then again, I'm the dope who wonders where in christ my backpack is...which I happen to be wearing at the time.

Oh, and apologies for the chipper circulation director who appears when you click the link and insists on telling you all about getting their newspaper by email. I don't know if she comes up for everyone, but if she does, sorry.

My President Gets Angry, Sometimes...

Somebody is laughing while Barnes and Noble are crying. they walked into a Barnes and Noble store, saw a big display in the front window full of books by or about President Obama and thought a book about monkeys should be squished in among them. Yup, you guessed what happened. The angry emails came in from people saying they would boycott their store, etc. What an asshole thing to do, but part of me can't stop laughing.

She's Crazy, He's Still Dead, Maybe She Should Go Back To Magic School

Remember the guy who charged into a funeral and started beating the everloving crap out of the corpse? We have a new one. Nicole Leonard walked into the funeral, danced around, threw flowers at the family, opened the casket and smacked the body with a wand! Was she hoping she could give him new life through some magic spell? when she was arrested, she said she didn't know anyone at the funeral, just thought it was the right thing to do at the time. What? Why? Please elaborate, Ms. Leonard, because I'm lost.

Dear Lord, Time Permitting, Please Visit Upon This Individual A Sense Of What Truly Matters In Life

Letter: Why didn't flight crew mention God?
by Dena Malda | Muskegon

On the Feb. 8 "60 Minutes" program, we were captivated while viewing the Katie Couric interview of the crew and passengers of Flight 1549.

However, we were struck there was not one mention of God, who directs pilots of planes and secures the safety of passengers.

We have written CBS and asked them for more realistic programming. Help protect our freedoms. Write CBS about this.

I was all set to write this off as yet another instance of some religious goof opening the floodgates and letting the garbage flow free, but then I started thinking about it a little more, the last line in particular.

We have written CBS and asked them for more realistic programming.

I realize that a good portion of what we're shown on the news is fabricated, but so is much of that bible thing you seem to be so hung up on. What, exactly, would count as realistic programming? Nothing but televangelists? You do realize that a lot of them are gimmicks living double lives, yes?

Help protect our freedoms. Write CBS about this.

Protect your freedoms? Which ones are in jeopardy? It can't be your freedom to hold a differing opinion than somebody else. The fact that you're angry at what somebody said in an interview bares that out. Your freedom to express yourself freely? Can't be that one, your letter was printed in the paper so that you could be heard and so that people like me could utilize our freedom to ridicule you for what we see as your foolishness. Your freedom to turn the channel if you don't like what you're watching? Perhaps, but I don't think it's that one. My money's on it being your freedom to dictate to others what they should believe and how they should express it. those afflicted with serious cases of religeousness tend to get pretty testy about that one.

The reason these people didn't mention God had nothing to do with pissing you off and everything to do with nobody mentioning him, or perhaps that part not making it in. And really, who cares? To me the most important thing is that everybody made it out of what could have been a horrible situation alive and able to give interviews. Who they worship if they in fact worship anybody never even crossed my mind, because in the long run it doesn't matter. Human beings who may or may not think the same way as you or I do survived, and if they live at the expense of your delicate sensibilities I can live with that,and I'm sure they can too.

Divorce

A Farmer walked into an attorney's office wanting to file for a divorce. The attorney asked, "May I help you?"

Farmer: "Yeah, I want one those dayvorce's."

Attorney: "Well do you have any grounds?"

Farmer: "Yea, I got about 140 acres."

Attorney: "No you don't understand, do you have a case?"

Farmer: "No I don't have a Case, but I have a John Deere."

Attorney: "No, you don't understand, I mean do you have a grudge."

Farmer: "Yea, I got a grudge, that's where I park my John Deere."

Attorney: "No, no, do you have a suit?"

Farmer: "Yes Sir, I got a suit, I wear it to Church on Sundays."

Attorney: "Well sir, does your wife beat you up or anything?"

Farmer: "No sire, we both get up about 4:30."

Attorney: "Well is she a nagger or anything?"

Farmer: "No she's a little white gal, but our last child was a nagger and that's why I want this Dayvorce!"