Wrestling, UFC, And A Couple Other Things

Hey everybody. Hope you're all doing well. I'm happy that we've finally gotten a few days of summer weather in a row, it's about time. I swear we did a weather swap with the west coast this year. They're frying in the miserable heat while we're getting drenched with rain and the temperatures are fairly cool by summer standards. Hopefully this will hold up for the weekend so that Carin can enjoy the Falls and my family stuff doesn't get dumped on.

Speaking of Carin, we've been texting back and forth a little bit and it sounds like her trip is going well so far. I'll let her fill in the details when she gets back, but from the sounds of it everybody's happy, including the dog.

The behind the scenes site stuff continues to plug along. We've got posts tagged up to about half way through 2006, so we're making nice progress there. Once that's done, then the real fun can begin.

Ok, time for a few wrestling and UFC thoughts, so if you're not interested, see ya later.

I was just reading that Jenna Morasca posted a big message on her blog defending the match she had against Sharmell at the TNA Victory Road pay-per-view a couple weeks back. That's interesting. when I tried to write the word back a couple sentences ago I had to fix it because I ended up writing bad. It's interesting because that's exactly what the show was, and the Jenna match might have been the worst of all.

But anyway, her basic point was that she knows fans weren't happy with the match, but that we can't judge it like we would other matches because this was the first time she had ever wrestled. Essentially what she said was, don't blame me, I did the best I could and I'm proud of myself for getting into the ring and doing something a lot of people will never do. and you know what? In a sense she's right. The blame doesn't completely lie with her. You can argue that maybe she didn't go over the match enough or whatever and that could well be true, but in the end, she didn't make the call to put that match on the PPV, TNA did. If you want to come down on somebody for how bad it was, blame whoever it was in the company who made that decision. There's no excuse for not having them work on this match every day either on house shows or in a ring they set up for people to train in. and if I'm wrong and that's what they were doing for hours upon hours every day, then there's no excuse for letting this match make air on a show that people are paying $30 to watch. It would have been a bad match on Impact, but the difference is that at least it's a bad match that everybody gets to see for free, even the people who attend the tapings since TNA doesn't charge admission. A debacle like this on pay-per-view is insulting to all of the fans who think enough of your product in spite of Impact to lay down their hard earned money on it expecting to see the best the company has to offer. Jenna has the right to be proud of her bad match because with time and effort she might get better (lord knows she can't get much worse), but TNA has no right to be proud of anything because even though they should know better, they've been putting on bad shows for years and years without so much as a hint of improvement.

I finally got around to watching UFC 100. Yeah, only a couple weeks late. It was a good show, but not good to the level of Lesnar vs. Couture from last year, which might have been the best MMA show from top to bottom I've ever seen. I don't have a whole lot to say about it, but a couple things do come to mind.

First, Alan Belcher vs. Yoshihiro Akiyama. What fight were the judges watching? I know this stuff can be debated until the end of time and I know there are people who think Akiyama won,but I'm not one of them. It wasn't by any means a total massacre, but I think Belcher did more damage and probably should have taken it. If you don't agree, at least give me this much. The judge who scored it 30-27 is completely ridiculous.

The biggest story coming out of the show was the post match promo that Brock Lesnar cut after he won. People are all up in arms over it, including Dana White. He and others say that Lesnar went over the line and was acting too much like a pro wrestler. If you'll allow me to speak Mr. White's language for a second, fuck you people. Dana White is as much a personality as anybody fighting in MMA today because he knows that's what sells, so to say that Brock went over the line is just ignorant. Dana can call guys fucking retards and fags, but Brock can't get in a dig at Bud Light because they're a sponsor or say that Frank Mir had a horseshoe up his ass when he beat him last time? Blow me! Sports, in particular the combat ones, are as much about entertainment as they are competition. Do you think that Mike Tyson or Muhammad Ali would have been the stars they were and are if they didn't have personalities to go along with what they could do in the ring? Of course not. Stars maybe, icons no. And saying that you don't want to inject wrestling into MMA is just absurd. It's already there. You have entrance music for the fighters, not to mention that before each fight, guys are talking about how so and so is no good and how they're going to knock him into next year or tear his arm off and take it home. All of that comes straight from that horrible fake crap you all say you hate so much, so get a clue. Brock is doing what any smart businessman would do. He's marketing his personality and trying to sell tickets, and damn, the guy's a natural. Why he was no good at this during his wrestling days is a mystery that will likely never be solved,but oh well.

That's all for now. Hopefully I'll have more to say later today, but if not, have a good weekend and try to stay cool and dry.

Good Luck

Brilliant Scientist Trying To Get Word Out About Penis-Enlargement Breakthrough

The Trip To See TheRaisers Is A Reality!

Remember how I said there was a possibility that I'd meet up with Trixie's raisers in Niagara Falls? Well it's happening. tomorrow I catch the bus and go meet 'em. I'm all kinds of excited and nervous, and a little sad that Trixie has contracted an ear infection, the first one in nearly two years. Why did that have to happen right before seeing them? But it's probably already cleared up since I started the drops on Monday.

I'm also debating whether or not it's a good idea to take Trixie on the Maid of the Mist. It's this giant boat that takes you all close to the falls, and you get soaked. It seems everybody and their brother and cousin who comes to Niagara Falls just has to take the boat. I would put her raincoat on for sure. Half the people I ask say go, just bring lots of kibble, half say don't, it'll be too loud and traumatic. We'll play it by ear.

whatever we do will be fun I'm sure. Wish me luck and pray we don't get any thunder storms! She never had that fear growing up, but she sure has it now.

Baby Talk

Somebody said something to me that set my mind into battle mode against itself.

A lady who lives on the same flor as us started talking to me. At first, it was just regular conversation. Then she mentioned my neighbour and her little baby. This was swiftly followed by "Soon it'll be your turn. You want to have a baby some day don't you?" This felt like a knife straight through my heart.

I have never said this up on the blog before, but I found out a few years ago that it's highly unlikely that I will be able to have kids. If I could, and that's abig if, it would take some serious medical intervention. It has nothing to do with the blindness, not that it should, but I had to throw that in there. It has more to do with the other crap that's wonky with me. But long story short, giving birth isn't in the cards for me.

so to be asked that question outside an elevator by an acquaintance hurt like hell. All I could mutter was "yes." but I'm sure my face told a myriad of stories that I never wanted to tell in words. But I have the kind of face that might as well have speech bubbles above it because it's far too expressive for my own good.

Then another part of me said "How could she have known that about you? At least she thought enough of you that she thought you could raise a baby, unlike others who think you can barely get out of bed in the morning unassisted. Be thankful for that."

But then another part of me wondered if that's a safe thing to say to anyone. I mean, I don't want people stumbling over their words for fear that anything at all could offend someone, but isn't that a line of conversation that's a wee touch invasive? Isn't that sort of similar to asking someone how old they are or how much they make? Or am I crazy?

I don't really have an end to this post. I just hate awkward moments like that, and they leave me thinking for far longer than that woman probably thought about the whole exchange. The most thought she might have given it was "Gee what's with the expression on her face? It went from shock to dismay to despair to fake cheerfulness. Hmmm. Oh well, gotta do laundry now..."

Trixie The Mind-Reader?

Here's something Trixie has done lately that's spooky. there's probably nothing to this, but it's still eerie. There are few times I've been caught without a bag when I take her out to relieve. Every time I realize that I don't have a bag and say "ah crap, I don't have a bag," she doesn't poop! It's probably a big coincidence, but a small part of me wonders if she understands. Then a larger part of me slaps the smaller part and calls it nuts.

The Fatchelor

This comes from brother Brad. he didn't come right out and tell me to post it, but knowing him that's what's supposed to happen. Thanks for the kind words, buddy.

What in the world is wrong with people? I just heard on the news that there's going to be a new show similar to the Bachelor, only to, shall we say, help those more corpulent folks among us find that waddling blob of jelly they have been seeking for years.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but do you see the need for this? Can't these people just go on the, I hesitate to use the word "normal" version of this show? Or better yet, go out and wander around and look for your new potential significant other? Aren't there enough stupid pointless waste of space shows out there as it is? 

There was some sort of debate on after the news, two people one for and one against it. They both had good points and bad ones. One said that if someone wants to eat 2 steaks, half a dozen potatoes, and 3 or four slabs of pie, more power to them. If they're happy with themselves, why shouldn't they find someone, while the other person said it was totally disgusting and pointless to even consider such a thing. 

Now, don't get me wrong. I have nothing against fat people. I mean, Look at Steve. He's a wee bit hefty, but he's still a good guy. But, is there any reason to air stuff like this?

I don't know, maybe it's just me. I still firmly believe that good television died when the last reruns of The Beverly Hillbillies went off the air and they stopped showing Alf. So, my opinion probably really doesn't mean that much.

Whistle While You Work

I've talked on and on about how calling out bus stops can't be that much of a distraction when I've seen bus drivers chat to passengers, mess with their fare box and sign, or even better, yap on their cell phones or eat cereal while driving. Now I've seen a new one. One driver, while not calling out stops, whistled a tune for 10 minutes straight. I was so fascinated with figuring out what his tune was that I zoned in on it. Even while whistling his tune, he managed to honk at someone who he wanted to honk at for one reason or another. So, he can whistle and drive and it's not a distraction, but calling stops is just unacceptable. Driver dude, I'm glad you're happy. Just don't dare be one of the drivers who tells me that calling out stops is just too hard. I've watched you whistle for 10 minutes and still drive. You can use the same mouth to utter stops. Thank you.

Well, Glad That's Sorted

Investigators Determine Air France Disaster Caused By Plane Crash

French and Brazilian authorities said their first hint that the tragedy was caused by a plane crash came last week, when divers recovered several large metal fragments from Air France Flight 447 that were not fused together in one solid mass, as is typical of a functioning aircraft. The fragments were
then analyzed and found not to be airborne or otherwise soaring intact across the sky. The final clue, they said, was that certain key features of the crash site in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean seemed to be consistent with a huge commercial airliner having crashed there.

The discovery of deceased Flight 447 passengers further supported the so-called "plane crash" theory, as investigators claimed these men and women would most likely have already arrived in Paris had the Airbus jet not gone down.

While the aircraft's black box has yet to be recovered, officials speculated that the simple fact that they are currently searching for it corroborates their theory of a plane crash.

"It took us a long time to figure out exactly what led to this unspeakable event," said Brazilian aviation expert Federico Lobão, who spent countless hours carefully studying footage of the wreckage. "Never could we have imagined that something like a plane crash could be behind such a catastrophic plane crash."

What Am I Not Understanding Here

I need somebody to explain to me howthismakes any sense.

A ruling from a Swedish court that IP numbers should be considered personal data will not have any impact on the country's recently passed anti-piracy law.

The Swedish Supreme Administrative Court ruled today that IP numbers should be considered personal information. This is a hot topic because copyright holders routinely use IP numbers to identify people they accuse of illegal file sharing. IP numbers, although issued to a computer, can often be easily tracked back to an individual.

But a policy adviser at Sweden's ministry of Justice told the Register: "The rumours that this decision will kill off IPRED [Sweden's anti-Pirate Bay law] are wrong, because the bill creating the law includes an exemption for rights holders - they may request and keep IP numbers for this purpose."

Call me slow, but I don't understand this at all. IP addresses are supposed to be personal, but all it takes is an accusation of copyright infringement by somebody who may or may not have a legitimate claim (I'm talking about the music, film and software industries here since some of the claims they make are technically/legally wrong and ridiculous) and all that privacy is out the window without a warrant or a court order? That doesn't seem at all fair. If you exempt the most egregious abusers of IP addresses, what's the point of protecting those addresses and the privacy of innocent people in the first place? It sounds like what's happening here is a good ruling was made but lobbying is almost surely going to ruin it. If I've got this wrong, please, somebody set me straight.

The Wearable Tool

Isthe Wearable Towelreally something the world was crying out for? Are regular towels honestly so complicated that you need "the towel with arm openings!"? what about bath robes? Putting on your clothes? Yes? Ok, just asking.

I'll say this for it though. It sure is nice to know that not only can it be worn as a tunic or a toga, but that it is also perfect for wearing with family and friends. Because when I'm picking a towel, my main concern is what will the fellas at the pub think or is this the right outfit for Christmas dinner with the in-laws? These concerns are closely followed as I'm sure you can imagine by boy, I hope I'll be able to use my hands while I have this here towel on.

If you can figure out how to click your mouse without accidently getting naked in the public library, you can order onehere.

Want To Win a Blackberry That Talks?

Whenever I would go home to dialupville, I always drooled at my brother's Blackberry. While I'm fighting with a computer that's half dead and using dialup, he's sitting there click clickedy clicking his way onto google with no trouble. I would drool and drool, but I knew that Blackberries werent' accessible.

That isn't true anymore, thanks to a partnership between Code Factory and Humanware. You go, guys, you all rock my socks off. They're building, and are about to unveil, the Orator screen-reader for Blackberries. Yeah!

And it gets better. If you hurry hurry hurry, you may be able to win one of these suckas, all set up with their fancy shmancy Orator screen-reader! there are 4 up for grabs, so go go go!

If this contest wasn't being run by Humanware, I'd be suspicious of it since there seem to be no rules, and after you register, it says you've been subscribed to a list. Weird. But it's Humanware, so I'm 99.9 percent sure that there's no trouble afoot.

So, if ya want a chance at a Blackberry that will talk, give the contest a try.

It's The Giant Logic Hole Right Outside Your Window

So I'm sitting here listening to the Jays game (Jays are leading 7-4 in the bottom of the 6th) and I had a thought. Not so much about the game itself though it's a fun back and forth that you should start watching if you happen to see this in time, but about thosegoddamn Super8 commercials that play Ad nauseam(see what I did there?). We established earlier that they're annoying, but it occurred to me just now that they're also stupid.

Follow me here. The basic idea is that Joanna is sitting in her office doing whatever she does for money on a day to day basis and at random times a giant talking motel billboard starts screaming marketing messages at her. We know there are other people in the office because the sounds of ringing phones and other people talking are in the background, yet nobody seems to be even the least bit concerned. This leaves only 2 possibilities: either everybody is so completely zombified by their mundane tasks that they can't be bothered to react which says a lot about the effectiveness of the advertising, or Joanna is insane and nobody else can hear what's going on...which begs the question, if it's option 2, how can we hear it? Who's recording the voices in this poor woman's head and how, and why are they shipping those recordings to the radio station instead of trying to get her some help? That just seems cruel, don't you think?

By the way, it's now 8-4 Blue Jays in the Super8th inning. Seriously,that's what they call it on the radio broadcasts. I think I'm doomed to be tormented by this place until the end of time, or at least until crazy Joanna snaps and starts laying waste to soupright signs.

Site Things

Wow, there's some creative titling if ever I've seen it.

Anyway, we're still working at getting all of our posts labelled. It's going well. We took a break to do some weekend fun things with some friends, but we're back at it now and have managed to label a little over a year's worth of posts. Woohoo, only like 5 more to go!

But sadly, it turns out that getting this done is just going to be the beginning. For a whole bunch of reasons we're finally going to have to break down and switch templates. Amazingly we're still using the original one that Matt picked when he started the site back in 2003. We've dressed it up quite a bit over time, but it's getting to the point where we can't take it anywhere anymore. There are some problems with the archives that we can't easily fix without doing it, and because the design is so old and Blogger features have changed, all of this labelling will be for naught if we don't make the leap to the present.

Speaking of which, if you're wondering why there are only a few posts under the tags when you click them, there are 2 reasons. One is that we're not done yet so there are going to be gaps in spots until we get them all filled in, and the second is that because of the current layout there's no way to click for older posts, so all you'll be able to access through the labels is the most recent 20 posts in your chosen category. That's going to be one of the things we'll be fixing and changing over the next while. Lord, there are going to be a lot of those. This system is down tag has never seemed quite so appropriate. but bare with us, and feel free to let us know if things are broken or if you're good with templates and don't mind helping out blind folks.

CRTC Makes Pretty Cool Ruling

This is good news! The CRTC has made a ruling that, among other things, blind and deaf folks whill have better access to accessible cell phones and text messaging, and there will be better captioning and description on TV. I think the coolest thing I saw in there was that every wireless provider has to have at least one accessible phone. I think "accessible phone" has to be better defined, since the LG phones that speak *some* functions of the phones could be deemed accessible even though you don't have access to the phone settings or much else, but it's a good sign and it means that one provider can't feel they have blind folks by the short and curlies.

But it did get me thinking. It said that there has to be something set up to allow deaf folks to have access to 911...which begs the question what do they do now? If a deaf person needs emergency assistance, do they have to talk to 911 via relay? Good sweet holy lord that would be slow and chaotic.

911 operator: what is the nature of your emergency?
relay person: types "what is the nature of your emergency?" go ahead.
deaf person: someone's breaking into my house. Oh my god gun..(bunch of random keys)
relay person tries to constructa message and strip out the chaos.

See my point? What do they do now? I'm dead serious. I wanna know. I like to think I'm up on accessibility, but I know that the first part of accessibility that I have an understanding of is accessibility as it pertains to blindness. I know much less about the rest.

And this is whyI get mad when I hear other folks with disabilities immediately jumping to the "They just don't care about us and don't want to make things accessible" line. This is true in some cases when they don't think there are enough of us to warrant making a change, or just don't want to try, even when they are approached, but if they don't have to deal with whatever you deal with every day, it doesn't enter their mind. It's not always evil, it's human nature.

So this is pretty cool. It'll be neat to watch things unfold.

Don't Deal Doc

I haven't bothered saying anything about all of this Roy Halladay trade business up until now, but since it's not going away I might as well. it hasn't been talked about to death or anything, has it?

The biggest question I have whenever this comes up is why? Why would you trade arguably the best pitcher in the major leagues when your team has been plagued by injuries to the starting rotation and the bullpen all year, not to mention a good bit of last year and probably the foreseeable future? What are you gaining? There's nothing out there when it comes to pitching that wouldn't at best be a lateral move. I suppose you could trade him away for a bunch of prospects, but hello, look at the current pitching staff. it's full of them, and I'm pretty sure there are more where they came from. Rookies are great and you always need to be looking at the future, but you also need something you can hang your hat on right now, and if you get rid of Roy I'm not sure what that something will be. The only guy that comes immediately to mind is Ricky Romero, but he's still somewhat of a prospect himself and with all due respect, he's good, but he's not Roy. Not many people are Roy, which is the problem.

There's also the idea of trading him for a bunch of hitters. Again, why? Just about everybody in the lineup can hit, as can most of the guys on the bench other than maybe John McDonald, and he's one of the best defensive players on the team when he gets the chance to show it.

Maybe there's something I'm missing, but it seems to me there's nothing out there that's worth trading away a Halladay to get,and no good reason to try unless he's wanting to leave. If you're rebuilding again you need something to build around, and an ace pitcher is a pretty good start. And if you're still aiming to be a contender in spite of the current record, then moving him shouldn't even be an option.

Just to further complicate things, if the choice is made to move him, where do you allow him to go? You sure as hell don't want to trade him within the division unless you never want to see the playoffs again, and even trading him to another AL team is a bit risky since you'll still end up facing him a fair bit.

Bottom line is that unless there's a dire need to cut ties, this is a bad idea and needs to be put to bed right now.

Re: Mylo

I rescind my request to be friends. I now officially hate you with a passion. There isn't room enough for all of us. You can leave!

Trixie and I were coming down the elevator. We got to the third floor and it opened. Trixie thought maybe we were getting off, so stood up and stepped forward. In response, what you did, you little shit, was uncalled-for. You sprang from your inept handlers' grasp, there were two of them, and jumped on my dog. You left your slobber all over her shoulders, neck and chest. She screamed. She did nothing to provoke your aggression.

All the two lugs could manage was "shit." and "sorry." Sorry? I appreciate the apology, but sorry does not even cut it. How about "handler 1 will take our little hell hound back to confinement in the apartment where it belongs, while I will check your dog over for damage and accompany you to the vet if necessary." That would have been good. "Sorry" as they held onto you, their little shitball dog and waited for the other elevator as mine descended out of sight left me seething.

I had 3 people check my dog over to see if you left any damage, and it appears you did not. At least there was no damage on the visible spectrum, but that's no guarantee. Attacks like this *can* retire a dog. I did notice that when the elevator opened at the bottom, she was slightly afraid to step out. Hopefully this won't grow into anything bad.

Mylo, don't you dare mess with my dog again, and don't you dare mess with Rosamae either. She's coming tomorrow, and so help me, if you do that to her, there will be hell to pay for your handlers. Go learn some social skills, you little shit.

Yours truly,

An angry, shaken Carin and Trixie

Screw Commuting By Bus

Remember the last time I bitched about commuting via bus? Well, I'm about to do it again, because I'm a fool...well I do love where I'll be working, but I'm still a fool, but they've made it even harder for me. Fuck Greyhound. Fuck 'em hard.

When I did this the last time, I got on the bus at 8 in the morning. Now, that bus is gone! it's been nixed, killed, rendered not needed or something. I can either get on the bus at 7:30 a.m. and arrive in Kitchener's main station at 8:20, or I can catch a bus at 8:40, which would deliver me to Kitchener at...late for work!

Let's write up my new itinerary if I end up having to take the fucking grey dog. I have to be at the dors of the bus by 7:30 in the morning. The greyhound station is not where the city buses arrive. So, I have to walk about 4 blocks from the downtown dropoff point to the Greyhound station. Buses arrive every 20 minutes from 6 a.m. on. So arriving at 7:20 to catch a 7:30 bus doesn't leave me with enough time to account for problems, slowups, any errors I might make, construction, any hickups of any kind. So I would have to be downtown at 7 a.m. this means catching the bus at 6:40. This means leaving my house at 6:25 or so. This means getting up at 5:25 at the latest.

Ug! This sucks so much that I am trying desperately to find a ride with someone. And this is the point where I say a loud fuck you to the proponents of commuting via bus to work! this is why it doesn't work! Anyone who *can* drive would never, ever, ever choose this!

So, is there anyone reading this who drives from Guelph to Kitchener in the mornings? Want a little gas money? Talk to me!

Another One Of Those Site Overhauls

We're such fools. We've had the ability to categorize all of our posts for years and never bothered to do it as we went like smart people would do, but now that we're creeping up on 4000 posts and things are getting harder and harder to find it's the perfect time to go all the way back to 2003 and tag everything by hand. Yeah, not too bright, we know.

Anyway, I'm telling you this since for the most part you're a pretty observant lot and have likely noticed the labels at the end of some of the newer posts. Eventually every post will have them, which will make things a lot better for you and for us. You can read all of our theme stuff all in one place, and we can find it when we want to link back to something instead of having to rely on our not so perfect memories and search engine. For now there will be huge gaps in what's listed under each label, but we'll be filling those in over time. when it's all done we'll put them all in the sidebar near the archives so you will always have easy access to them,but you can also click from within the posts if something catches your attention. Nothing should break while we're doing this, but should doesn't always mean won't. If you run into any trouble, let one of us know and we'll try to fix it when we're done screaming and throwing things.

I Thought I Could Do Better Than Calling This Suck Plaza Central, But I Was Wrong. Oh Well, It's Still Better Than Christ This Is Awful, Just Kill Me

If I didn't tell you thatthis clunky, squeaky-voiced garbageis supposed to be a cover of Van halen's Panama, would you have been able to figure it out on your own? To be honest, I'm not sure I would have.

Note to Rock Plaza Central, the relentless jerks responsible for this hideous mess: When you record a cover in a totally different style, the aim is usually to either make people chuckle at the idea of taking a song out of its element and putting it into a whole new one or make them say wow, that sounds pretty cool, I never would have thought it would work, but they sure proved me wrong. The aim should not be to make people think boy, how sad...what the fuck were they covering again?

And while we're talking aims, might I humbly suggest aiming yourselves in the direction of some musical ability? Skills like rhythm and tune carrying have taken people pretty far in this business, you should look into them.

Just to be fair, I checked out another song since the only thing I've heard from you before today is your name. I was hoping that maybe this whole Panama thing was some kind of misunderstanding, a drunken mistake captured on tape during the most depressing party ever thrown. Sadly, after hearing something you callI Am an Excellent Steel Horse,everything I said stands, and I'm starting to wonder if I haven't been hard enough on you. I'll give credit where it's due, it's better than Panama, but I can't stand the thought of listening to anything more to figure out whether that's just a fluke or if there might be a glimmer of hope in there somewhere. I'm not the type to crush somebody's dreams, but you guys might want to consider giving up as an act of public service.

Funny The Way It Is...

"At 12:40 a.m. Sunday, Park Police arrested David Matthews of Carlton Avenue, Cohoes, who police allege forcibly touched and groped a 20-year-old woman near the Hall of Springs outside SPAC at 9:30 p.m. Saturday, according to City Court records.

"Park patrons directed police to the woman, who told police that Matthews, 18, had sexually abused her, Keefe said."

And what concert do you suppose this fellow was attending at the time? Why aDave Matthews Bandconcert, of course.

Super Eeewww!

Police: Suspect attacked women with superglue in Pasadena stores

He would just walk up to them in drug and grocery stores and plop superglue in their hair. They don't know why. they haven't caught him yet. Did he used to work in the stores as one of those perfume-spraying dorks who would come out of some part of an aisle and ambush folks with the worst-smelling perfume possible? did he think this was more fun?

I hope they catch him. Then they can work on arresting all those perfume-spraying department store assholes. Who thought that was a good idea? They don't ask if you'd like some perfume, they don't care if you're a dude or a chick. They just leap out and spray you, and the stuff always smells way too strong and you're left walking around smelling like Eau de Toilet Cleaner all day. Yuck!

Google, Please Do No Evil

I know that Las Angeles's computer systems are antequated, described as "Pac-Man-era technology", but is the solution to transfer all the city's sensitive data over to Google? This includes arrest records and other confidential city data. Hmmm. This is Google we're talking about, ya know, the one who likes to archive people's mail indefinitely, says it's deleting something but doesn't really do it, likes to keep account-holders' search history online for who knows how long. Do we really want to place sensitive data in their hands and trust that they'll do the right thihng with it?

the scary thing is other cities have already done it.

I know any computer and security system can be hacked if somebody wants to do it badly enough...but isn't storing data out on servers somewhere else, on Google no less, making it a little too easy? Yes, they say there are precautions...but are they good enough?

I'm glad I don't live in Las Angeles. As far as I know, Guelph's stuff isn't stored on Google.

Smash TV's, Feel Better. Wal-Mart.

There isn't much to this story. the only thing that keeps making me laugh is the image of Jeremy Allan Rhodes walking around Wal-Mart, first with a softball bat, next with a lamp, smashing TV's. Why? We don't know. All we know is he has issues and he's in jail now. Let's hope after the lamp incident, they filed the report on time.

My Little Blind Dune Buggy

Ooo! Driving the Blind Driver Challenge Vehicle sounds like fun! Can I do it? Can I can I can I? Please? I personally would have to take a hell of a lot of training to feel confident out on the road, but this sounds like a cool idea. I'd at least enjoy driving it around the obstacle course.

I did catch one piece of irony. they hope to build it into an electric car...like a soundless one? Like the kind we're all kinda afraid of? Please, please put some sound on this one! I don't think we want driving blinks silently killing their pedestrian fellows.

I wish these folks well. Maybe some day, we'd be able to drive ourselves around. Wacky!

Dear Mylo:

You live in the building with me, and have for at least as long as I've had Trixie. You're a little dog. In fact, I can hold your head in one hand. I don't know what kind of dog you are, but you're small. What exactly is your issue with Trixie? If I'm out alone, like if I go to the pool and I see you, you're as docile as docile can be. But if you can see Trixie from half-way across the parking lot, you start to strain on your flexi...why your owner walks you on a flexi in the parking lot I'll never understand...but anyway. You strain on your flexi and gr'r'r'r'r'r'rowl, gr'r'r'r'rowl, roof! roofroofroofroof! Gr'r'r'r'r'r'rooof! What are you, the new Teddy? But Teddy just barked at everything. You seem to have it in for Trixie. Why?

When I first used to meet you, I just thought you wanted to meet her and play. But you've been making it clear lately that you don't want to play, you want to defend your territory. For the past few mornings and evenings, I've had the misfortune of meeting you while taking Trixie out for her business, and your response has been the same. Gr'r'r'r'r'rooof! Roofroofroofroof! Gr'r'r'r'r'r'r'ooof! You would never know by that giant bark that if Trixie wanted to, she could eat you for breakfast.

A few months ago, when your owner thought it would be fun to let her little nephew hold you, you broke away, broke for Trixie, and I think tried to get underneath her and start biting at her. I couldn't move because it was so slippery and icy. Then your owner came and scooped you up, apologizing profusely. I was glad she came, but mad that she didn't act faster. I mean, I had about 30 seconds of warning that you were going to get away. I could hear you straining on that blasted flexi as hard as you could. All Trixie was doing was taking a damn crap!

Do you do this with all dogs, or do you just hate Trixie? What in hell did she ever do to you? If you do this with all dogs, you may meet an untimely end. You're too small for that crap. I know, you have to make up for your size somehow, but actually physically attacking another dog who outweighs you by a lot is probably not a good idea. go take some obedience classes or something, and leave us alone! Contrary to what you think, this building *is* big enough for all of us.

Hoping We can be friends,

Carin and Trixie

Wacky Headline Of The Day

Baby Born On NYC Mass Transit For 2nd Straight Day

Congratulations to the family, and happyGroundhog Day.

Cute Kid. How Old Is He In Mom Doesn't Have Her Head Up Her Ass Years?

I'd like to ask a favour of all the parents in the crowd. Please, when your kid turns 1, stop giving out his age in months. It sounds ridiculous. whenever I hear one of you say that little William or Betty is 14 months old instead of a year and a bit or 18 months instead of a year and a half it makes me want to hit something, specifically you for coming off so...I guess pretentiously would be the word, as if your child is far too important for conventional units of measure. I once had a mother tell me when I asked that her boy was 24 months old. Seriously, how stupid is that,and who talks that way? A person's age, though it involves numbers, should not be a math equation that I am required to solve. The answer to the question should be the answer to the question, not deflected back at me in the form of another question in a subject I'mbad at. The kid's 2, no need to make it complicated. You don't hear me going around telling people that I'm 355 months old, because that would be dumb. Hmmm, maybe I should start whipping that one out on the baby people to make a point.

The Trouble With Triple

This excerpt from Figure Four Weekly is great. In just a few short lines, it answers a question that a lot of people including me have spent a lot of time trying to answer but never nailing down quite so well. Why does Triple H irritate the hell out of so many wrestling fans?

by the way, if you are a wrestling fan, you need to subscribe to theF4W/Wrestling Observer siteright now. Value for your money doesn't even begin to describe this place. For all you get, they could charge twice the price and it would still be more than worth it.

Watching Hunter walk to the back was a funny thing. He was there holding onto his belt for dear life, and I don't even think the cameras were on him. And I just thought, does having the belt really mean that much to the guy, still, after all these years? People have often asked my why, say, Shawn Michaels doesn't get another run with the title, and what bullshit that is, and I always answer, "To be honest, I don't think he gives a fuck." Shawn got into the business wanting to be a superstar and a champion, he achieved that, and I think that at this stage in his career a belt is just something heavy that he would have to carry through security at the airport. When I was a little kid I wanted to become a wrestler and win a BELT, and during my career I won a few, including the Texarkana Title. This made me happy because a person who lived on the other side of the country trusted me enough to lose to me with the assumption that at some point I would come back and return the favor, which I did. It was a fun six months and I made wacky banners on our Web site to celebrate the victory and we did promos on the radio show and that sort of thing, and the key is that in the end I was satisfied that I had accomplished such a thing in my small career. I could work for 100 more years and never "win" another belt and I would be fine with that. And I look at Hunter and I wonder why he has this need to continually have THE BELT. I mean, what has really been accomplished with this 13th title win? It's not like this time he actually defeated someone in legitimate athletic competition. It would be one thing if this was a period where it was actually an honor to be the champion in that you were the guy the company trusted to carry the ball, and holding that belt was a huge responsibility. I could even understand if it was most anyone else, like a Jeff Hardy, who also grew up wanting to be a champion and found the company he worked for thought enough of him to give him that honor. But for HHH in 2009, he's working in a company where the belt changes hands so many times that the champion is hardly the guy the company is built around, he doesn't carry all the responsibility for success or failure on his shoulders because no one man today makes that much of a difference, and it can't even feel like that much of an honor to get it when your father-in-law runs the place and your wife writes the storylines. I guess in the end what he grew up wanting was to be Ric Flair, and the most important thing to him remains equaling or surpassing Flair's title record. And I guess to people who don't know anything about wrestling that will be a big deal when it happens. But to the people who do, who know what an accomplishment it was for Flair to be awarded all those titles by all those different promoters all over the world for all those years, every title Hunter is awarded by his family will make him look like an even bigger mark, which I'm pretty sure is not the legacy he was hoping for as a child.

When They Talk About Bedside Manner, They don't Mean You Should Practice From Your Bedroom

A while ago I talked about sketchy doctors treating folks in sketchy places. Well, we can add Donnie Hendrix and his silicone injections to the list. Yeah, the guy gave silicone injections out of his bedroom, and killed a woman when somehow, while injecting her hips, silicone filled her lungs. How that happens, I don't know, but an even better question is why are people allowing this guy to shoot them full of stuff when signs point to this guy not being areal doctor.

And calling Jill, er, anyone who wants to describe this guy...exactly how hard is it to tell whether he's a man or a woman?

'Scuse Me, 'Scuse Me! Man with Big Balls Just Wrote A Paper

Dr. Denis Walsh has a lot of balls telling women how much pain they should or shouldn't go through when having a baby. I figure until he can pop a baby out of himself, he doesn't have a right to speak about how much pain a mother should go through. Sure he makes a few good points about moms who have epidurals not being able to do as much during the birthing process and needing more help, but he should watch his step when telling a mom that the pain is a rite of passage. He may learn a lot about pain if he tells the wrong woman that little gem.

This reminds me of a family doctor I used to have. He had no problem telling older people that their pain was just part of getting older and he wouldn't investigate it. But when he suddenly had his own pain to deal with, then it was a big deal. I think this guy is the same. the sad part is he'll never go through having a baby, so he will never learn anything that might change his mind.

Goddamn Sonofabitch That's Cold!

Here's a study I'd like to be a fly on the wall for.

A group of volunteers were asked to put their hands in freezing water for as long as they could. during one trial, they were asked to say a random word, and in the other trial, they were asked to use a swear word of their choice. they could keep their hand in the cold water for longer while swearing. I keep imagining what would happen if Steve's dad was chosen for the study. The study authors could learn new, creative words like cockhump.

I have one problem with the study. The swearers had to keep using the same swear word. I don't know about you, but when I've just done something that hurts, I say a whole pile of different ones. I wonder if that has anything to do with the suppression of pain. They should have had 3 conditions: the random word condition, the stick to one swear word condition and the make 'em up as you go condition. Maybe they'll do that next time. Then Steve's dad could have real fun.

Well...That Explains Why I couldn't Get Any Shows To Come Up On The Furnace.

wow. Just a little over a year after a dude mistook the moon for a UFO, an elderly woman mistook the fireplace channel for her TV being on fire. thank god she didn't try to throw water on her TV first. Then she would have had a real emergency.

Oh. I was supposed To Do Those In Order?

Is this the type of guy who doesn't follow instructions well? Does he buy a piece of furniture with numbered pieces and then just grab random pieces and try to put them together? I would imagine so, since he can't get three steps in order. The three steps were supposed to be

1. rob armoured vehicle.
2. speed off in getaway car.
3. At another location, swap cars and set fire to getaway vehicle.

But somehow, he thought it should have gone like this.

1. Park getaway car near armoured vehicle and set fire to it.
2. rob armoured vehicle.
3. Run away. Run, run, run!

you can guess how that went. He got arrested, and his car, the evidence he was hoping to destroy, was taken as evidence.

That's How It's Done

Burin, Newfoundland resident Stewart Brenton, 47, has become the first case of truly appropriate drunk driving sentencing I've ever heard of.

Back in June, Brenton appeared in court on charges of driving while impaired, flight from police and driving while disqualified. He was convicted and as part of his sentence, he was slapped witha 99 year driving ban.

I'm not sure how many previous convictions he's had, but I've heard plenty of stories of people on their 8th or 9th impaired that don't end up like this one did. The judge who tried this case is my new hero. Like the title of the post says, that's how it's done...or at least how it needs to be done more often.

It's Not An iPod, It's A Pea Pod

Next time you find 3 men sitting in a car full of laptops, cell phones and digital cameras and you decide you want to buy some, it would be good to look in the bag they hand you, especially after giving them about $866 U.S. If you don't, you may find out you just paid for some pretty expensive potatoes.

this reminds me of the story of the Marijuana that was broccoli.

Boooooarack Oboooooama?

There's not a whole lot to say about the all-star game. It was fine, I had fun, what more can you ask for? It wasn't the best night to be a starting pitcher, but in the end the right team won so it's all good.

One thing I did notice, at least I think I noticed it and it wasn't all of our imaginations was how loud the booing was for President Obama when he came out to throw the first pitch. It was kind of like the reaction that John Cena sometimes gets in WWE where some people cheer and some people boo, then the booing gets louder, so the cheering people try to out scream the booers only to have them get louder in response and so on and so forth. I didn't hear this, but Carin told me that the announcers on the feed we were watching said that it might have had to do with the Chicago White Sox jacket he was wearing. I don't think I'm buying that. If the fans wanted to boo somebody for wearing another team's clothing, they could have booed just about everybody. It's the all-star game, for crying out loud. There are plenty of chances to boo anybody who's not from the team you like, but it sounded like for the most part people were respectful of the players no matter who they played for and the only one who came close to getting booed out of the place was Obama.

So here's my question to any Americans who feel like trying to answer it. Is Obama starting to lose some of that god like status he had around election time or was this a fluke? I know he's made some decisions I personally don't like, but I'm not sure I'd be ready to boo him just yet. But not being in America it's harder to read the pulse of the people, so is the general feeling about him changing as folks realize that he's just another politician and that they may have fallen for the marketing?

Incidentally, I was disappointed with Obama's pitch. Not because it was particularly bad, but because he didn't throw a changeup we can believe in. Thank you, thankyouverymuch!

Um...yeah. Something tells me that line was a lot funnier when I was buzzed and full of fried chicken. Oh well, what can you do?

Look At Us, All Over The Letters to the Editor Section Again

On Tuesday, Steve said he was going to write a letter to the editor about an editorial he saw about the calling of bus stops. Well, it got in. I wrote one too, and it also made it in. I think his was better, but oh well. At least we both got to hit some points.

The poor Mercury is starting to figure out that these two blinks do live at the same place, because they only called once and verified that we each did write a letter, instead of calling, asking for one of us, and then calling again and going "Ah crap, if I'd realized you were both at the same number, I would have gotten both letters verified at once."

Hopefully the letters make people think. I can't guarantee it, but at least we tried.

Cell Phone Chatter

I figure while I'm ranting, I might as well get both of my small complaints out of the way first.

Steve finally got himself a new cell phone, the same one I got a couple years ago, and while I'm largely happy with how smooth it was for him to get his hands on the phone, I'm a little saddened by a couple of things.

First, they sent it with a version of Talks that's a couple of versions behind. It's no big deal, you can upgrade for fre, but why not at least start him off with the most up to date Talks? I mean, the phone's a bit old, why not at least have the newest compatible version of the screen-reader on it?

And second, how come when I got mine, they sent manuals for Talks as well as a sheet of braille detailing what all I should find in the box, and he got none of that? Did they only have a finite number of copies of the manual and braille sheets? It was just a little worrysome and had us wondering whether or not he really got the phone with the Talks preinstalled. Luckily once we got the phone together, it spoke immediately. but still, that little touch of including the manuals was kind of nice. I kind of understand why they stopped sending the braille since sadly, less people are braille-users, but the manuals would have been a nice reassurance that we did get what we asked for, since not all of the Rogers folk know the difference between Nokia 6682 and Nokia 6682RVI. Thankfully, more of them do than did before, so that's great.

But, all things considered, it's a good phone, and we got Talks for a sweet deal. They said he could upgrade in a year to another phone if he wanted. At least it brought the starting price of Talks down, which is very cool.

I said this rant was small. I guess it was.

Feel Free To Submit Events...If You Can Figure Out How

Here's a puzzler for ya. How come almost every single media outlet that has a community events listings area doesn't have a little section where they explain where people can send their listings, how long they need to be, etc? I'm part of a committee that wants to send press releases out about events coming up, and I was supposed to find out how to send them to various newspapers, radio stations, etc. And only one newspaper had a thing that told folks where to send their event info.

Good god! You'd think the media would want to cut down on the number of confused folks calling them wondering how they could get their event listed. Why would they want to make it harder? When I asked some of them about it, all they did was stammer.

Thankfully, once I did get a hold of people, getting the info was very easy. But gees! Why not make things just a wee touch simpler for everyone?

When Somethin's Hard To Articulate, Here's What To Do

For the life of me, I cannot get this song out of my head. And try as she might, Carin can't either. So I'm posting it here to share the love, and to show that not every song we write about here is complete suck.

This one comes from Sean Cullen of Corky and the Juice pigs fame (yes, the Gay Eskimo guys). It's a hilarious take on bands like Creed and how they have somehow managed to make Wheay into a word. He nails the style perfectly, much better than the bands themselves. It sounds like faint praise I know, but the way he pulls it off is really something.Sean Cullen - Wheay!

This track comes from the album I am A Human Man, which you can buyherefrom CDBaby.

Somebody's Got To Do Something!

World Death Rate Holding Steady At 100 Percent

Death, a metabolic affliction causing total shutdown of all life functions, has long been considered humanity's number one health concern. Responsible for 100 percent of all recorded fatalities worldwide, the condition has no cure.

A Letter To Somebody Who Knows Not From The Bus

This editorial about why bus drivers shouldn't have to call out stopsirritated me so much that I had to write a letter about it. It hasn't been published yet, but here's what I wrote. By the way,hereis a post that Carin wrote last year expressing similar frustrations to give you an idea of how long this has been going on.

Dear Editor,

As a blind bus rider, I take issue with your editorial Let bus drivers focus on the road, published in Monday's Mercury.

I have to wonder if it was penned by somebody who has ever bothered to ride a bus in Guelph on a regular basis.  My guess is no, because clearly there is little or no understanding of what actually goes on on some of these busses.  Drivers carrying on long conversations with riders or even on their cell phones is something that happens routinely, and no thought is seemingly given to either of these things distracting the driver from the task at hand.  That being the case, how is announcing your current location for the benefit of a segment of your ridership any worse?  The mind boggles.  As a bus driver, it's your job to know where you are, so why is it so hard to tell me?

In the editorial you also state that "the practice of asking your driver to let you know when your stop is coming up is the solution."  That's fine and many times it works, but many times it doesn't.  I wish I had a nickel for every time myself or a friend has been forgotten about and missed a stop.  I would be getting close to having the money to buy my own car and hire a driver so I wouldn't have to take the bus anymore.  And what do you suppose is the main reason myself and other blind folks get forgotten about on a bus?  That would be those long conversations with other riders or with somebody on the cell phone that in the eyes of the paper either don't happen or aren't a big deal and not distracting to the drivers at all.

I'm not writing this letter to slag all bus drivers.  I thank all of them who have called out stops and who have not forgotten to let me off where I ask.  Your efforts are truly appreciated.  I write in the hopes that drivers who complain and folks like those at the paper who don't understand what stop calling means to people like me from an independence and efficiency standpoint will start to realize the importance of this issue.

Steve Wettlaufer,
Guelph

Yet Another Ad Pile

It's amazing that it doesn't take us long to come up with another pack of ads that deserve mention. Here we go.

They have these new Ford commercials telling you that you should really drive a Ford, and one of the big things they're all proud of is how much electronic stuff is packed into the car. The one girl says "Look at the dash, it's all digital." Uh, no. That is a reverse selling point for me. What car was it that we owned that backed into a store window on its own, despite all kinds of human attempts to get it to stop? Why, that would be a Ford Arrostar. It was one of the most digital cars we ever owned. I don't want my dash to be all digital. I don't want the car thinking too much on its own. Plus, when it breaks, now you have to take it in to a Ford guy because noone else will touch all that fancy electronics. but of course, that's what Ford wants.

There's a commercial for these Off mosquito coils that says something really dumb. It says the coils kill mosquitos that may carry the West Nile virus. So it only kills the ones that *may* carry it, but those who do and those who don't are fine. Ok then.

Every time I see this ad for Mike's hard Lemonade, I giggle. Part of it is it's just funny watching that lisping guy's voice traverse several octaves and then say "I don't usually...scream like...that." And part of it is I think it's great that someone's making fun of Coors and their certified cold bottle. Seriously, do you need to be told when your beer is cold?

There was this commercial that I would see, and all it would say was "Good morning, homies. You know, that dog should really be on a leash. Minding my own business...not my forte, but that is." Thanks to this hilarious article, I now know that it's for the Kia Forte. But all I kept thinking every time I saw it is "what's wrong with telling those idiots with their growling, off-leash dog to put the beast back on a leash?" Never mind that the guy doing the telling looks like a total dork. Yup, I've had a dog too long.

The Wireless Wave ads never make any sense to me. They tell you that if you don't love your phone, you need a new one, so come into Wireless Wave. And then the end says "Wireless Wave. Love your Phone." But if you love your phone, why would you want to come into Wireless Wave?

This lame ad for Pizza Hut's tuscani pastas is scraping the bottom of the stupid barrel. Were they planning for people to see right through this one as an obviously stupid commercial, or were they hoping that people would actually believe the plot? I can't find a video to show you, so I will do my level best to explain it. They tell you that they blindfolded a family and told them that they took them out to a fancy Italian restaurant, when really, they're eating Pizza Hut pasta in their own home. Then you hear the family chowing down, surrounded by silence, saying things like "mmm you can really taste the parmesan cheese." or something equally stupid. Then they say something like imagine their surprise when we showed them the truth. They ask them "Where do you think you are right now?" The family says "An Italian restaurant." Oh please. there was no music, no fellow patrons, no clinking of forks and knives, not to mention they probably had to let themselves back into their own house and they're sitting at their own table, which I'm sure even the dumbest of the dumb would recognize blindfolded. the blindfolds are lifted, and there's a collective gasp and scream. Oh come on.

During my search for the video, I found a whole forum thread on this stupidity, in which I found a funny take on the commercial.

I can only imagine what the neighbors were thinking when they saw the family being led blindfolded into their home by strange men. "Look honey! The Sullivans are being kidnapped and held hostage by Pizza Hut! Call 911!"

And if that wasn't enough stupidity, the announcer makes a big thing about how the pastas are "restaurant quality". Well Pizza Hut is a restaurant, is it not? So I sincerely hope the pastas are restaurant-quality.

Steve and I were watching wrestling, and a promo came on for the WWE Kids magazine. Among the things kids could do in this magazine, they could navigate a "mind-numbing maze". Both of us at the same time said "Mind-numbing?" I would have understood brain-teasing, or mind-bending, or brain-twisting, but mind-numbing? To me, that means the maze is so boring that you can feel your brain transforming into a pile of mush as you stare blankly at it and plod through it. Will they next advertise that the maze is insipid? How about vapid? People, choice of words is key!

This Marineland commercial has always bugged me. It says: "they come from a land of ice and snow, now belugas have a home in Arctic Cove." Translation: They were once free...until we captured 'em and put 'em on display for your amusement. Hmmm. That commercial doesn't make me want to see the belugas, it makes me sad for them. I mean, we already knew that, but having it pointed out to us doesn't seem like a good advertising plan.

I wonder if they had the kids and the guy who do the radio spot for Marineland watch that Arctic Cove ad one too many times. They just sound so depressed and miserable. Maybe they're sad for the belugas. I wish I could find a copy, but it's a radio ad and I've only heard it while listening to Blue Jays games, so I wouldn't know where to look.

There's something seriously wrong with the slogan for hotwire.com. It says "five-star hotels, two-star prices." So the hotels may be great, but you'll end up paying a really shitty price for them. I know what they really mean, but my brain keeps thinking the other thing.

One last thing. We've noticed that they've taken that horrible gum commercial off the air...you know the one with the singing teeth. For that, we say...thank you!

And that's it for now. I'm sure we'll have another one of these before too long.

Cash Cab

I've now become addicted to a gameshow I'd never seen before. I was visiting someone, and they had Discovery Channel on, and this show called Cash Cab came on. Basically, this dude is driving around in acab, and people get in, and then they find out they're on aTV quiz show. As they drive to their destination, they get asked general knowledge questions. If they answer them correctly, they win cash. If they answer 3 wrong, they get booted out of the cash cab. They can ask for help though. They can call someone, or ask a stranger on the street. If they make it to their destination, they can answer a final video question...but it's double or nothing.

The great thing about this show is you never know which contestants are going to be dumbasses and which ones are going to be good. they all look drunk or crazy, but some of them manage to get some pretty serious dough.

They certainly beat the snot out of the teams I've seen playing the latest incarnation of the Chain Reaction game. Good lord some of those teams are so dumb that you can feel your own IQ dropping just watching them play. I remember there was one chain and there was the word "snow" followed by s h o. there was only one more letter needed in that word. What did the 3 ditzes come up with? "Shop!" Shop? Oh come on! What the hell's a snow shop? I've never heard of a snow shop, have you?

In case you were wondering, the word was shoe, which I think was made obvious by the completed word below. God that show has gone to the dogs...or maybe the dops. I don't know.

so watch Cash Cab. It's fun. And stay away from Chain Reaction. You'll feel dumb and want to hurt things.

Tweet Tweet Tweet

Lately, I've had a ton of people asking me if I was on Twitter. I'm not, so I say no. I cannot figure out the purpose of Twitter unless you're using it to link to something where you can read more information. Randy Cassingham wrote abig article about how Twitter can be useful, so I know it's not all bad. I guess I just haven't mastered the art of being super succinct, like 140-character succinct.

Personally, I figure I have a blog where I can write for as long as I want. Why would I want to handcuff myself to 140 characters? I mean, short posts work sometimes, but sometimes something has to be longer, and why not have the freedom to write whichever style of post I want?

Plus, hhalf the time, I read a tweet, and I'm left asking for more. I saw a tweet the other day that said "walking two dogs, one well-socialized, the other not." Well, what's going on? What did the unsocialized dog do? Tell me more! I need more input!

Then there is the issue of context. You cannot give context in a tweet, so if you write something that can be taken two ways, you can wind up in a whole heap of trouble. Don't believe me? Just ask Thordora. She tweeted something to the effect of "Is it a crime to want to smother my daughter?" And that's all she could write. She only has 140 characters. People looked at that, and wondered hmmm it could be a joke or it could be something worth worrying about...so somebody told Twitter, who contacted the authorities, and...knock knock knock, there were cops at her door.

If she could have written a whole blog post with context, people would have realized it was a joke and wouldn't have done that. but it was a tweet, so people were left wondering what it could have meant, and I don't blame the chick for doing what she did. I'd rather have overreacted and found out the kid was ok than sat back and done nothing and then read the news today, oh boy.

I was conversing with Bernard Maldonado about the new Solona tool, and he even asked me if I was on Twitter. I keep hearing his words reverberating through my head. "Twitter is fun!" Hmmm. Will I try it? I don't know. I will say this, though. I'm more likely to try Twitter than Facebook no matter how many people sing Facebook's praises.

United Breaks Guitars

This song has been in my head, and all I heard was the chorus on the news. I guess United Airlines smashed Dave Carroll's guitar while packing it into luggage and said they weren't responsible for the damage. So he wrote a little song about it. I guess now he's made United sit up and take notice, and they want to pay him off, probably to shut him up.

If I ever have to fly United, which I probably will at some point since I think United handles Air Canada flights if they're going to the states, I'll have this song in my head and be happy that I don't own a Taylor guitar...and hopefully I didn't bring anything else breakable.

Food Basics Flyer Info

I get a lot of my groceries at Food Basics. A while ago, I wanted to read their flyers. So, I went online, and quickly discovered that their online flyers were nothing but images. Sure it looked like there were words there, but all those words were part of an image. JAWS cannot interpret images. If they're tagged, then it reads the tags. but it can't look at the image and process it. So, I couldn't read the flyers.

I saw a thing where you could receive weekly emails about their flyers. I thought "ooo! These'll be in text!" Nope. What it was was a link that went back to the image, the same one I couldn't read.

So I emailed them. I asked them when they were planning on making an accessible version of their flyers. their first response was "We're working on something new, but it'll be months down the road." Not being satisfied with that, I asked what I could do in the meantime. They told me something I never knew before. If you call Customer Care at 1-866-922-7427, someone will read the flyer to you!

I did it, and they were actually pretty nice about it, going over stuff if I needed it repeated. I thanked them profusely, and said I was glad they did this. But I did ask them if there was a chance of the flyer going up on the web in an accessible format. I said they should continue reading the flyer since some blind folks don't have a computer, but the web version would be a nice choice in case the phones were down or swamped or something and I just wanted to quickly look at it. She said she didn't know how often that had been requested, but she'd pass the message on.

So there's a piece of info for anyone else who's interested. You can call Food Basics Customer Care and they'll read the flyer to you. If you would also like an accessible web version, either use their contact form, or talk to the customer care person about it when you call and have them read the flyer.

You really do learn something every day.

I Was Only Following Orders...

When I was in university, I got a call in the middle of the night from someone saying they were doing a study on meal plan use, and could they have my meal card number. I stupidly gave it to them..and as soon as I did, I realized this was probably a bad idea. I criticized myself for being so stupid as to give out my meal plan number just because someone asked me for it. I would hope that if I was roused from my sleep and asked to smash a mirror, bash in awall with a lamp, and throw a mattress out a window, I would think twice about doing it. Not Mark and Lisa Kantorski, and Mark was a police officer. Just because a dude on a phone said he was a hotel employee and told them to do these things, for some reason because there was a gas leak, they did them. The dude on the phone was not a hotel employee, it was a prank, and there have been a rash of similar pranks across the country.

Uh, Mark, if there was a gas leak, wouldn't you just want to get the hell out of there? And if all this smashing was needed to be done, wouldn't hotel staff and police be doing it? I know you're a police officer, but you're not on duty. I think the funniest quote was what he said in response to why he followed all the instructions that his wife was receiving over the phone. "I'm not one to argue much with her." What kind of crazed woman is she that you would do all this damage just because she said it had to be done? Yikes!

Even funnier was one prank where a random dude convinced a hotel employee to ask a truck driver to drive his truck into the lobby's front windows and break 'em all so the alarms would stop going off. And the trucker did it!

People, think a minute before doing something this insane. I gave myself hell over giving away my meal card number. Imagine what hell I would have deserved if I smashed my window because the guy on the phone said so!

Carbecue!

More fury involving food.

What a waste of perfectly good barbecue sauce and pickles to throw them on a car two nights in a row. They didn't even manage to do any damage.

What a weird way to get revenge.

Solona Update

Remember when I talked about Solona and how clunky it was? Well, it's now gotten significantly easier. There is now a screen capture tool that will grab the image and save it to a file automatically for you. Then you just have to upload the image, refresh until you get a result, and there ya go. No more finding the right spot, no more pressing alt print screen and then opening Paint and pasting it in and saving it, no more of that. It does all of that for you...which speeds up the process significantly.

So if you have a Solona account, go to your account page and grab the tool. It's a very neat little addition.

Neurotic Much?

This letter,which appears to come from the president of For The Love Of God, Tether Your Children To Your Person At All Times Lest They Get A Hangnail Or Something International, was published in the Mercury yesterday.

Stuff like this drives me absolutely nuts. Folks like these, though well meaning in their own way, are bent on ruining what's left of children's childhoods by turning every single thing no matter how big or small into some kind of hidden danger lurking just around the next corner. The Jan Corbetts of the world are a big part of the answer to a question that people have been asking for years. Why don't kids just go out and play anymore? Well, how can they? When playgrounds are being gutted and rebuilt for maximum safety and minimum fun and going out of mommy's line of sight for more than 1.7 seconds at a time earns you a scolding, how are you as a child even supposed to know what play is? Children's lives are so micromanaged and structured down to the last detail nowadays that play as we knew it doesn't really exist anymore. Please, for the sake of future generations, somebody stop thinking of the children now and then and let them think for themselves. You're not a bad parent, you're doing them a favour.

Backpacks may present a danger to children

Dear Editor - Backpacks, while very popular, put a child in danger of being kidnapped or molested.

I see many weighed-down, overloaded backpacks with big handles on the top, just waiting for a stronger child, a teen or an adult to grab hold and stop the kids toting them cold in their tracks. Even an almost empty backpack with a handle is a real danger. A child cannot run quickly for safety when overloaded, or if the handle is grabbed, and they can be victimized on the spot, or forced into an alley, a vehicle or to the ground.

It takes many precious seconds a child hasn't got, if they feel threatened, but not yet grabbed, to shake themselves loose of the heavy, awkward backpack and let it drop to the ground in order to start running away. I include older teens here as well.

You might be stunned at the sneaky tactics used by people who target kids.

Fear is a great tool for us all to have in our safety kit. It can alert us to possible danger, and motivate us to take action to save ourselves to fight off an aggressor physically and verbally. No one wants to frighten a child.

There is, however, this one huge safety problem that begs children to be made afraid. The stats prove it. It's sad that a child's innocence has to be sacrificed to help them be safe.

Jan Corbett, Guelph

Boy, What A Picture, What A Photograph...

Yesterday, I asked how bad the guy looked who took a few deadly punches from the retired boxer whose house he tried to burgle. Jill didn't disappoint. Here is her description, a fine description I must say.

Okay, you asked - his "before" picture is of an average good looking young man with a devilish grin on a slim taut face. His "after" picture is unrecognizable. If it had been a car accident, he'd have had to hit the steering wheel with his face and then go through the windshield with his face leading the way. The left side of his face is swollen to twice the size of the right side, which is also swollen. The before photo shows thin lips. In the after, his lower lip is cut in two places, bleeding and badly swollen. One cut looks like it's more of a chunk missing than a slice or a rip. The before photo showed a lip ring in the center of his lower lip. Not sure if it's still there in the after picture. If it is, it's embedded in the swelling which looks terribly painful. His upper lip is also badly swollen. It looks like he may have lost some teeth from the lower jaw. If not, the teeth are so completely covered with blood and swollen flesh that they look like a black hole. His left eye is nearly closed from the dark purple and black swelling. Both lids are drooping. His once narrow nose is puffy and distorted. His mother would have a hard time identifying him. If that's how he looked at arrest time, I can't even imagine how he must have looked hours later. At least he's suffering for his crime.

Um, wow. That's quite the pounding. But that's what he gets for breaking in with a big knife.

That's Talent...Or Something

A woman blew a .413 on the breathalyser and still managed to walk a straight line in heels! That's scary! that's one hell of an alcohol tolerance.

Please Remain Standing...In Your Seats

A small Chinese airline is considering offering standing seats so they can fit 40 percent more people on their planes. No, I'm not kidding. They'll still be belted around the waist though, so they tell us we shouldn't worry. Uh-huh.

How long until airlines here try to follow their lead? I mean, they already overbook the planes.

Folks, You're Not Helping Your Case!

The story of Willie Jeter, who stole an expensive watch from courthouse x-ray scanners amid a whole pack of sheriff's deputies and surveillance cameras while on trial for cocaine-related charges reminds me of that old story of Jessica Cohen, who stole a cellphone from a public defender's office. Why did she come there? To get someone to defend her on a theft charge.

What a pair of idiots, idiots who just got charges added to their list.

You Say Potato, I Say I'll Fucking Kill You. Let's Call The Whole Thing Off. I'll Even Throw You The Phone!

Ooo! More food feuding. This was over undercooked potatos and burned bread. Oh, and the chick was drunk, but still.

Big Media Gets What It Wants While The Consumer Gets Hosed...Yet Again

CRTC increases TV funding to bolster local programs, small-market stations

Aside from a couple of problems, this is great news. Unfortunately the problems are A that it won't work and B that we the consumers are going to have to pay for it. The cable companies are alreadymaking that second one perfectly clearby using phrases like "tax on consumers". Thanks for looking out for us, CRTC. If ever you should decide to take your collective head out of your collective ass, I'll be waiting for you to work around the not so trivial issue of how fee for carriage is going to work in cases where TV stations are owned by cable companies. Investing in...let's say Rogers owned stations with this new fund we're on the hook for seems a little sketchy, don't you think? We already pay Rogers the cable company to get all of these stations in our cable packages. Eventually, they raise the rates we pay to cover the new funding. Then, with a sudden interest in making...let's say Cityvt watchable again, Rogers the local station owner turns around and dips into that very same fund. Rogers the company as a whole gets to talk out of both sides of its mouth, standing up for the consumer while taking advantage of them at the same time...twice! We pay new fees to Rogers that Rogers can then turn around and put right back into itself. Somehow that hardly seems fair, which is why big media companies are a bad idea, which brings me to the other, arguably bigger problem.

The conventional TV business is broken, but it's broken a lot more than a 0.5% increase in funding for local programming is going to be able to fix. It might sound crazy, but maybe the best thing that could happen is that some of the so-called local stations run by major corporations who have no concept of community or apparently how to make money (Canwest Global, I'm looking at you) could go belly up so that the entire way things are done could be rethought.

I know how these networks operate, and all you have to do is look at what passes for Canadian television programming these days to get a pretty good idea for yourself. Major networks like Global and CTV always seem to find the minimum standard and camp out there. How do you think we ended up with airwaves full of low rent Canadian knockoffs of American reality TV and Canadian produced entertainment magazine shows that cover American events and throw in some Canadian stuff here and there? It happened because instead of investing in truly Canadian shows, the networks would rather spend money on American TV and then fill their Canadian content requirements with whatever's left over. And if you don't think the same thing could happen under the new local rules, you're crazy. If you're looking to see solid local journalism or expanded coverage of local sports or anything like that, keep looking. As long as they can get away with it, broadcasters will continue to churn out cheap crap like Guelph's Next Top Model or Deal Or No Deal Guelph or even Survivor Downtown Guelph On the Weekend When The Bars Close. Actually, that last one might be kind of fun, but you can see what I'm driving at.

What we need is a shift back to the days of smaller businesses with a truly local connection rather than what TV and radio and even newspapers have now, a soulless big business voice that favours the bottom line over everything else. The problem broadcasters have isn't cable companies getting over the air signals for free and selling them to the consumer, the problem is that the world has changed. Today's consumer has so many more entertainment options than they had even 10 years ago that providing the same old same old just won't do anymore. To stay relevant and compete, TV and radio need to find the one thing that can't be found all over the internet or on all those specialty stations they're up against and deliver it to the best of their ability. and the one thing lacking on mainstream radio and TV is good, community based programming. Providing that is the best chance there is to get eyes and ears and advertisers to pay attention to you again.

Dear Maggie Laidlaw

Why are you making me look and feel like an idiot? Yes, me personally.

Do you remember 2006? Back when we had that election thing? I used one of my votes on you. I did that because I listened to you speak and read my newspapers regularly and thought you would be a good choice. Having a well-spoken voice that represents my interests in town never hurt anything I thought, so a vote you did receive. and for a while, things were good.

So...what happened?

Well,thishappened.What, exactly, were you thinking? Were you thinking?

You honestly expect me and the rest of us to sit back and say nothing when according to you, in an era where people are losing jobs left and right, half of the city is about to be torn up and rebuilt and public washrooms are falling down and killing people, that the biggest issue facing the citizens of Guelph is cage-free eggs? How 'bout no? Oh, and how 'bout getting your priorities straight? This city has real problems, problems that you're being paid to work on. I realize that the cage-free egg lobby is paying you too and they have a right to be heard at some point, but 2 hours is way too much time to be devoting to such ridiculousness to begin with, and it's waaaaaaaaay too much now.

Hopefully I can give you the benefit of the doubt here. Maybe you just made a mistake. Hey, you're only human, and all humans slip up now and then. Perhaps that's all this was. But perhaps it's not, and trust me, I'll be watching. If I've been made to look the fool I'll be none too pleased, and I've got a pretty long memory. I'm not somebody who's looking forward to being fooled twice, and I hope you'll use your own memory to remember that come 2010.

Thanks for your time,and thanks, hopefully, for not hijacking Council and making the folks in our Ward feel like morons again.

Out Of Gas, Out Of Luck

These two dorks should have learned from this dork that if you rob a gas station, check your own fuel gauge. There were two of 'em and neither of 'em noticed. About a mile from the station, put put splutter splutter cough stop. Then they were arrested.

I never thought I'd see two gas station robberies where the getaway vehicle ran out of fuel.

There Won't Be Any Noise Complaints For A While Now

I'm dying to know how bad Gregory McCalium looks. the description says he looks like he'd been in a car accident when by the sounds of it, all he took was a couple of punches...well...a couple of punches from a retired boxer. Here's a lesson for dear old Gregory. Even if you break into the house of a 72-year-old man with a big, mean knife, you're not guaranteed to win. You're quite the asshole, breaking in with a knife because your neighbour had the unmitigated gall to call the cops and complain about your excessive noise. Anyway, next time you decide to settle a dispute this way, it would be good to know that your opponent used to be pretty good in the boxing ring.

Sucks to be you, Gregory. Enjoy your next four years in the clink. And you go, Frank Corti. Nobody will mess with you again, and so they shouldn't.

Soul Survivor

This story about a reality TV show where various preachers try to convert atheists twists my head around. Basically, 10 atheists who have been interviewed to assure that they are truly atheists go on the show and a muslim imam, a rabbi, a greek orthodox priest and a monk try to prove the merits of their various faiths. Whoever wins, so I guess whoever converts the most, wins a trip so they can make a pilgrimmage at a site which is important to their chosen religion. "We give you the biggest prize ever; we represent the belief in God. Believe, repent, God will forgive you," says the show.

There are 2 problems I have with this whole thing. If you're truly an atheist, why would you go on the show? If you're going on there, there must be a part of you that's thinking about becoming religious. Who would go on there knowing they'll never win the prize? Even if you go on the show to prove a point that you can't be converted, you should know that you don't have any hope of proving the point because it can just be twisted into "Well, he didn't have an open enough mind." And that will be that. They will edit you to look like a big fool and that will be your role. If you don't believe me, read the show's slogan again.

And second, I can't believe they got four religious leaders to agree to do this. I mean, folks have fights over religion, saying theirs is the only one that exists for real. Would it just turn into a "my god's bigger than your god" contest?

I still can't stop laughing at the idea that theologians interview these people to make sure they're as atheist as possible. Something about that sentence keeps making me snicker.

Life Lessons From Days Of Yor

10 Funniest 1950's Propaganda Films

SomehowDuck and Coveronly managed number 10. I haven't watched all of these things yet, but that seems absurd.

Nasty Dan

I haven't watched Sesame Street in years and from the sounds of it itpretty well sucks now and should not be watched by anybody,but thanks to the internet, we'll always have the good old days. and boy oh boy, didthisever look like a good old day. Oscar the Grouch and Johnny Cash singing a fun song, I don't see how it gets any better than that. My day has been made much, much happier for having seen this.

Lemon Salad: Coming Soon To Your Prison Cafeteria

It's been a surprisingly long time since we've had any culinary kerfuffles on which to report, but today I give you 2 for the price of 1.

First up is a case of bitterness from Boca Raton. Mandi Valentine, 40, was arrested and charged with simple assault after she threw several lemons at her husband during an argument. Not sure what started the trouble, since thestoryis short on juicy details.

And now we have a story that more than likely won't feature jokes as bad as the one above. What can I say, it's easy to write unoriginal lemon humour.

18-Year-old Tiffany Wallace of Boise, Idahosounds, to use the proper term, like a friggin nut.

According to police, the young man driving the Kia called dispatch to report he was being followed by a woman in a red GMC Sonoma pickup. He said the woman had cut him off, yelled obscenities at him, and was throwing coins and ranch dressing at his car. He tried to get away, but she continued to follow him.

The dispatcher told the man to drive to the parking lot of St. Alphonsus, which was nearby, to meet an officer. When he pulled into the parking lot, the driver of the pickup rammed the Kia at least three to four times, according to witnesses.

Police say the Kia was heavily damaged with numerous dents that appeared to be caused by coins thrown at the car, the rear bumper of the car was falling off, and the taillights were falling out. The Kia's sides and trunk also had spots of ranch dressing that had apparently been thrown by the driver of the pickup.

Luckily, nobody in the Kia was tossed from the vehicle. Sorry, couldn't help myself.

Wallace was booked into the Ada County Jail on a charge of aggravated battery. You can all thank me for not making that other tossed salad joke now.

Sports And Things

I'll warn you all right off the bat that this post might be more disjointed and uninsightful (I think that's a word) than usual. I've been on the disabled list since Friday with something that's taken most of my appetite and even more of my energy and I'm pretty much only writing because I want to see if I can do it for more than a couple minutes without having to fall down go boom.

Speaking of the disabled list, the poor Blue Jays. I can't help wondering if they would be more in the race than they are right now if they didn't have a pretty decent starting rotation all out of action. All things considered they've hung in remarkably well, but going through the injury issues that they've been dealing with all year long would take it out of any team. It's been kind of cool to see some of the prospects for the future get a chance in the big leagues and I think Brett Cecil and Robert Ray are going to be really good some day, but man alive, it sucks that it's come to having to use guys like that on a regular basis.

Cool to see that Aaron Hill and Roy Halladay both made the AL All-Star team. Hill getting on is particularly cool. He's had an amazing year in every way and doesn't look like he's lost a step after the concussion that kept him out for most of last year. Hopefully Adam Lind can grab enough votes to get himself on the team as well. He's been one of the most consistent hitters for the Jays all season and I'd love to see him make an appearance.

A quick note to whoever is responsible for these things: Thank you for trying to make a less irritating Super8 commercial for the Jays radio broadcasts. Unfortunately, you have failed. That giant screaming sign gimmick has to go. Every time I hear those adds or see them on TV, my resolve never to stay at one of your establishments grows ever stronger. Credit where it's due though, at least it doesn't sound like the damn thing is calling itself a soupright sign or trumpeting free breakfastand internetsanymore.

While I've been downed, I've been watching a whole lot of wrestling. I do that when I'm upped, but I haven't watched this much all at once in quite a while. Among other things I've been catching up on, I've watched the last couple weeks of Impact. as has been pretty well documented here, I mostly hate that show, but the last 2 episodes have been pretty good especially by regular TNA standards. I'm not going to bother spending a bunch of time speculating on where storylines are headed because I don't have the energy and because doing so is pointless since the booking is all over the map and what's looking good today could be dropped tomorrow in favour of something completely different and probably stupid, but for the first time in about 9 months, I'm actually interested in the direction things are going. If they run with it, they have 3 tag-team feuds, a decent world title picture and what could be a fun few matches with Kurt Angle when Matt Morgan discovers he's not getting into the Main Event Mafia.

One thing did annoy me though. How in hell does a street fight end up being called a no contest? Unless I've somehow missed something, the whole point of a street fight is to prevent a no contest should a bunch of people run in. It's especially stupid because in TNA there aren't consistent and easy to follow rules in regular matches to begin with. So many normal matches feature run-ins where there should be a disqualification but there isn't that it's absurd to try to make us believe that things are so out of hand that here in the no rules match is the perfect time for the official to throw his hands up and say enough is enough. I'm pretty sure I understand what the idea was, but what a dumb way to try getting it across.

I did better than I thought I would, but man, all that typing took a lot out of me. In the words of Kimbo Slice, I'm done, Gus.