Get A Handel On This Dream

I had a weird dream a couple of nights ago, and I wanted to write it down yesterday, but ran out of time. I almost forgot I had this dream, and I had to dig it out of the recesses of my mind. How is that possible? I've noticed that about a couple of dreams I've had lately. They're weird as hell, but they don't jump out at me like other ones do. Anyway, here goes.

I dreamed I was doing nothing special, I might have been playing Uno on the computer. Then, suddenly, a ghostly image appeared and spoke to me very angrily. He demanded to know if I knew who he was. I said I hadn't a clue. He said he was Handel, and he was angry with me for disrespecting his song. I looked at him like "What the hell?" and thought I must have been hallucinating. But he went on. He told me I should have known what it was called, considering how hard he worked on it, and that I shouldn't have had to put up some cheap representation of it somewhere and get people to take guesses at what it was called.

I was standing there in disbelief, wondering when I would figure out who this really was. I could not believe this was truly a dead composer coming back to yell at me, and if it was, how did he know about blogs and the internet? Then he started ranting even louder. "And another thing! That weird thing where fake pianos and harps play it. They had no feeling. That kid in that moving picture thing had more feeling than that other thing. And that kid knew what it was called! That kid respects my music more than you do!"

I sort of walked away, sure that whoever this was would start giving me a shred of a clue. This made him even angrier! "Even when I come into your room and confront you face to face, you still don't respect me? I'll teach you about respect," he yelled and started coming towards me. As he did, my computer started playing some of the scarier-sounding midis that I had downloaded in a collection that was supposed to be all of "The Messiah." One of them sort of sounded like JAWS. They started to play, as he chased me. Somehow, I kept running into other rooms and avoiding him, all the while thinking "This is dumb. He could just walk through walls if he really wanted me." As he was getting closer, the last thoughtI had in the dream was "I'm so going to blog about this, and I'll call it 'he couldn't handel it'". And then I woke up.

What the hell was that? And why am I dreaming about blog post titles? I need to get a life.

A Little Further In The Journey to New Phone Land

Well, I'm one step closer to having my Nokia N86!

I'm such a silly. Every day this month, I've been thinking I should order the phone, I should order the phone. But you've heard all too often about my fears of making a bad technology decision. Yesterday, after a lot of hesitation, I picked up the phone and ordered my N86.

And...

They're out of stock! Damn it all! Well, it must be a popular phone if they're out of stock. The poor fellow first couldn't figure out why he couldnt' put the order in for 100 bucks, which was what he thought it would be with my contract and all. He called me back and said they were out of stock, but it should be back in by at least Wednesday.

I thought it was chuckleworthy that he tried to sell me an iPhone. I said oh god, I thought about it long and hard, but I want my eyeballs in a box!

So...I will soon have a shiny new phone to get used to...if all goes well. And I'll have the shiniest version of Talks there is! Woooo! I have a supported phone again.

More Reasons The Trixter Is A Genius

A couple of days ago, I had something happen that just had to go into the Trixie brag files. On Thursday, Huppy's mom and I decided we'd go get the landlady some chocolates since she was leaving and would no longer be our landlady. But it was coldcoldcold out there, and there was no way I thought Huppy should be out in that level of cold. So I said I'd go get them. So off Trixie and I went.

She was a perfect pooch in the mall, angling toward stores I used to go to, which was perfect because that's where I had to go.

Then, on the way home, that's where the real bragging starts. We got off the bus, and crossed the street over to our corner, and Trixie walked for a couple of feet, and then made a big right turn. I was confused, but she didn't seem to be heading for a snow bank, so I just held on. I held on and held on...and suddenly, we were making a giant arc around the building. I held on...and plop, we landed in her relieving area. Because it was so bloody cold, she took part of the shortcut path that we only use in the summer, but she must have figured out it was navigable this winter, which it was, and she decided to take it because she wanted to get home faster! Go dog!

The funniest part about this whole story was she must have known I was confused, so she led me over to a familiar spot, showed it to me, then walked into the relieving spot. Dog, you're a freaking genius.

I've also noticed that she has picked up on yet another pattern that I don't even think about. If I walk over to the shoe area and put on my boots or my shoes, she dances beside me as if to say "harness me up, harness me up!" But if I put my slippers on, she stands beside me, but her position is more tentative. She has figured out that when I put my slippers on, I don't always take her. Sometimes I'm doing the laundry, so I don't take her. Sometimes, I'm just running down to give something to, or get something from, the Huppy clan. But sometimes I am going down there for a while, so will take her. But I noticed she figured out she doesn't always go when I put the slippers on. Boodog, you're too damn smart.

And today, I think Trix was conspiring with someone to teach me a lesson. I was just zipping down to Huppy's house to get someone to read a number off a card, so I said, na, I've seen what the lay of the land looks like on their floor, I'll just zoom down. So I left Trix here, and zipped down in the elevator. I came out of the elevator, and wammed full speed into a shopping cart! Ow ow ow ow ow! Ok ok ok, I should have brought Trixie!

And that's about it for the Trixie thoughts. But I just had to write down that brag, because it was so freakin cool!

Can They Train A Dog To Help People With Conscience Damage?

This just makes me angry. I saw this a couple of days ago, but I was either running out the door or too tired to try and post about it.

This whole thing started when a Hamilton woman wanted to find a trainer to train her family dog to perform some kind of tasks for her son who was severely brain-damaged. She found Jacqueline Wilson, who turned out to be a con-artist. Wilson said she had 20 years of training experience, which she didn't. She took $6000 from the family, and helped them raise $9000 more from the community. Then she took their dog to train it, and didn't give it back at the specified time. They had to track the dog down with the help of the police. The poor thing not only hadn't been trained, but it hadn't been properly taken care of either.

Now, the woman filed a complaint, and it ended up going to provincial offenses Court. Wilson didn't bother to come to that hearing, but was convicted anyway, and sentenced to 15 days in jail, 24 months probation and $10000 restitution. The police tracked her down 12 days later, and threw her in the big house.

How low could she possibly go? Not only did she screw over a family who was obviously in need, and exploit a generous community, but she neglected their dog too. That poor beast. Who knows if it had become aggressive because of the neglect.

And why the hell isn't she required to pay back the whole $15000? She took 6 grand from the family and 9 grand from the community. She should be required to pay back every red cent.

I feel for the family. They were likely looking for hope, and she seized the opportunity and took them for all they had. I mean, who knows if their family pooch *could* be trained to perform tasks and be socialized to the public. How old was the dog? What kind of temperament did it have? Was it already exposed to a lot of stimuli so that going everywhere would not be a problem? I think of that disservice dog I met last year, and wonder if it was a family pet that the person had trained, and *thought* it was ready to go out in public and function as it should. People think that any dog can be trained to do anything. They don't know how many dogs at school get career changed. They just hear about lots of dogs with jobs and think they all can do it. And that's probably what this family thought. If Wilson was a decent trainer, she should have warned them that this dog may not be able to do what they want, and taken the dog's age into account and all that stuff. But we already know Wilson was not a good trainer.

And please don't think I'm blaming the family with my next little passage, but how much research did they do into this trainer? Did they find other clients? What had she managed to train their dogs to do? If you're going to place your dog in the hands of someone who is going to do a pretty sophisticated task, and pay them a significant amount of dough, make sure they're up to the challenge.

Also, what did the family know about service animals? What did they know about what they're required to do, what behaviours were unacceptable? How did they want the dog to help their son? Is what they wanted even in the realm of possibilities? So many people go into getting a guide dog or any assistance dog with rose-coloured glasses on. They feel the possibilities are infinite. There's a lot of possibilities, but it's all about the team. The person, the dog, the environment. If one of those is off, it's not gonna work.

I'm not saying this to necessarily criticize the family. I feel for them. But I'm saying this to open other people's eyes so that maybe, scumbags like Jacqueline Wilson can't take them for all they're worth too.

Fiery Words for Feedburner

Ya know, I hate having to take praise away from people, but it appears I have to this once.

Three years ago, when I set up the feedburner by email thingamabob, I couldn't have been happier. There was a captcha, but there was audio. so yea. Now, I hear they took the audio captcha away.

Madmadmadmad. Steamsteamsteamsteam! I'm especially angry because Google bought Feedburner. Hellooo Google, remember that little petition you received when you had no audio captcha for your google account signup? Why would you take audio captcha away when you know people need it?

I tried to write to support, but whenever I clicked "contacting us," it would take me to a help article on how to move my feeds over to Google. So I gave them a heapin' helpin' of Carin's pit bull teeth in their feedback area. They were diplomatic pit bull teeth, but they were teeth nonetheless.

So, we don't know how long the audio alternative has been gone, but if anybody has been blocked from signing up, please email me or Steve, and we'll sign you up. We totally had no idea this had changed, and we apologize. Us having a captcha means we're pulling a "Miss Function!" Except we right our wrongs when we find out they've been committed!

I Think She's Missing A Lobe

Maybe Christine Yvette Lobe should run off with Joshua Alger. They should just put their kids in more capable hands, and not make any more.

It takes a special kind of person to leave her toddler at home alone, and wheel her one-year-old into a bar in a stroller, after already getting drunk. Thankfully the staff at the bar had enough sense to not serve her any drinks and call the cops.

Badda, Ba, Ba, Ba, I'm Passin' Out

What a dad Joshua Alger is. He passed out drunk in a McDonald's children's play area at 4 in the goddamn afternoon while his kids played. We don't know how pop and the little ones got there. Then, when police found out he has a warrant for his arrest and called mommy dearest to pick up the kidlets, he flipped out, told his kids to "bite the officers' faces off!" before needing to be shoved to the ground and tased. Yeah, tased...in front of his kids. Way to go, way to be a model parent.

Train Bound For Ug

I guess we can be thankful that Joseph Boyd didn't pull a Freddie Johnson and molest other people on the subway. But it would be pretty gross to look over and see someone havin' a grand old time with himself while riding the train. I love how, when someone told him to stop, he said, "I'm doing my business, you do yours!" That takes some, er, balls. But Boyd had to take it a step further and threaten the guy with a knife, so off to jail he went.

Fun Cover Of The Day: Boss Hoss - Word Up

I've never heard of Boss Hoss before, but if the description on this video is correct, what I can tell you is that they are Germany's best country cover band. I'll need to do some more research to varify that claim (Are there other country cover bands in Germany?), buttheir cover of Word Upis certainly some compelling evidence in its favour.

Cameo's version ishereif you want to compare the 2 or just have fun for a few more minutes.

More Proof That English Is A Ghotiy Language

I forgot to put this in my last post. I can't even remember who told me this, or in what class it happened. But I remember someone telling me this story. They said their teacher walked up to the front of the room, and wrote "ghoti" up on the board. People guessed that it might be pronounced like goatee. The teacher laughed and said "No, it's fish!" Fish? Yup, the gh from laugh, the o from women, and the ti from association. Fish! Well damn, It could work.

Rules of English: That's An Impossibility

You know, I've been doing some work with a guy at the literacy centre. When I started, I was brought in to teach him JAWS. Within a couple of minutes, I realized that he didn't know how to type! So we started typing drills...and learned that he had a lot of issues with spelling. And through this, I have done a lot more thinking about the English language, and how goddamn stupid it is.

How in Christ do you teach someone who needs hard, fast rules to follow, a language that follows no rules? It honestly does not. Even small words are not a guarantee of simplicity. Take "the" for instance. It is the simplest word ever, but it breaks all rules it could hope to stick to. The th doesn't sound like th, and the e doesn't sound like either the long e or the short one. What the hell is that? How can I teach the word "the" when it makes no sense?

People have told me that I'm better to just get him to memorize lists of words. But what do you do if he has poor memory-retention? My dream was if I gave him enough rule sets, eventually the procedural memory part of the brain would take over, and he would be able to reason out any word. That dream was swiftly shattered by the English language. Just look at this example:

Hints on pronunciation for foreigners  
George Bernard Shaw  
I take it you already know  
of tough and bough and cough and dough.  
Others may stumble, but not you,  
On hiccough, thorough, laugh and through.  
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,  
To learn of less familiar traps.  
 
Beware of heard, a dreadful word  
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.  
And dead-it's said like bed, not bead.  
For goodness sake, don't call it deed!  
Watch out for meat and great and threat.  
They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.  
 
A moth is not a moth in mother,  
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,  
And here is not a match for there,  
Nor dear and fear for pear and bear.  
And then there's dose and rose and lose  
Just look them up--and goose and choose.  
And cork and work and card and ward.  
And font and front and word and sword.  
And do and go, then thwart and cart.  
Come, come I've hardly made a start.  
 
A dreadful language? Man alive,  
I'd mastered it when I was five!

Or how about this set of sentences.

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.  
2) The farm was used to produce produce.  
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.  
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.  
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.  
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.  
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to  present the present.  
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.  
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.  
10) I did not object to the object.  
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.  
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.  
13) They were too close to the door to close it.  
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.  
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.  
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.  
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.  
18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.  
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. How about no?

The Moral of Auntie Sharon

Martin sent me this, and it made me chuckle.

The Moral of Auntie Sharon

A teacher gave her class of 11 year olds an assignment: To get their parent to tell them a story with a moral at the end of it. The next day the kids came back and one by one began to tell their stories.

Ashley said, My father's a farmer and we have a lot of egg-laying hens. One time we were taking our eggs to market in a basket on the front seat of the car when we hit a big bump in the road and all the eggs got broken.

What's the moral of that story? asked the teacher.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket!

Very good, said the teacher.

Next little Sarah raised her hand and said, Our family are farmers too. But we raise chickens for the meat market. One day we had a dozen eggs, but when they hatched we only got ten live chicks, and the moral to this story is, Don't count your chickens before they're hatched.

That was a fine story Sarah.

Michael, do you have a story to share?

Yes. My daddy told me this story about my Aunty Sharon. Aunty Sharon was a flight engineer on a plane in the Gulf War and her plane got hit.

She had to bail out over enemy territory and all she had was a bottle of whisky, a machine gun and a machete.

She drank the whiskey on the way down so it wouldn't break and then she landed right in the middle of 100 enemy troops.

She killed seventy of them with the machine gun until she ran out of bullets. Then she killed twenty more with the machete until the blade broke. And then she killed the last ten with her bare hands.

Good heavens, said the horrified teacher, 'what kind of moral did your daddy tell you from that horrible story?

Stay the fuck away from Aunty Sharon when she's been drinking.

Wack It From The Rooftops

Charles Edward Meaux sounds like quite the prize. He's gotta be something special when a story starts like this:

Drivers on the 5 freeway called police about noon Wednesday saying there was a naked man on the roof of a home performing a sexual act "to or at" drivers.

He did this at noon! I guess masturbating on top of a car wasn't thrilling enough for him.

Then, it only got better. Police had to call the family and say "Uh, there's a dude either jacking off on, or humping,your roof." They evacuated the family, at which point this weirdo put on some clothes of the family's and hid out in a closet. When they found him, they had to tase him to get him out of there. He also had a white supremacist group's tattoo on his eyebrow. So yup, definitely a prize...a prize with a loooong list of convictions.

Another funny fact about this story is the house was located on North Bush Street. I guess this guy couldn't find any bush, so settled for this house.

Yuck. There's a happening the family won't forget, and neither will all the drivers who got quite the view.

A Little More Sleep Chatter

The Sleep-Talkin' man has more audio. Here's donkey jockey. And somehow, I missed putting up his thoughts on being a pirate. You can't be a pirate if you don't have a beard. My boat, my rules.

I've commented saying that I can't click the embedded links, nor even see them, so please make mention of new audio so I can go diggin' through the source code. They have a captcha, but the helpful fellows from India came through for me.

So a couple more sleep-talkin' clips for ya. I did a quick pass through the source code and don't see any more.

The Botfly, The Little Botfly

After I watched this video about a woman with a Botfly larva in her head, I couldn't get her out of my head. Ug. *shiver* Any sighties out there, does it look bad? It sounds positively ug. This seriously sounds like something from a horror movie. I love how she goes from "Oh my god oh my god!" to "Get the camera, get the camera!"

I think of my great uncle. He had this fascination with Belise, god knows why. I think it was because you don't have to pay taxes there. I can't imagine him dealing with having a botfly inside of him.

And now I have this black fly cartoon in my head. Yes, I know, it's the black fly. Not the botfly. But my brain has done a little change to the words, and now both videos are chasing me.

Bean Soup

Ahh Brad. If there's one thing he's good for, it's bad jokes.

When the waitress in a New York City restaurant brought him the soup du jour, the Englishman was a bit dismayed.

"Good heavens," he said, "what is this?"

"Why, it's bean soup," she replied. 

"I don't care what it has been," he sputtered. "What is it now?"

I Guess You Are What You Eat

You'd think that someone buying crab cakes would act in a more civilized manner than spitting in a manager's face, head-butting him, and hitting him five or six times in the face, breaking his glasses. But that's what Ralph Barr did. He bought a bunch of crab cakes because they had a price on them that, I guess, was too good to pass up. It was a mistake, and the manager said they couldn't sell him all the crab cakes he bought at that price, but they'd sell him the first pound at the discounted price. This was not acceptable to Barr, and the spittin' and hittin' began.

That would be a weird scene in a grocery store.

DVD Confession-Extractor

I just bought a copy of DVD Audio Extractor, a program that lets you take the audio out of a DVD and put it in mp3. It's a pretty cool, easy to use program. The only thing that's annoying about it is it's so demanding on the processor that any audio that comes out of your speakers while it's ripping audio is made to sound kind of like a robotic, slow-moving sheep. But other than that, it's pretty cool.

But I got a rather forbidding warning while I was trying to buy it. Just before I hit submit, the site essentially said it would verify that I wasn't an identity-thieving credit card fraudster. Then, it said the following message:

Please be aware that our servers record the unique IP address that a browser transmits when requesting a page download which can be used by law enforcement officials to identify a person committing credit card fraud, even if that person does not provide his or her real name.

Even though I knew I wasn't doing anything wrong, I couldn't help but feel like a criminal. I guess it would be the equivalent of store security randomly appearing saying "You know, if you try and leave the store, anything you haven't paid for will set off the alarms." It's true, but the act of saying it to you makes you feel like they think you're a shoplifter.

Gees! Have they had that many identity thieves try and buy stuff there?

Climbing The Ladder To Success

A piss-drunk man is walking down the road one foggy night, heading home from the bar, when he sees a ladder standing in the middle of the road. The ladder extends up into the clouds where he can't see. He decides to climb it, just to see what is holding it up.

As he climbs through the first layer of clouds, he comes across an angel, the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

"We can have the best sex you've ever had, or you can continue up this ladder to success," She says to him.

The man looks up the ladder, but it continues up into the clouds where he can't see. He decides that with success, he could become rich and famous, and could have as many women as he wants, so he keeps climbing.

Soon he comes across another angel, even more beautiful than the last. She makes him a similar offer.

"We can have the best sex you've ever had, or you can continue up to success."

The man thinks to himself, "Well, I could have sex, but with success I would have more money and fame." so again he decides to continue.

The man climbs, and climbs, and climbs. Finally, he comes across the fattest, hairiest, ugliest, smelliest man he has ever seen.

He says to this man, "Who are you?"

and the man replies,

"Hi, I'm Cess."

I Might Have More To Say About This If Only I Could Find The Words

I've just had one of those for God's sake, kill me and get it over with moments. Maybe there's a word to describe that feeling, and since I'm fortunate enough not to be a grade 5 student in California, perhaps I'll try to look that word up when I'm done here.

The Menifee Union school district has banned the Merriam Webster's 10th edition dictionary from it's 4th and 5th grade classrooms because somebody's kid found the definition for oral sex in there and well,we just can't have our children being exposed to that kind of thing.

The dictionary's online definition of the term is "oral stimulation of the genitals". "It's hard to sit and read the dictionary, but we'll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature," district spokeswoman Betti Cadmus told the paper.

I've got news for district spokeswoman Betti Cadmus. If you keep this up, it's going to be hard for anybody to sit and read anything.

the district is now debating whether or not it should make the temporary ban permanent, which I'm guessing they will once somebody there figures out that the word dictionary almost has the word dick in it. And once they have that epiphany, what happens then? If we can talk about it at all, are we going to have to start calling it the unmentionablestionary? The nether regionstionary? Or how about the if you keep playing with that damn book of yours you're going to go blindtionary?

Seriously, where does all of this thinking of the children stop? There has to be a line, and I think somehow our society managed to blow right across it years ago. If you do too much thinking of the children, eventually they aren't going to be able to think for themselves. It's already happening, and I'm sure you'd see it if you ever bother to pull your head out and take a look at the hell you're putting them through.

Let me ask you a question. Can you honestly say that you're looking forward to our current crop of school kids taking care of you when you get old? I sure as shit ain't, and it's because of things exactly like this. We spend so much time trying to shelter kids from every possible kind of maybe a little bit not good thing that might just perhaps happen to them at some point before mom is ready for it that we're stripping them of every bit of logic and reason that we're supposed to be teaching them. They aren't allowed to run and play because they might get hurt, but somehow they're not supposed to be fat? How the hell does that make one bit of sense? Can you imagine growing up in a world like that and having to sort it out? Christ, I grew up right at the tail end of the time when thinking for yourself and getting into trouble now and then was still ok and even encouraged, and I don't get it. The really sad part is that that's just one example. I could probably go on for hours.

And here's the other thing that these book banning youngen protectors seem to have forgotten. Children are a curious bunch. They want to know things. They want to know how stuff works, why things are the way they are, and most importantly to the issue at hand, they want to know things you don't want them to know. The more of a fuss you make over the polite term for BJ being in the naughty partstionary, the more they're going to want to know what a BJ is. And the more you avoid doing your actual job as a parent/teacher and educating them,the more they're going to take matters into their own hands so to speak to find out, and there's no amount of RedTube banning that's going to untake the mental picture that little Benny is going to have in his head once his new media research session is over.

I sincerely hope that there are still a few Californians left with some backbone who are going to fight this to the end. Subjecting our future to nitwittedness like this is nothing short of a tragedy,and things won't be right until every Betti Cadmus in the world has no say in the life of any child.

Good luck future, I think you're gonna need it.

The Goommba's Pizzeria School of Customer Service

Wow. I think Maria Del Rayo Cordero has to get a refresher on what good customer service is. It does not involve telling a customer, when they say they got the wrong food, to pay for it and leave. It also does not involve heaving a tray of food at them and clonking them in the head with a cyramic plate. It's even funnier that this happened at the "Happy Ranch Cafe." I don't think anybody in that situation was happy when it was over.

Coconut Crack

When I first heard the story of cops mistaking coconut candy for crack, I felt sorry for the two guys who got arrested. But there's something about these guys that doesn't make them sympathetic characters. It still doesn't make it right that they got arrested, though.

The story is that Cesar Rodriguez and Jose Pena were sitting in their work van eating this coconut candy. It comes in a rod, but the one guy had broken it up into pieces and had it in a baggy.

For some reason that was never explained, cops wanted to search their van. Of course, they found the baggy and thought it was crack. The guys said no, it was coconut candy. The cops didn't believe them, nor did they do a field test. They just arrested the guys.

Two days later, at their arraignment, Pena could get out. But because Rodriguez had a prior armed robbery conviction, his bail was set higher. He couldn't get out until they did tests on the substance, and discovered that it was, in fact, coconut candy. All charges were dropped, but the guys are still suing.

You know what? I'd probably sue too. They could have tested the stuff right there and known if it was crack. But I thought what Pena said was hilarious.

This all could have been avoided if they believed us and tasted the candy.

Yeah, because police routinely swallow suspected crack because the other person says it's candy. That's gonna work out real well.

It's terrible, but as soon as they said Rodriguez had an armed robbery conviction, I didn't feel too sorry for him, even though he did get falsely arrested. I'm glad all charges were dropped, but I still hope they sue.

Do The Roundabout Flop

Ug! Remember when I said Kitchener-Waterloo had a catchy little roundabout song? Well, they've rolled out the second part of the ad campaign, and this time, they failed! That commercial is annoying. I've only seen it twice, and I want to punch someone.

Trixie Waggles Onto the Blog Again

I've been meaning to write a little dog post for a while now.

The apartment building is getting a whole new carpet on all the floors. So, they have completely ripped up the carpet in the hall. They're fast for sure, they're already laying underpad today. I wasn't sure what Trix would think of the bare floor, and was expecting a minor sniffathon. But she didn't seem phased by it at all.

I, on the other hand, was weirded out almost every time I went out. It's amazing how much something like floor surface can change the way a space feels. I have lived hear for 3 and a half years, but without that carpet, I felt disoriented. I kept thinking the hall was ending sooner than it was, because it felt like the end of the hall was coming and I was for sure going to bump into a wall. Walking to the garbage, I kept thinking I'd walked too far. Shadows seemed to jump out at me from everywhere, and doors seemed far more pronounced. It was as if it wasn't even the same hall at all.

Now, today, as they lay down underpad, Trix seemed interested in that stuff. Blech! It smells. I think I gave the poor carpet man a heart attack. I was standing at the elevator, and he was laying the stuff. I loudly said, "Good girl." in the hopes that he would hear me and warn me about any big hazards I should know about. I've never had a pooch when someone's laying carpet. I don't know what kind of chemicals are involved and whether any of them are dangerous for doggy paws. But he just kept on going. Then, suddenly, he saw me, and started sputtering, "Oh hi. I have all my stuff there! Oh, there are trip hazards, trip hazards everywhere!" I told him it's ok, we made it, we should be fine, I'm just waiting for the elevator. But the poor man was all freaked out for a minute. Poor fellow. I wouldn't want to have to lay carpet all through an apartment building.

It's a new year, so Trixie got a new dog tag, or doggy bling as Huppy's mom calls it. I'm such a sap. I have kept all of Trixie's doggy bling from all the years I've had her. I'm probably going to put them in a little envelope and label it Trixie when, god forbid, she's gone for whatever reason. God it was hard to write that sentence. But I think it'll be a long time before I have to think about that stuff. I'm pretty sure we'll have lots more bling to add to the envelope.

Every winter, I see new things that she develops a disdain for. The first winter, it was mud at the edges of sidewalks, last winter, it was gushy yucky mud in the relieving area, and this year, it's two things: ice where she relieves, and big puddles at street corners.

I guess she always had trouble with the ice, but usually there's enough snow for her to be a mountain goat. Not this year. So she'd get going all fast, then see me skidding, then stop thinking about peeing and just stand there. Poor dog. She was driving me batty because we'd find a bit of grass showing through, but she'd decide the patch wasn't big enough, and we'd end up back on ice again. God, that was a long couple of days.

Then there's the hate she's got for puddles. I mentioned it briefly yesterday, but it needs more time. On the sidewalk, she tries to avoid puddles at all cost. Sometimes I walk through them while she avoids them, sometimes, she does this little hippedy dippedy hop skip dance so she manages to sort of jump over them, but when they're at street corners, man alive, things get tricky.

I don't know how to get her over it. I can coax her through them when we're on the sidewalk, but I really don't want to get into coaxing her into the street. If there's something she's saving me from, I'd like her to do that, thank ya very much.

Part of me thinks she was really avoiding the puddles yesterday because she didn't think she had to go pee when I gave her the chance, and then we got walking, and maybe she realized gee, I do have to go, and thought if she walked through the water, she'd have an accident. We'll have to keep an eye on it.

Three small things people have done lately that make me raise my eyebrows. Once, as I was leaving the building, there was a car running. As we went around it, someone came out, started clapping her hands and doing her level best to catch my dog's attention!

Why? I'm right by a running vehicle. Do you hope to distract my dog and get me killed if that car moves suddenly and Trixie isn't paying attention? I'm frightened.

Another time, I don't know what was up with Trixie, but she could not find the spot where we usually stand to cross at this one intersection. A guy decided to give us a hand. Then, while we crossed the street together, he stuck out his hand towards her and started talking to her! She went for it, and I corrected her and said "No sniffing! You're working! at which point he said, "Oh, she's not supposed to sniff?" No, especially not in the middle of the street, dude! At least he realized pretty quickly that that was pretty stupid. But seriously, folks, would you start playing a game with your kid as you're crossing the street? No! You would get the hell across!

And one last one that happened today. I arrived in a store, and this guy started making kissy noises at Trixie and reaching for her. She was interested, so I corrected her, and said "No sniffing. You're working." This usually works to stop both the dog and the human. Not this human. He asked what her name was and stuck out his hand, making more kissing noises. At this point, I had to actually tell him, "Please don't do that," and grab his hand. Now, if the correction doesn't work, usually the "stop it!" complete with hand-grab does the trick. Not with this guy. He just said "I have one like that at home and walked off. No "Sorry," no "oh I didn't know." He just continued on his way. What an odd one.

I saw Trixie do the funniest thing the other night. She was playing with a kong, and then abandoned it. I picked it up and was looking at it to see if it was approaching the point where it had to go to the garbage. She has two kongs, so I was trying to figure out if it was the new one or the old one. So, I pulled out the other kong to compare. Trixie saw me holding two kongs, and this was too much for her. She kept bobbing her head between them as if to say. "I see two of them? Not one, but two? Am I seeing double? Sniffa sniffa. That one smells different than this one. Sniffa sniffa. One, two? Is this possible?" She would not be satisfied until she had played with both of them. Silly pooch. I guess I've never pulled them both out at once. I just assumed she would notice one was newer than the other, so I thought she'd know there were two kongs in there.

And that's about it for now. Sorry, I don't have any new huppy stories this time. Ah, maybe next time.

Commenting By Email Works Again

I'm sure you'll all be happy to know that the good folks at Echo have cured whatever was ailing the commenting by email system and it's now up and running again. Thanks everybody for being decently patient about it being broken, and an especially big thanks to the Echo support team for unbreaking it. They're a really responsive and customer friendly bunch over there, and the service is well worth the money. If you're in the market for a commenting system and aren't one of those cheap bastards who either faints or flies into a rage at the idea of paying for things,have a look at Echo.It gets my highest recommendation, whatever that's worth.

Did Somebody Say McDouchebags?

Does McDonald's really think people will confuse a charity concert with their burgers and fries? Or do they just like suing people who couldn't possibly fight back? Judging from this article, which lists other people they have sude, including children and small businesses, I think the choice is B.

Her name is Lauren McClusky. She runs a chairity concert raising money for the Special Olympics, called McFest. The Mc in McFest is for McClusky. But McDonald's is trying to force her to change the name. She's already paid $5000 to fight them. I hope she wins.

Just leave her alone. Her concert is not going to mess with your food. You can both coexist and both have Mc's.

Remember When Watching The Leafs Was Still Kind Of Fun?

The Leafs are playing (or at least what hpasses for playing nowadays) this evening and it's probably going to go the way pretty much everything has gone this season, which means a lot of us are going to need a good cry at the end of the night. So to try to soften the blow of the continuous suck that has been 2009-2010, I give you a bunch of clips of Leafs being awesome.The Top 10 Toronto Maple Leaf fights of all-time.

I'm not going to argue with number 1 because it's just as fun as I remember it being, but I thinknumber 3is my favourite for several reasons, chief among them the stupidity of the fan and the greatness of the commentary. It's not every day that the phrase rotund Philadelphian finds its way into a hockey broadcast, and Harry Neale actually appearing to get emotional is classic.

The Walk From Hell

Ok, I just came back from the walk from hell. I figure something good has to come out of it, so I'm going to blog about it, in the hopes that it will help people be more helpful and less likely to get yelled at.

Let me just describe what happened, and then I'll break it down. I walked up to a major intersection, and try as I might, I could not get Trixie to cross there. Every time I said "forward", she would gently turn right, following the sidewalk so that now I was walking down the street I was intending to cross. I would retrace, reapproach, same deal. I would stick out my feet. There was nothing of consequence. Then, a voice yelled from her car, "Are you trying to cross?"

I answered her, shouting as loudly as I could that yes I did want to go across the street, but the dog and I were having trouble. She then yelled back "It's ok to cross now." I'm thinking "Yeah, I'd go if I could, lady." Once again, Trixie did the deak and weave, and I was around the corner. I retraced my steps, and I heard the woman's voice. "Stay there, I'll help you." I thought great. If she comes over, she can tell me what Trixie is having such a problem with.

She came over, and said "Let's walk." I reached for her arm, but she was just out of reach. Just then, she reached across me, and grabbed Trixie's leash! Wooosh! This caused me to yell at her to let go of the leash. I don't usually yell, but it happened. At this point, she stood there, going on about how she was just trying to help, and Trixie and I, once again, did the deak and weave around the corner. She stood way back and yelled, "Did you just get her?" Then I heard her voice getting smaller, andI couldn't even make out what she said.

When I returned, she was gone, and a much more helpful fellow came along and allowed me to take an arm. It was then that I discovered the river of a puddle and realized that was the problem. Once we had crossed the giant puddle river that had accumulated at the corner, Trix crossed the street like the trooper that she is. The rest of the trip to the store was relatively uneventful. She would do her level best to avoid puddles, but she did get us from point A to point B.

Now, let's analyze why that poor woman got yelled at. It wasn't just because of the leash-grab. No no, that was the final straw. First, I always wonder why people ask complicated questions from their cars. You won't be able to hear the answer, and if it is a long answer, you won't be able to hear all of it, because you'll get mowed down if you don't move your ass through the intersection! Yelling from your car is one-way communication. That works for things like "You can go," or "The light is green for you." But when you start getting into "Where are you trying to go," it's pointless to communicate that way. If you want to help, pull off the road, and come over to where we can have a civil conversation.

And people always just ask "Do you want to cross?" They never bother to ask which way you're crossing. They just assume they know which street you want to cross. An intersection is the meeting of at least 2 streets, perhaps more. Ask which one I want to cross before telling me I can go now!

And now, never ever ever ever ever ever ever grab a guide dog's leash! I've said it before, I'll say it again! Don't grab a guide dog's leash, or the end of a blind person's cane. Sighted guide technique involves me taking your arm. It is not even remotely helpful for you to be dragging my dog. I need to have a hold of you, and you need to take the lead. This is why I take your arm, and you don't take mine, by the way.

I do feel bad for yelling at her. Usually, even though I want to yell at people, I don't. I can explain things in a calm way and they understand. So, sorry, lady, for yelling at you. I hope you will help another blind person and I haven't scarred you for life.

I can't really blame her for just standing there after I yelled at her, but if you're going to help me when I say I'm having problems, don't just stand there yelling directions. Walk with me until I get across.

On the way home, I got some help at that corner because I knew I would be crossing the busy street right into the river puddle, and I didn't really want to be fighting with her when I was trying to get *out* of the street, so I took help. But the man helping me completely disregarded which way I was facing, and decided to help me cross the parallel street!

I felt him take a 90-degree turn to the right. I asked him why we were crossing this street. First he says "Oh yes, we're crossing the street....oh, you wanted the other one?" Yes, it is good to ask me where I'm going before helping me there.

When we got across, he said "I'll point you in the right direction for you to cross the other way, and then will you be ok?" I said I wasn't sure, I was a bit disoriented now. So he decided to cross the other way with me. Thank you! Then I asked him exactly where I was, and figured it out. I pointed out a landmark, and he said "yes, that's there." Then he asked me if I was ok. Hmmm. I was ok at the beginning, then I was not ok, but now I'm ok again. I thanked him and headed on home.

Oh yeah, and here's a message to the asshole who thinks he owns the road. Thanks for almost running my dog and I down at Speedvale Avenue West and Kathleen Street. If it wasn't for Trixie's quick reflexes, she and I may have been injured or killed. It was red for you, asshat. I wish I could have written your license plate down so I could have called you in. People like you need to pay hefty fines for your stupidity and carelessness. You drive a car, you need to be able to see to drive, use your damn eyes once in a while.

So I'm sure you now understand why I called that the walk from hell. And I hope that what I said makes sense and I don't sound like an unreasonable person. There's always a part of me that says I'm not helping my cause by writing this stuff down. I'm only making people more afraid to help. I hope that part of me is wrong. I don't want people to be afraid to help. I just want them to listen to what I say when I ask for help and not assume. That's all I really want. If we could communicate effectively and hear each other, this whole post wouldn't have happened. I'd only have to write about the numbnut behind the wheel who almost turned us into road meat.

Why Not Just Ask Where The Washroom Is?

Ug! What would possess someone to piss all over a Wal-Mart meat counter? I guess we can ask Robert T. Jenkins, he's in jail unless someone pays $25000 to get him out. He destroyed $600-worth of steak and other meat.

This story is light on details, but it has a few big errors.

According to Lt. Brown, it is not yet known if alcohol or drugs played a role in Brown's actions.

So the police lieutenant also took a piss on the steak? I don't think so.

Yuck! At least the guy who pissed on the cash register didn't ruin a whole bunch of food.

My Favourite Headline Today

Man found dead in Pasco lake was lonely drifter

Maybe It Was Motivational For Somebody...

Wow. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall at this so-called motivational speech.

Shirley Price, a board trustee, was invited in to do a little pep talk to girls ranging from sixth to eighth grades. She was born with some kind of disability that was not specified, but still got a doctoral degree and had a seat on the school board. Sounds good, right? Well, she decided to do a totally different talk, one that included graphic descriptions of how to perform oral and anal sex!

Whaaat? She first asked the school principal to leave, and then started talking. Apparently she'd heard that girls were having sex on campus, so I guess she thought she'd tell them how, and even included some curse words in there. Even though there were a whole bunch of teachers there, none of them stopped the talk, or tried to guide it back to safe ground. Then the kids were told to keep the speech secret, something that didn't work too well, as evidenced by the flood of calls received by the school board on the subject of said speech.

Why the hell would anyone think that talking about how to do anal was appropriate subject matter for girls in middleschool? I mean, I'm all for sex ed, but this is just nuts. And even if there were no protocols in place for stopping a talk, why didn't someone just decide that it was inappropriate and act? I'm pretty sure if someone got up in front of us when I was in grade 6 and started talking like that, a teacher would have said something.

Now, they have made it so the principal can't leave the room, and teachers have been "given more leeway" to stop a presentation they don't think is appropriate. What do you want to bet the pendulum will swing the other way now?

Positive ID, Negative IQ

You know, if you just robbed a store, and then video of you robbing a store shows up on the news, you probably know what is going on, and don't need to march into the police station to demand an explanation. You would say that's about accurate, wouldn't you, Myesha Williams? But you did make their job very easy.

Giggleworthy Names

Apparently, the names gods are smiling on us. We have a funny names bonanza!

Laurel and Hardy were arrested for drug charges. For real! Yup, Carlos Laurel and Andre "Shug" Hardy.

A fellow got arrested for having carnal knowledge of a minor. His name? Knowledge Clark.

Next up, a boss at Starbucks named Tim Horton is accused of demanding sex from some teenaged workers.

And finally a couple of thieves, Richard Fluck and Bryan Flok, were caught stealing cheques and cashing them.

Wow. I don't think we've had a set like that in a while.

British Airways: Dead Bodies Are Nicer Seat-Mates Than Live Men

So let me get this straight. According to British Airways, it's ok to seat a corpse beside someone, but god forbid we put a child next to a male stranger!

Mirko Fischer and his wife, who was six months pregnant, were flying. His wife sat in the window seat because she thought she'd have more room. He sat in the middle, and a 12-year-old boy sat next to them. A flight attendant said that children could not sit next to male strangers, female strangers would have been fine, and said the plane wouldn't take off unless Fischer moved. Fischer said he wanted to sit beside his wife because she's pregnant, but the flight attendant just raised his voice until he moved.

What bullshit. As Fischer says, kids are more likely to be abused by their own families. So...should they be barred from sitting with their parents?

He's suing because they have effectively branded all men as sex-offenders, and so he should. Gees. British Airways just keep getting sued.

And are they really called "British Airwars"? Or is that one hell of a typo?

It's A Cruise To Remember Alright

This is so sick. Haiti is in the midst of dealing with a horrible earthquake. Masses of people are dead and the survivors are starving. Many more children are orphaned. But cruise ships are still docking nearby so people can have a barbecue and drink some cocktails. Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines has a private beach with a 12-foot fense where people can sun themselves, drink, buy trinkets and do watersports...and eat food. Yes, they can eat like kings, while people on the other side are starving.

Oh but the cruise ships are bringing food aid, and the proceeds, all of them, will go to the relief effort, so says the cruise line. Why don't I trust them? If that's the case, Why not just bring the aid and a big ass donation then? Why bring people to effectively say "Nana nana booboo, I have money and you're destitute."

Apparently a third of the people don't even want to get off the ship because they're sickened by the whole prospect. I don't blame them.

Title Of The Song

Barb did this quiz last week, and I've been meaning to do it, but goddamn it, it's hard.

Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Try not to repeat a song title.

Artist: I'm going to change the rules. You guess the artist. Steve, you can't guess, you saw me trying to do this thing.

Are you male or female: Perfect Girl
Describe yourself: Good Enough
How do you feel about yourself: Dear God
Describe where you currently live: Shelter
If you could go anywhere you would go to: River
Your favorite form of transportation: Blackbird
best friends are: Adia
What’s the weather like: In The Bleak Mid Winter
Favorite time of day: Silent Night
If your life were a TV show, what would it be called: Drawn to the Rhythm
What is life to you: Train Wreck
What is the best advice you have to give: Do What You Have to Do
If you could change your name, what would it be: Angel
Your favorite food is: Ice Cream
Thought for the Day: Don't Give Up On Us
I would like to die by: Into the Fire
My soul's present condition: Lost
My motto: I Will Remember You
Your favorite color is: Black

Good lord that was hard. If anyone else wants to do this, go for it. Post them in the comments, or make your own post, whatever floats your boat.

Just Don't Call Him Ray!

I remember hearing about this story back when it happened, pre-blog, sadly, but seeing it again in Snopes made me decide to post about it. We can all laugh now, but I'm sure, at the time, nobody was laughing.

It happened in Lauderhill, Florida in 2002. For their Martin Luther King Day celebrations, they decided to have James Earl Jones come down and speak. They wanted to have a gift to give him to thank him for coming. So, they decided to make a plaque.

They found a local company, who in turn contracted out to another company to do the inscribing. It was supposed to be a plaque with a few postage stamps showing famous African-Americans, including Martin Luther King, and in the middle, it was supposed to say "Thank you James Earl Jones for keeping the dream alive." It almost did...except...where "Jones" should have been, it said "Ray."

Just think about that. Who is James Earl Ray? In case you don't know, as was supposedly the case of the person who actually did the physical inscribing of the plaque, James Earl Ray was who assassinated Martin Luther King. Imagine the significance of that. The whole message has horribly changed.

After officials from the Martin Luther King Day task force and executives from the local ad company finished shitting themselves, they began to track the problem, and found it lay with the other company. What was even worse was the reaction of the other company, saying they were making a mountain out of a mole hill. Really? I don't think so. This is no mole hill.

They claim it was just an innocent mistake. The person making the James Earl Jones plaque was also making a plaque for a Ray Johnson, and oh dear, the Ray just went on the wrong plaque. I have my doubts, but that's only my opinion.

Thankfully they caught the error before the plaque was unveiled and were able to fix it, but wow. What a blunder. What a horrible blunder.

This Video Blows!

You know, the Trekker Breeze is a cool little gadget, but this promo video for it is a fail. It makes you feel dumb just to watch it, and part of me wonders if it was geared towards the uninformed, to suck them in, which makes me angry.

Right out of the gate, what the hell is a vendor of a product for blind people doing encouraging the step-counting stereotype? Nobody but ants count their steps, got it? Who wrote that gem of a sentence. Maybe people try it when they first go blind, as Ro has said, but they soon abandon it. I don't think there's a single O and M instructor that advocates counting steps anymore. It doesn't work, and how dare a company put that into a so-called up to date video?

It says that this thing will let you do your neighbourhood chores freely without having to depend on people, ask passers-by for help or worry about getting lost. Um, if you don't know what to do with the information it's giving you, you will still need to ask for help, and you will still get lost. And I don't think anyone should get one of these if they don't at least have an understanding of their neighbourhood. You can't go from going everywhere assisted by sighted guide to running around free with a GPS. You need O and M and an understanding of where you're going. Otherwise, you double run the risk of walking straight into danger because your GPS told you to.

I kill myself laughing when it says "Breeze guides you safely to your destination." No it doesn't! It can't tell you you're going to smack a pole. It can't tell you that car is about to crush you. It can't tell you you're about to walk into a construction pit. It gives you nice information, but it doesn't "guide you safely." The only way to be guided safely to your destination is by using a cane or a dog And they know this. See this little section from their manual.

Caution: The Breeze system is designed as an orientation aid only and must not, at any time, be used as the only aid while traveling. When using Breeze, users should always be vigilant, stay alert and pay attention to the immediate surrounding area. A conventional mobility aid like a cane or a guide dog should also be used. Breeze is not a mobility device. It is the user's responsibility to use this device with caution. Do not use headphones while walking on the street.

And the last thing that bugged me about this video is it's all out of sync. Watch where the girl marks a park bench as a landmark. Notice how it doesn't match up with what he's saying. Good job, way to go.

I can totally see how some people would love a Breeze because it's simple and it's one piece of equipment. When I got to mess with a full Trekker, I liked the idea of route-planning, which the breeze doesn't have. And another thing you could do on a Trekker is punch addresses in, and it would estimate where it was. I don't think the Breeze can do that either. But I totally think some people would think the Breeze is awesome. But that video...that video has to go! I really think it will have some uninformed folks buying Breezes and then being horribly disappointed.

Horko Bell

Well, I'm late on this one, but better late than never.

Warren E. Strickland sounds like one of those annoying customers who thinks he's super important and likes to throw his weight around. He ordered some tacos, they weren't right, so he made them make new ones, then he said he saw spit in one of them, so he came inside and threw the spit-laiden taco at the manager. Then he said he wished he hadn't thrown it at her because that destroyed the evidence, and if he hadn't thrown it at her, he could have gotten the place shut down. Oh god, one of these.

I think the funniest part was when they said he couldn't go to any Taco Bell during his probation, and he actually asked permission to go to another Taco Bell because he was treated well there...after he'd called in a consumer complaint. Dude, if you've had such bad service that you've felt like calling in a complaint, why would you plead to go there? Do you love Taco Bell that much?

That Can't Be Good For The Score!

How fitting. A stolen car was tracked to the address of Michael Ray Ekes. He was arrested. What was he doing when he was arrested? Playing Grand Theft Auto! I wonder if he was comparing the video game to the real deal. Here's a question. Was he in the process of losing the game when he was arrested? And here's another one. Are there any unsolved prostitute-murders that could be linked to Ekes?

Sleep-Talkin' Audio

Speaking of active minds, Sleep-Talkin' Adam now has audio. But they're embedded in such a way that JAWS can't see them...so I'm just going to pull them out of the source code and link 'em. Don't keep me from what I want! I know they didn't know, but still. I'm stubborn as a bull!

So here they are. Don't leave the duck there! Too many whiskers! Where are my potato bags? Badger-tickling: proceed with caution.

Some have wondered if he's really talking in his sleep. It sure sounds like it. Especially the duck one. I've heard people get all insistant, and then fade away. Steve has said even I do that.

I don't know if they plan to put more up, but if they do, I'll snag 'em. Does anyone know why these embedded things are invisible to JAWS? It's not a flash movie where wmode is set to transparent or opaque, it's just a straight embed tag...hmmm...maybe that's the problem? Whenever I embedded a sound file, you couldn't see a link to it. But how are they making it so you can click the words? Or maybe they're not. Hmmm. A puzzler!

Get Out Of My Dreams, Get Out Of The Car

Here comes another dream. On the positive side, this one isn't telling me I'm a failure...but apparently it's telling me that I like to make other people feel like failures. What the? It also makes no sense.

I dreamed that Steve and I, the shoe thief and his girlfriend were at my grandma's place at a family gathering. Why would the shoe thief be at my grandma's? Ok then. My brother and sister were there, and we were all eating. Then my sister got frantic, saying she needed thesis data, and now, and she needed it from family. What? She's not doing a thesis, she's teaching! But this is dreamland. Ok, moving on. I asked her what she needed, and she said we had to fill out a survey...about something I couldn't understand. She read me the opening statement describing what the survey was about, and I looked at her with vacant eyes. Then she flew into a rage and said "That's what I said! It's not clear! But oh no, my thesis advisor told me that it had to be this way. I had a clearer one, but he threw it out and said it had to be this way. I'm never going to get any good data!"

I told her that I'd do my best to answer the questions, and she said we all had to go back to Toronto that night to fill it out. I have no idea why. She asked my brother to get up so they could go back to Toronto, but he didn't move...so I elbowed him hard in the ribs! What the hell? This apparently only made him laugh and say "Ok, we'll go to Toronto...and thanks for waking me up with that jab there." Uh-huh.

They headed back in his car, and Steve and I and the shoe thief and his girlfriend jumped in her little car. For some unknown reason, I had to sit in the middle in the front, between the shoe thief and his girlfriend, the way a wee little kid would sit. I don't know where Trix went, but I know she was there. Maybe she went in the back with Steve? That makes no sense. But the even weirder part of this seating arrangement was that the shoe thief was driving! He can see some, but there's no freakin way in hell he should be driving a motor vehicle...and that's exactly how his driving was in the dream.

This had me scared out of my mind, and I kept asking the shoe thief to switch seats with his girlfriend. I kept telling him that I didn't feel safe with him driving anywhere, let alone Toronto. His girlfriend told me that he's a fine driver, and I had nothing to worry about...but as she's saying that, he nearly hit a tree, a pole, and a sign. Every time we almost hit something, I would grab his girlfriend's arm and cling to her, begging her to please switch spots with him...but this was getting me nowhere. Steve was oddly silent through this whole thing.

Meanwhile, the shoe thief was talking about how he has started working for a women's shelter, the same one I'd volunteered at years ago. Uh, that place doesn't usually take men on as employees. I knew of one man who somehow got on a board to do with them, I think to address some accessibility issues for any residents with disabilities, but it took some work. So, I looked at the shoe thief with disbelief. He worked at the shelter? He told me yes he did, and it was very rewarding work. "They even let me drive their bus!" he says as he narrowly misses another car.

Their bus? Yeah, because large groups of abused women go on field trips and such. This dream is just wacked.

I gasp, "You drive their bus?" "Yeah! It's great! They tell me I do very well," he says as we skid nearly off the road and then get back on. I tell him that he can barely drive this car, so how could he drive a bus? He doesn't like that. Then I tell him that he had better stop driving the bus because he's going to have an accident, and when he does, he and the shelter will get sued for so much money that they won't be able to pay it. Steve pipes up and says that perhaps now isn't the time to talk about this. But I keep going. I ask him if this whole thing is a joke, and he assures me that it's not. Then I tell him I'm as serious as he is, he needs to stop driving. I mean, does he even have a license? He sheepishly says he doesn't. Then I get emphatic. "Pull over right now and switch seats with your girlfriend, because if we get stopped by the cops, you will so be going to jail." At this point, he just puts the brakes on in the middle of the road and silently sobs. His girlfriend says "You see what you've done?" and Steve says "If we weren't going to get in an accident, we for sure will get in one now..." and the dream ends.

What the hell? I can't even begin to analyze that dream. I have a strange mind, a strange mind that appears to be very active while I sleep. But exactly what am I trying to sort out?

Feeding The Meter

this is a story from a few months back, but still, what a glorious way to kick off 2010's humpings!

For Adam Michael Kelly, celebrating the end of his football league season by getting right wasted with his teammates just wasn't enough. He needed more, he needed some love. So the 25-year-old went out looking for it, and found it in the form of...a parking meter.Well hey, if you're going to end up paying for it, might as well go to someone that'll take pocket change, right?

Police were called to a disturbance at the corner of Shields and Abbott streets on August 31 about 8.40pm and found Kelly dry-humping a parking meter and yelling out: "Yeah baby, you know you want it."

Police prosecutor Sen-Constable Michelle Long said Kelly was making large pelvic thrust actions and officers saw people walking by reacting with disgust at the performance.

Then, while talking to police, a woman of Asian appearance walked by and in a loud voice Kelly looked at her and said "f---ing gook, f--- off home", Sen-Constable Long said.

At that point, police arrested the young labourer and took him to the watch-house.

I'm sure you'll be stunned to hear that Kelly's lawyer, Richard O’Shane, says that Kelly doesn't remember much of what happened due to his intoxicated state. The truly stunning part for me is that O’Shane doesn't appear to be trying to excuse what happened, but maybe that part was left out of the report.

In addition to spending the night locked up, Kelly was fined $150 for causing a public nuisance. I'll keep my eye out for the story about him trying to break into one of his girlfriends to come up with the cash.

In Bed, We Know Who Was On Top

Yikes! If you're a 120-pound man, don't piss off your 300-pound girlfriend. She might sit on you and kill you, like Mia Landingham did to Mikal Middleton-Bey. Landingham? Seriously? Landing...ham? Well, I guess that's what happened, a hog landed on him!

It All Started With A Little Search

You never know what will start a cascade of thoughts. It can be as simple as something I saw in our tracker. Something like this:

16 Jan, Sat, 04:19:33
Google:
dog wearing gloves

Gloves? Like boots? Did they mean boots? I guess boots kind of look like mitts, mitts with soles on them.

But do they really mean gloves? Are there gloves for dogs? Like really, are there doo hickers with little things to fit each nail into? Would that work? How bloody hard would that be to put on?

Hmmm. I wonder, if you could make gloves for dogs, would they stay on better? Like, would they be less likely to slip off if each nail had its own home? And you'd definitely have to have different-sized ones for the feet with dewclaws.

Then again, would the dewclaws need to be inside the glove?

Hmmm. Is there an idea in there somewhere?

Then the normal part of me slaps me and says dogs' nails don't bend and flex like our fingers, so I doubt that would work at all. But what a weird thought process. If I'd had a better idea, would I be halfway to inventing something?

Echo Email Replies appear To Be Down

Just a little warning. It appears the Echo email-posting end of things is on the fritz. So, you'll still get comments emailed to you that you're following, so go ahead and follow, but if you reply, the replies don't make it to the site. We don't know why...yet. Who knows, they may all get coughed out when the problem is fixed. Hell, maybe the email-posting server lives in Arizona, and it's floatin' away in a flood or sittin' on a snowbank.

So, for now, click on the link that comes in the email and reply through the site. We'll let you know when the reply by email thing is fixed.

Ready Or Not, Here Comes A Mildly Offensive Joke

A very large, old building was being torn down in Chicago to make room for a new skyscraper. Due to its proximity to other buildings it could not be imploded and had to be dismantled floor by floor.

While working on the 49th floor, two construction workers found a skeleton in a small closet behind the elevator shaft. After thinking for a few minutes about what they should do, it was decided that they should probably call the police and report it.

When the police arrived, the men directed them to the closet and showed them the skeleton, fully clothed and standing upright.

"Do you suppose this could be Jimmy Hoffa or somebody else really important," one of the workers asked.

"We can't tell right now," the officers told them. "We'll do some investigating and get back to you. It could very well be him for all we know."

Two days went by and the construction workers couldn't stand the waiting any longer. They had to know who they had found, so they called the police station.

"Hi, we're the two guys who found the skeleton in the closet of that building and we want to know if it really was Jimmy Hoffa we found."

"Well," the cop replied, "it wasn't Jimmy Hoffa, but it was somebody kind of important."

"Well, who was it," they asked excitedly.

"The 1956 Polish National Hide-and-Seek Champion!"

Stupid Motorist Law

Today, on the guide dog email list I'm on, there was talk of really crappy Arizona weather. I guess they're getting snow and rain and wind, and that doesn't bring good things in a desert.

But the one good thing this conversation brought me was knowledge of a very cool law, Statute 28-910 Liability for emergency responses in flood areas, or the "Stupid Motorist Law."

Apparently, there's a law saying that if there's been flooding, and there are barricades up to prevent you from going into flooded areas, and you still drive your big ol' SUV in there, and you need to be rescued, you get the bill.

Yeah!

Finally, there's a law that makes sense. Now, we need to take that law, and create one for ski hills with avalanch warnings and big ski resorts with out of bounds zones among other things. Let's see. What can I think of? Dorks who drive around railroad gates when the lights are flashing and the bells are ringing. "Oh the train will stop for me." Oh yeah? Wanna bet? Or how about morons who drive into construction sites even though there are signs up saying don't come in here? Or people who fish near hydro dams even though the sign says "Hydro dam! Danger!" Well I guess they have that law up here. You can get a nice big ol' fine if you're caught doing that.

I guess the law is a great law in theory, but fire departments are finding it hard to enforce. This is an old article, but I wonder if things have changed. I could see how things might be slow to get moving.

Yeah! This is what we need. We also need a clause in there that says you can't turn around and sue people for not rescuing you fast enough. You got in there, it's your own damn fault, you should be grateful you got rescued at all.

That Guy Needs A Huggins

Lawyer arraigned on charges of hugging female colleague

I'm not here to talk about the story itself, all I care about is who wrote it.

So who wrote it, you ask. That would be J.J. Huggins. Come on, tell me that's not funny.

but just in case you do care about the actual article, here's what's going on.

Saia-Rogers didn't attend the hearing. She previously told Lawrence police Officer Kevin Schiavone that she was chatting with three other attorneys when LeBlanc grabbed her from behind, "wrapped his arms around her midsection just below her breast and pulled her tightly to him pressing his pelvis against her backside" in a bearhug, according to Schiavone's report.

"She states he stated aloud to the colleagues standing there, 'Isn't she a beautiful Republican?'" the report said. "Saia-Rogers stated she felt embarrassed and violated, but kept her composure due to the work setting she was in."

the beautiful Republican/hugging victim is Pamela Saia-Rogers, and the LeBlanc in question is fellow lawyer and current charges of assault and battery facer Robert the Hug Monster LeBlanc.

And in case anybody doesn't understand where the title of this post came from or even if you just want to relive it again (you might not want to if you happen to be Yannick Bertrand), gohere.

The Kid's Head's Spinning And The Hamster's Dead

After reading this story of a mother forcing her son to kill his hamster because of bad grades, That Jebb Fink bit doesn't seem nearly so cruel.

My daughter’s hamster died. I figured its a life lesson right? So she comes in very upset and asks “Why did he die, what’d I do wrong, is it my fault?” As a loving father I had to say, “Yes it’s your fault. Your hamster died because you didn’t eat your broccoli.”

I couldn't find a video, so that'll have to do.

But what kind of a horrible woman does this to her kid? I'm glad he told his teacher. Mommy is now in jail. There's no word about whether or not dad is around or who's taking care of the kid now, but I can only hope it's a better person than one that would make her kid kill a poor little hamster with a hammer as consequences for his bad grades.

Every Girl's Crazy 'Bout A Cross Dressed Man

Not entirely sure what the thought process washere or how he thought he was going to make a clean getaway looking like that, but I'm not going to spend a lot of time wondering about it because amazingly, the cunning plan failed.

A Minnesota man was ticketed for walking out of a store wearing a stolen miniskirt and bikini to impress his wife.

According to the River Falls Journal, police said workers caught Justin Larson leaving Shopko in River Falls wearing the women's clothing on Sunday.

Police said they also found a bra and a bikini top in his pocket, as well.

Larson reportedly told police that he took the clothing in an attempt to patch things up with his wife, because as we all know, the chicks go wild for transvestites with criminal records.

I'm Not Buzzing With Excitement Over This One

I got my GDB Alumni Newsletter yesterday, and they had an article in their pedestrian safety series that started me thinking about something. They were talking about hybrid cars, and how since car-makers had worked so hard to make their vehicles soundless, they weren't keen on adding noise back in. So another solution was apparently being dreamed up by Arizona State University. They have been developing a haptic belt, a belt you would wear that would give you vibratory feedback on where a hybrid car is, so you could detect it. This is of course only going to work if you also wear another gizzmo... and if the cars have the right transmitters on them...and if they're working...and the battery doesn't go out on the belt or the gizzmo...and you don't have other technology failures. Do you see where I'm going? I can't find a link to this, but I found links to other things I wanted to mention. Boy oh boy, did I ever.

As you can see, I'm not keen on this solution. If I need another level of technology to tell me what my ears have told me for years, it doesn't seem like a good solution. The sad part is we already had a solution to cars. They made noise. Now we're going backwards.

What if Joe's hybrid's transmitter has gone on the blink. Joe won't notice because he doesn't need the transmitter to drive his car. But I sure will notice that his transmitter is out when my waist doesn't buzz and then I meet his car with a crunch.

And what about all those bikers and joggers who can see perfectly well, but also rely on hearing when they're biking and jogging, and tend to not notice hybrids? Do you seriously believe they will all strap on expensive haptic belts? No way. Us blinks have come to accept using expensive technology to accomplish tasks that other people do with a pen and paper, but sighties just won't do it. The solution to the hybrid car dilemma needs to work without the user acquiring additional technology. The car needs to vroom and I don't need to buy vroom-makers. I shouldn't have to pay for someone not thinking about the needs of a whole ton of people.

Like I said, I was trying to find a link to the hybrid car project, and failed. But what I did find was a project that is hoping to use a haptic belt tohelp blinks in social situations. I did a double take. A buzzing belt around our waist is going to help us in social situations? Yes, they say, because the vibrations will tell us how far away the person is and in what direction. Um...isn't that what my ears are for? here's a google cache of a PDF with more details. I guess they want to give more information than distance and direction. They want to have it do face-recognition, facial expression recognition and gesture recognition.

Their intentions are quite noble, but I don't know if I'm a fan of their idea, and here's why. First, it's the whole wearable tech thing. I know it's only a belt and glasses, but if a blink wears glasses, they will be stared at, so any social benefits afforded by this technology will be negated by the people's need to stare at the glasses. I am very happy that the folks doing this study realized we needed our ears, though. It does show some level of research into their target population.

Also, if we're any good socially, we'll figure this stuff out without technology. Sure there are a lot of things conveyed through gestures and such, but someone who is perceptive enough will find other ways to find the same information. And if they're not perceptive enough, even if a machine can tell them that Fred is frowning, they won't know what to do with that information. The only time where I've really noticed people more heavily relying on visual communication without augmenting it with something I can perceive is when our French group meets. Sometimes, people who are having trouble finding the words will point at something, and then I'll be left confused. But that's a special circumstance, and this technology couldn't bail me out of that one anyway.

And there's one little piece of the description that freaks me out.

Current efforts in this project are focused towards the integration of information from the face and speech modalities in a manner such that one modality can supplement/complement the predictions from the other modality. For example, if the name of a person is heard in a conversation context, this may be used to automatically label the face images obtained during the conversation, and train the classifiers accordingly.

Uh, so it's listening in on, and storing my conversations? No thanks, no thanks guys. Sure the data would only be used to benefit the system...and my naked ass can't be stored or sent anywhere from those body-scanners either.

I feel like a total shit for raining on someone's parade. They want to help. But there are some instances where simple is better, and that's all I'm saying.

Whatever Generation She's Talking About, I Here And Now Disown It

Who did the who piss off to deserve this?Hilary Duff - My Generation.

This is even worse than that timeLimp Bizkit covered Behind Blue eyes.Much, much worse. It sounds like the kind of thing the credits to a Disney movie would role over top of which I suppose would be amusing if it was done to be funny like when folk singers redo hip-hop, but I'm pretty sure that's not what's happening here.

And seriously, "I hope I don't die before I get old"? Whhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaatttttttt!? The!? Fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccccccckkkkkkk!?

To be honest I'm having a really hard time getting angry about this because it's so damn sad. Do people honestly like things that sound like this? Would they really go out looking for them if it wasn't being forced on them by clueless music executives? Is the only way to get kids to relate to an amazing bit of music like My Generation to make it sound like...like...that? And if it is, what kind of fruity pantiwastes are going to be responsible for looking after me when I get old? Christ, maybe I do want to die before then.

Does The B In Your Name Stand For Bubble?

I got an email from the CNIB begging me to join their "Right to Read" campaign. But they really need to change the campaign's name to be more honest. It's the "Save the CNIB library" campaign. That's what it is, and all it is.

First, let me say that I do appreciate the CNIB library. It has allowed me to get my mitts on a lot of books that just haven't been converted into mainstream audio. They do have some stuff in braille that you can't get any other way. Years ago, they were the only place I could go to get books, magazines, all that stuff. It would suck if the CNIB library disappeared, especially for people who don't have the internet or knowledge of where to look for information.

But they shouldn't think for a second that they are the only way for us to get our hands on things. This is why the campaign to save the library is not synonymous with saving my "right to read".

The other reason saving the library is not the same as safeguarding our right to read is because our right to read is being placed in a lot greater jeopardy by the proposed copyright laws, and the actions of the Author's Guild, who want to block audio-reading on devices like the Kindle. If the CNIB really wanted to protect our right to read, they would be actively lobbying against the new digital restrictions. They wouldn't just be begging for money, like they always do.

This campaign looks positively pathetic. How do they hope to ask for government funding? By having us send letters to the Prime minister, and each provincial premier. Uh, and that will get exactly no attention. How about sending it to relevant ministers, like those who deal with education and employment, or anyone who believes literacy is a concern? How about doing some actual work instead of splattering it at the highest point? That's like barging into a newspaper, walking up to the top editor and saying "I have a story for you!" You'll likely get allowed to finish your thought, and then ushered to the door, thanked for your time, and promptly ignored.

And, isn't this a bad time to ask for money? It's been made clear by government that they will not be planning any new spending. If anything, there will be cuts. So if the CNIB wasn't already going to be ignored because of this ineffective campaign strategy, they will be ignored because of their poor timing.

The way they have the page set up, they ask for your information so they can put it on a form letter. But you don't get to see what the letter says before you give them your information. There was no way in hell I was writing down my info, and then finding out I couldn't stand the message. They did say you could write your own custom message, but I wasn't sure how customizable it was.

Ug. I know they need the money, and it would totally suck to lose easy access to braille. I just wish they'd be honest about it, instead of getting all altruistic and saying they're fighting for our right to read. No, they're fighting for the means to exist!

That's An Expensive Joke

How is setting a PlayStation in a drive-through a joke? Did I miss the memmo?

A woman reported that she, her husband and a friend were in the drive-through when the friend requested some ice tea.

When told she wasn’t getting the tea, the friend put the victim’s PS3 and nine games on the ground as a joke.

By the time the victim’s vehicle circled back to retrieve the items, a passenger in another vehicle had grabbed the game system and three of the games.

He got back in his vehicle, which sped away before the victims could get a good description.

How is that a joke? I just don't get it. Did they think it would look like a bomb or something?

The only part I'm laughing at is somebody stole her PlayStation, and she probably won't get it back. Now that, that was funny.

Akron Shitty Center

I would hate to be Shawn Pouliot right now. But if the story went the way he says it does, I hope he wins the lawsuit.

According to him, he went to a downtown Akron hotel, the Akron City Centre Hotel, one night, and had an unfortunate accident where his colostomy pouch broke, spreading its contents everywhere on the bed. He cleaned it up, bagged the sheets, tipped the maid and paid to replace the bedding. Stuff happens, and he was sorry. Four months later, when he tried to stay there again, he found out he was banned for life because of that night.

I'm sorry, but lots of things happen at hotels, and I doubt the guest is banned. I also doubt that half the guests are nearly as willing to pay for their damages. I have seen incidents of people puking in their rooms because they got too drunk, breaking things due to their own stupidity, all kinds of stuff. If hotels banned every guest that caused a problem, ever, they would run out of clientele in a hurry.

Plus, people do get sick, and sometimes they don't make it to a john. Remember the night I harfed all over the lobby? They didn't evict me for that. Hell, they didn't even make me clean it up, or make me pay to clean it up, both things I would have done. Stuff happens.

And what would they do if my guide dog had an accident, god forbid? Trixie's only had one complete and utter pooping accident in the house, but sometimes you just can't stop things. It doesn't mean you need to be banned for life.

I hope Shawn Pouliot makes the hotel pay for their narrow-minded attitude, and if he doesn't get an apology, I hope he can find a nicer hotel to stay in so he never gives them another red cent.

He'll Be Safe From Screaming Kids For A Year

Remember Roger Stephens? The one who smacked a screaming kid in Wal-Mart? Well, he's going to jail for a year. I still laugh when I read the story. I shouldn't, but I do.

We Didn't Have The Whole Picture

When I talked about the case of Billy Miller, I said there has to be more to the story somewhere. Well, here she be. The army says the pictures of the little girl weren't the pictures that provoked the investigation, and he had other adult porn, which is against the rules.

But I still don't get why the family couldn't get those answers without involving the media. Weird, weird weird.

A Short Book, Long Thoughts

When I was going to write this post, it was going to be a seething post about how horrible a book this was. Now, I'm a wee bit conflicted about how I feel. In fact, I pretty much take everything back. Not all, but a lot.

The book was called Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott. I didn't know what genre it was, just read the description and borrowed it. Now I find out it's a book for teens, and feel dead stupid for being so hard on her for the way she wrote it, and feel even dumber for choosing it. But it did make me think, so I guess it served its purpose.

The story is that a man kidnaps a young girl from a class trip. He is so slick, putting a baseball cap on her head making her look like a boy, that nobody connects the boy who left with him with the girl who goes missing. He renames her Alice, convinces her that the only way he would take her home would be to go there and kill her whole family while she watched, shows her newspaper clippings about the last girl he had kidnapped and killed, and puts her through horrible things to satisfy his own sexual depravity. But on the outside, he seems like a nice guy, and everybody thinks he is home-schooling his daughter because she has special needs.

Eventually, she is growing up too much to satisfy his need to have a little girl, so he makes her find a new little girl to kidnap. From beginning to end, the story is dark, hopeless, and it seems the message is that we are all either unobservant, evil, or dirty.

I think part of the problem was the book was too short. Everything happened too fast. When the second scene in the whole book is rape, how can things get any worse? You just shut down. You can't handle that so fast.

Another thing I think is you are not allowed to come to any conclusions. They are shoved forcefully down your throat, probably because there isn't time to flesh anything out slowly. You are told about her captor, Ray's past. You are told what Ray's mother would do to him. You are told straight up that Ray has nightmares where he begs his mom not to touch him there. It is all told to you, and you are just expected to believe it. There is no discovery. It's just laid out there, without warning.

The third evil thought I couldn't help but have was that the author was deriving some kind of pleasure from describing so much sexual abuse. It felt like it was a pedophile's romance novel, and I just couldn't take it. But I think that was my own mind putting up defenses against hearing about it. It had to vilify the author. It had to be the author's fault. It wasn't the fault of the evil character, or the fact that it does happen. It had to be the author's fault.

As I read more of the book, I began to get angry at Alice. I felt for her, but then I would get angry. She would say that nobody noticed, but when someone did, she would throw them off the trail. You're not making it easy, kid. Then part of me would understand that it wasn't her fault, it was his for screwing up her mind so badly that she was afraid to reach out and get help. But I would still be pissed off, saying how can she blame the world for not saving her when she won't let them? I think that comes from me working in social work, and knowing you can't force help on someone, you can only offer it...and I wanted to strangle her for blaming everyone, even the ones who tried to help, for not looking. They looked, they saw, you pushed them away!

There were times when I grew to hate Alice, hate her for manipulating a boy who she saw as easy to manipulate, hate her for breaking that kid's pencil out of spite, hate her and think about how she wasn't worth saving, wasn't capable of being redeemed. Then I'd hate myself for hating her. She didn't ask to be Alice, after all.

Then there were moments when I thought Alice would turn and stand up for herself, moments when I wanted to cheer...but she slumped back down just as quickly.

And then there were really stupid moments, like near the end. He was going to go kidnap the new little girl and get Alice to help him, but he got mad, and he stabbed her in the shoulder. After a neighbour knocked on the door and he convinced them that everything was fine, he took Alice to go kidnap the girl, and still wanted her to help...and didn't do anything about the bleeding. So there she is, wandering around the playground bleeding. Yeah, and that's believable. What happened to all the stuff about hiding the evidence and covering up? It all feels like it's unravelling, and all the rules don't matter.

I wasn't even going to write about this book. But then I had a dream about it. I dreamed there was a conference called the Shitty Authors' Conference. Yep, that was the name of it. I don't know why I was there, I appeared to be watching to see who showed up and truly believed they were a shitty author. Elizabeth Scott showed up, and there was Raymond Feist, and Aaron Rayburn, and Dean Koontz, and even Sue Grafton was there to become un-shitty, and Ro's friend Joni was trying to show them how not to suck at writing. What a silly dream!

But I did finish the book practically in one sitting, and I did want to see how it ended, so I guess it wasn't all bad. Has anyone else read this one? Do you think what I do?