The Long And Winding Road To Our Current Election

I guess all this election talk got Ann all curious about the state of government up here in the great white north. It didn't take long before she got, as she put it, more than she wanted to know. Hahhaa. She found a pretty cool article, so I thought I'd link to it.Here's the article she read. Good on the girl for getting the "He didn't come back for you" reference in there. Pretty cool stuff. The only thing I don't see reference to, which I may have glossed over, was the whole contempt of parliament thing. At any rate, pretty good read.

Where All Our Local Candidates Stand

Since Monday is election day up here, I figured this would be a good article to link to.

The Guelph Tribune has been asking a series of questions to all the candidates about what they would do about this or that if elected. Their final question was "What will you personally bring to the table if elected Guelph MP?" Here are their answers. So, if you just crawled out from under a rock and realized "Holy crap, I have to vote on Monday," this will give you a quick and dirty summary of where everybody stands. Or maybe you just need the summary. Either way, if you live in Guelph, you should read this.

Invisible Captcha: Cool Or What?

So many times I hear about new captchas, and I cringe. We'll be soooo screwed. Well, thanks to a conversation on Twitter, I heard about a pretty neat idea.the invisible captcha!

Here's how it works. People who are running their blog updates through Feedblitz and pay a wee bit of change can install this invisible captcha thing. As people try to subscribe to their feeds, it automatically takes guesses on whether they are a living breathing human or a bucket of bolts. If it thinks they're a living, breathing human, no captcha for them. If it has its doubts, have a squiggly box or a garbled audio version.

There is an example on Seth Godin's blog, and I gave it a shot. I don't give a crap about marketing, but it's the only way to find out. And hey! I got no captcha. It was satisfied that I was a living, breathing, two-legged homosapien! Sweet! I don't know what IE was smoking, but it crashed on its face and lay there in a smoldering heap. Firefox took the site like a champ.

How neato is that right there? This might be our new subscription form doo hicker when we finally take the plunge and port the site over.

Pumped About This Idea

Back a while ago, I talked about the full-service gas station becoming a disappearing phenomenon. Well, could this be a solution? Someone has come up with a system where you push a button, which rings a buzzer and then people come out and pump your gas.

I have two questions. It wasn't clear if you had to get out of your car or not. But the one guy broke his neck, so I doubt he'd be getting out of his car anytime soon, so I'm trying to figure out how he pushes the button. And, if they already don't want to leave the station unattended, would they respond to this?

At any rate, it's a pretty neat system. I hope it catches on.

My Interview On Accessibility Matters

Remember back when I said I would be on the radio? Well, I finally edited it down from the full hour to the relevant sections, and here's the result.

I left in the monolog by Susan Wheeler because I start joking about it when I start talking, so I felt it had to stay. Plus, it had a really cool message.

Listening to this, I realize I do a lot of silly giggling. But at least I didn't break your ears this time.

Oh, by the way, the Guelph Barrier Free site is starting to take form. It's still a baby, but it lives at Guelphbarrierfree.net. Come by and check out what's going on.

And cruise on by Accessibility Matters while you're at it. They're the ones who invited me on their show.

Hope you enjoy the interview, or something.

A Song For Michael Sona

Oh me oh my we're goofs. You'll know why very shortly.

Steve and I were just sort of standing around talking, when suddenly one of us started singing "My Sharona." Then the other said "Hey! There's a parody of that song in there, only all about Michael Sona." You know who Michael Sona is, right? If you don't, here's a reminder.

We let the idea swirl around in our heads over night, and this morning, I started writing. Steve joined me later, and here is the result.

In the university, what do I see? People exercising their rights...Sona.
No we don't like this at all, lawyer called, you know we're gonna put up a fight...Sona
Messing with the way, people vote, such a shameful crime, wanna put a stop, to the votes, of the younger kind, bye, bye, bye, bye-i woo!
Muh muh muh Michael Sona

scaring kids is so much fun, so much fun, they'll think voting's not worth their time...Sona
into the polling station I run, in I run, runnin' on through the long line...Sona
Polling here is done, give it up, it's a waste of time, don't care if these punks, think I'm out, of my freakin mind, mind mind my-i-ind woo!
Muh muh muh Michael Sona

I don't see a scrutineer, not one here, gonna make a grab for the box...Sona
The kids aren't gonna vote for Burke, the little jerks, the campaign's gonna sink like a rock...sona
700 votes, in a box, not the PC kind, gonna make a grab, man I'm sure, gonna cross the line, mine, mine, my-i-ine, woo!
Muh muh muh Michael Sona

If anyone feels like tightening that up and recording it, go nuts. It would be awesome. God I wish I knew how to do that sort of thing.

Bob Cole Calling The Henderson Goal

I don't think you can live in Canada for any length of time without seeingPaul Henderson's winning goal from 1972at least once. It's shown all the time, and Foster Hewitt's "Henderson has scored for Canada!" is one of those things everybody seems to know even if they don't know they know it.

But until now, I had no idea this existed. Bob Cole's call of The Henderson Goal for CBC Radio.

It's hard to listen to that without hearing the familiar one in my head at the same time, but it's a pretty great call in its own right.

By the way, Bob Cole is still the best hockey commentator there is. Some people like slagging on him for being old and slow to call plays, but to me he hasn't changed. He might not be flashy, but he doesn't need to be. He's a total pro who can get the excitement of a game across like nobody else.

If I could make one hockey wish, it would be for Bob Cole and Harry Neale to get together for one last run of Leaf games on Hockey Night In Canada. that would be too awesome for words. Please CBC, throw as much of our money as it takes at whoever it takes to make this happen.

This Is For The Birds, And It's From Them Too!

I'm gonna cry. Seriously. Gonna lay down my head and cry.

We try to write intelligent things on Twitter and on the blog, and between us, Steve and I have 250 followers or so. But a bunch of birds pecking on a bacon fat-covered keyboard get 2654 followers. Whyyyyy?

I'm telling you, it's like the whole million monkeys at a million typewriters thing. A dude in Latvia covered a keyboard in bacon fat, attached a webcam to it, and left it out for the birds! Birds are hungry, so they peckity peck peck away, and their peckings go to Twitter. If you want to follow the account, it's at Hungry_Birds.

Seriously, birds are tweeting on Twitter, and people are following them. This is the kind of things you will see if you follow them.

;--;--;;;8O8O8O8O8888888888888888888888888888888888;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;EEEEEEEEEEEUUUUUUUU;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; @irLV
;;;II;;;;;;;;;;;080000000TTTTT--888888888tyeeeereeeere1111111111111111111212112211211111111112112121212121212211122211212111111211 @irLV
21211212212122222111111111111111111111111121222211122111111111111111-11-11111112221111-1--1-2111111221121111111-11111212112--21212 @irLV
12221212-121212111112121212121122q12222222q222222212o2222112q1o212q12q12q12q1q1q1 @irLV
888888888888888888888881111222222222222222222222222222211222111222222QEEEEESRRRRRSEEEESSFFFFFSSFFSSDSSSSSWWWEEEEEEWWW22 @irLV

and on, and on, and on. They haven't tweeted in 2 weeks. I wonder if a raccoon swallowed the keyboard whole?

There's a video at the link, but it's in another language so I didn't link it.

People...are following...birds...on Twitter. *flop*

This Is A Holdup...Note...That I Left Here...

the best bank robbing advice I can offer you all is don't, but if you must, the next best thing I could suggest is when you leave, remember to take your note with you. Failing that, all that's left isdon't go back for it later like Matthew Dale Hudleston did.

According to his plea agreement, Hudleston walked up to a Regions Bank teller on Oct. 22 and slipped her a note saying: “I have a gun. Do not alert anyone. No alarms, no dye packs, give me all the money in your drawer. You have 15 seconds, do not panic or alert anyone.”

Hudleston, 33, left with $9,945 — including $700 in bait money — but returned to retrieve the holdup note.

A short time later, a Baldwin County sheriff’s deputy spotted Hudleston in a previously stolen black Ford Explorer and chased him until the vehicle overturned in the vicinity of Baldwin County 32 and Alabama 59. Authorities recovered all of the money and the stickup note, according to the plea agreement.

We're Done With Echo

Apologies for the rambling nature of this thing. I was writing thoughts down as they came to me and it got a little long.

When JS-Kit bought Haloscan and turned it into Echo in 2009, I was a little concerned. What's going to happen to my comments? What's this gonna cost me? Am I, as a screenreader user, even going to be able to administrate the thing? Will the other screenreader users have problems posting?

In spite of all these concerns, Carin and I had no desire to lose pretty much every comment posted here since 2003, so since the price was reasonable, we handed over the cash and made the switch.

For a while, everything was great. Support was fast, and damn good. The people were helpful. Most concerns we had they had an answer for, and they seemed pretty willing to try to figure out the ones to which they didn't over time.

But as time went bye, things started to happen. Subtle changes were made that screwed up accessibility for some people. Things that were simple to do began getting a little harder. Things that used to work perfectly began to fail. Eventually, a lot of people stopped commenting and took to emailing us and starting conversations on Twitter. That's fine, we like hearing from you no matter how you find us. But when the reason you choose email and Twitter is because you passionately hate or are utterly confused and befuddled by the comments system we're spending money on, that's not good.

Somebody even took it upon herself to email Echo about her accessibility troubles. She sent me the email she got back, and boy oh boy do I wish I still had it, because I'd post it here in a heartbeat. It was completely ignorant and flippant about her troubles, telling her that there was nothing they could do and that if she wanted to do something with Echo, she should get a sighted person to help her. Even worse than what it said was who it came from. It wasn't written by a lowly employee who hates life, it came straight from the CEO of the company! For future reference, get sighted assistance is almost always the wrong answer when a customer comes to you with an access issue. At best it's a very temporary answer until you fix whatever you broke trying to make things look cute. Things can be stylish and usable, and as the smart ones who build the things, it's up to you to figure out how.

If I was smart I would have stopped paying them right then and there,but because the service used to be so great, I gave them another chance.

But I knew the end was finally coming earlier this year when I voiced my accessibility concerns for the second or third time while writing about another issue I was having. I wrote the email in January when I was half dead. Can't remember the exact date, but my head hurt like a bastard, so I know it was January. It's now April 27th, and I'm still waiting for a response. Generally I'd get responses to questions within a day or 2, if not sooner.

But I think I've found out why.

As some of you may know, we're slowly getting ready to move this whole outfit to its own domain and server. All the posts from here are coming with us, and we were hoping to bring the comments along for the ride. There are thousands of them, and losing them would suck but mighty. In talking to the nice folks who are going to be hosting this thing, the subject of how to get the comments from point A to point B came up, and along with it, more accessibility problems. The method James found for possibly making the comment transfer simpler wouldn't work for a number of reasons too lengthy to get into here. It came down to having to write another support request. I decided that doing that was pretty useless since I'm not getting emails from months ago answered, so tonight, out of frustration, I tweeted Echo about how things were going and how I was sad to see a great service head south.

I ended up getting responses from support, but rather than making things better, the opposite happened. What I found out was that the version of Echo I'm using is no longer being developed and barely being supported anymore if at all.

Perhaps you can feel the steam coming off of me at this moment. I'm paying a monthly fee for something that's pretty much been scrapped, and nobody bothered to tell me this? That's kind of an important detail, guys! I know that Echo has launched some new products and is promoting the hell out of the big customers they've landed, and so they should. But I had no idea that launching new products and focusing energy on those parts of the business involved hanging us little guys out to dry. There may be less of it, but our money is still just as good as everybody else's.

I'm more than a little angry that Echo would abandon the smallish blogs and websites they serve, yet happily continue to take our money. At least the nameless support person on Twitter was honest enough to tell me that what I should do is export my comments and switch to a service that's aimed at operations like mine. Would have been nice to hear that from the higher ups when these decisions were made, but it's too late for that now.

So here's where we are. I'm not paying Echo another red cent, or a cent of any other colour for that matter. I'm done. As soon as I can, I'm stopping the subscription and turning the system off. I'll fire up Blogger comments until such time as we bail for our new home. It doesn't look like we'll be able to salvage all the old comments, because to add even more insult to insult, the exporter kinda failed to grab everything. I may try it one more time, but I'm not going to spend a lot of time messing with it.

I'm sad to lose everything. A lot of people had a lot of fun in the comments over the years, and unless there's a small miracle, it's all going to be gone. I'm sure we'll slowly create fun 2.0 now that we'll have a system that should work for everybody, but I'm pretty pissed that through no fault of my own, all the old stuff can't stick around.

So I guess that's it. Here goes nothing...and everything.

Come See The Dangly Side Of Sears

From the worse than bad explanations for doing amazingly stupid things department comes the story of Robert McDonough.

The 39-year-old now former Cincinnati police officer was sentenced in February to 8 days of community service, 2 years probation and a $250 fine. He was also banned from going near Sears stores since that's where the public indecency took place.

All of this stems from an incident last May. McDonough was caught by the store's surveillance system exposing himself to employees and presumably anybody else within range. If that's not enough to tell you that he wasn't good with the low profile thing, he was even easier to track down because while he was there, he used his credit card to make a purchase.

When he was interviewed by fellow officers, McDonough said that the reason his zipper was down was that he was attempting to "determine who would advise him that his zipper was down."

I've taken 0 police training courses in my day, but I'll bet that's one drill they don't teach at the academy.

Amazingly, even though this happened last year and he was convicted 2 months ago, McDonough wasn't officially fired until April 19th. There's something that needs an explanation, and hopefully it'll be a better one than his.

We Just Voted. You Should Go Do That

Carin and I just got back from doing the voting at the local returning office thing for the first time. We missed the advanced polling days and voting on election day as a blind person in our experience nearly never ends well, so returning office it was.

The process is easy. Just go in, tell them that you want to vote, show some ID, fill out a couple of short forms, mark your ballot, say good day and leave. Really, it's as simple as that.Here's all the info you'll need about what counts for ID, where and how to vote, ETC.

If you want to take advantage of the returning office like we did, you'd better hurry. Voting is only available there until tonight. You miss that, May 2nd becomes pretty much your only choice. If you're in Guelph, the office is located at 666 Woolwich Street, which is the Root Plaza. If you have questions, give them a call at 1 866 238-7101.

We asked about when the country is going to get itself together and be as with it as the city of Guelph and now the Province of Ontario when it comes to providing accessible voting options, but there was no good answer to be had, unfortunately. You'd think that something with the resources of the entire country would be well equipped to beat a city of 140000 people out of the gate on this, but no, you would be thinking incorrectly. Very, very sad. If anybody has any info on what if anything is going on, please pass it our way.

I could be wrong, but I'm getting the feeling that voter turnout might actually go up this time around. All I've been hearing about are how busy the advanced polls were, how busy our returning office has been, and about students across the country getting into the voting spirit through the mobs and such. Here's hoping that the momentum carries straight through election day and beyond. Right now there are people all over the world fighting and dying for the right to become as sick of voting as we are. If that doesn't say something about how important voting is, then I don't know what else to tell you.

Voting At Returning Offices: You Only Have Until Tomorrow

A while ago, when I found out I could vote at the returning office, I thought you could vote every day right up to May 2. I have since discovered I was wrong.

I got this feeling in my gut that I should check and make sure I could vote any day, so called Elections Canada. The first people told me I could only vote up until today. But the local returning office set me straight. I have until tomorrow.

Sheesh, it's a good thing I didn't wait until, say, after the all candidates meeting at Action Read on Thursday, to cast my vote. I still could have gone down on election day, but two blind folks walking into a chaotic polling station on election day is a recipe for grrr.

So, tomorrow probably, we'll walk down to the friendly neighbourhood returning office, fill out the forms, and mark our x, or we hope we can mark our x, since federal elections don't have the audio voting stuff so we have to rely on nothing moving accidentally while we're lining up to mark our x, but that's a whole other post. But it's a really good thing I checked that whole returning office voting deal. That would have been very very bad times.

Thank You For Donating To The You're A Gullible Moron Fund

Why do people keep falling for this stuff? Honestly, get a clue or 6. If you want to donate to a church or anything for that matter go ahead, just do it on your own time and not while you're being annoyed by people following you out of a bank. And for christsakes, letting people into your car is just asking for trouble.

Woman scammed by 'money blessers' in Walmart parking lot in Sanford

They followed a bank customer with money into the parking lot. One of them approached her and asked if she knew how to get to a Baptist church, where he wanted to make a donation. He also asked her to donate, but she said no.

Then the other man walked up and started asking questions about making donations to a church and they confused the woman, who was somehow convinced to let them into her car.

That's when one man pulled out what appeared to be a large amount of money. He asked the woman to prove she was trustworthy enough to donate his money for him.

At some point, the woman put her money with his on a "prayer cloth" and they blessed the money.

"They told the victim to deliver the money just like this, folded up in the prayer cloth,'' police said in a report. After the men left, she looked into the cloth and realized her money was gone and all that remained was his "money" — cut up newspaper.

If anybody needs me, I'll be over here not having any sympathy for this numbskull.

Putting The Drops In Cough Drops

Um...ok?

The man went into the store at 2501 S. French Ave. at about 10:30 p.m. Thursday and walked to the cough-drop aisle.

Police say the unknown man looked around, unzipped his pants and urinated on 110 packages of cough drops.

Afterward he walked to the pharmacy and tried to fill a prescription, but didn't have the correct paperwork. He then left the store.

This chain of events unfolded recently at a Walgreens in Sanford, Florida. It was caught by the store's surveillance system but sorry, I have no video to share.

Not sure what else to say here. If you know who did this or you are who did this, contact police. Just be sure to shake off and zip up first.

Who Knew Computers Sang That Long Ago?

Neato! Apparently this was the first computer ever to sing. And it even had speech in it. in 1961. Pretty cool. I wonder how much work that poor soul had to do to make a 1961 computer sing.

Semen, Semen, Everywhere, But No More In Her Drink

Michael Kevin Lallana, who's charming dating story you can catch yourself up onhere,has beensentenced.

He's been ordered to spend 6 months in jail followed by 3 years on probation, and he also must register as a sex offender.

I've got nothing more to add, I've made all the jokes I can come up with in the previous 2 posts about this.

Are You There Marty? It's Me, Guelph

When Marty Burke makes a public statement, you can usually count on hearing a couple of things. One is his version of the amazing ability of the Conservatives to turn any conversation into a misleading diatribe on coalitions, and the other is how much talking he does with the people of Guelph. According to him, he's always getting out there, knocking on doors, talking to Canadians. He's got a good grasp on what Guelphites do and do not care about.

Maybe he is getting out there. Maybe he's knocked on more doors than anyone in the recorded history of door knocking, and maybe his count is even higher when you factor in all the knocking he did in the days before he turned pro. But no candidate, no matter how hard he may try, can knock on every door. There will always be people who don't get personal visits, probably a lot of them. There's me, for a start. Not a single candidate has knocked on my door, and that's fine with me. I like it when people don't knock on my door, that's one of the reasons I live in a building with a secure entrance. Besides, that's what debates and interviews are for.

Ahh yes...debates and interviews. there have been a lot of those, and they're where the fun starts. Marty Burke, he who to hear him tell it never passes up a chance to interact with the inhabitants of the Royal City, has a wee bit of a problem showing his face at those things. He's missed out on question and answer sessions with high school students designed to get kids interested in voting and the political process. Last week he skipped not only a discussion on poverty and social issues, but also an all candidates debate put on by the city's biggest newspaper.

The poverty one he missed because, according to Twitter, he said he was busy talking to the people of Guelph. There's that line again. Never mind that a couple hundred people attended that evening's event. that raises the question, are the people of Guelph not poor or concerned about them, or can Super Marty knock on more than 200 doors in a 2 hour period?

the Mercury debate he withdrew from 90 minutes before it started citing an old military injury, but he was back out there campaigning less than a day later.I don't want to sit here and say that he was faking it, I have no idea. But given his attendance record and those of other Conservative candidates around the country, I am going to sit here and wonder about it.

And now I'm reading thathe hasn't agreed to an interview with CFRU's election radio show.This one astounds me. He wouldn't have to show up early in the morning for a live interview. The folks at the FRU are generally pretty accomodating, and I'm sure that any or all of the people hosting the show would be willing to record in advance either in person or by phone when it suited his schedule.

So what have we learned? Marty Burke likes talking to the people of Guelph, unless those people are poor, care about the plight of the poor, are students, attend debates, sponsor debates, are allowed to ask questions or listen to or host community radio shows. And in all of this I haven't even brought upthe ballot box thingagain.

If Burke is ignoring these people now when every vote counts, what do you suppose is going to happen if he's elected? Marty Burke and the Conservatives have as much real interest in listening to the people as I have in Dancing with the Stars. None whatsoever.

I want you all to go out and vote if you haven't done it already. the advanced polls are still open today, and you can vote at your local returning office until tomorrow. If all of that fails, May 2nd is your friend. You can vote for whoever you'd like, the choice is your own. But if you care about your city, your province and your country, choosing who won't get your vote should be easy. Vote for somebody who's willing to show up, answer hard questions and not turn everything into an attack on the constitution or the opposition. As far as I'm concerned that leaves you with all but one candidate, and I'd tell Marty Burke that to his face if only I could find him.

Land This Plane In Libya Or I'll Give You A Manicure!

Steve and I have often joked that it's ridiculous to ban nail clippers on planes. I mean, come on, what are you going to do with a set of nail clippers? Seriously. Well, someone actually tried to use them as a weapon. They didn't succeed, but they tried. He wanted the plane to land in Libya! What was he going to do, continue his assault with the clippers once he got there? Good luck with that.

He was restrained and the plane landed in Rome on schedule.

But oh my god, someone tried to actually hijack a plane with nail clippers.

Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor...But You Can Keep Your Perverts

Police in Tempe, Arizona have finally nabbed the man they say has made a passtime ofmasturbating near a woman who's job it is to dress up like the Statue of Liberty to promote a business called Liberty Tax.

Kevin Robert Theriault, 42, is alleged to have unhuddled his mass at least 3 times before he was finally caught...on tax day, no less.

For reasons mysterious and downright mystifying to me, the victim didn't report the incidents right away. Perhaps she has a 3 strokes and you're out policy, who knows?

Undercover detectives were able to locate information as to where Theriault was working and began watching him, police said.

On Monday, Theriault was seen leaving work around 5:10 p.m. and was followed back to the intersection of McClintock Drive and Elliot Road, where he parked in a bank parking lot.

Police said Theriault got out of his vehicle, unzipped his pants and began masturbating while looking at the woman as she stood in the parking lot.

Theriault was immediately approached by detectives and taken into custody.

He now faces 3 counts of indecent exposure and 3 counts of public sexual indecency.

In an interview with police after he was arrested, Theriault stated that he'd really like to just go home and do his taxes. NO, that's not a joke.

Did Somebody Say Something Worth Throwing Some McDonald's Over?

All these food feuds are strange enough, but even stranger is the food feud that's seemingly without explanation.

That appears to be what's happening in the case ofBrant Goodwin Stephens.The 43-year-old is believed to be the one who threw a cheeseburger at the passenger side of a man's car while the 2 were in a McDonald's drive through.

A St. Lucie County Sheriff's deputy went to an address in the 4800 block of North Kings Highway where the victim said while in the drive through of McDonald's someone threw a burger at his vehicle's passenger side.

Investigators noted a "large spot" of ketchup measuring 6 inches by 6 inches on the side of the victim's vehicle and cheeseburger pieces on the hood.

When police tracked him down, Stephens had a fair bit to say, none of which explained anything.

The victim got the alleged cheeseburger thrower's tag, and investigators found the vehicle.

"I threw a cheeseburger at that (racial epithet's) truck," Stephens is quoted as saying. "He pissed me off and if I have to go to jail for it then that's OK."

So is he a racist, is he insane or did something happen that hasn't come out yet? When I know, so will you.

A Horse Is A Horse, So It's Not A Big Deal If You Lose Your Arm In One

I love and hate lawyers for exactly the same reason. They're willing to say any fucking thing no matter how ridiculous it sounds. Most of the time it's completely infuriating, but other times the shit that comes out of their mouthes is so entertaining that it's hard to stay angry for long.

On this day, I must say that I'm entertained...and a little sicked out.

Ralph Crozier is representing a fellow by the name of Marian Wegiel. Mr. Wegiel found it necessary to retain the services of Mr. Crozier after finding himself accused ofsexually assaulting a horse.

There's nothing remarkable about the defence. He's not admitting that he did anything wrong. This isn't the kind of case that should go to trial. My client is a good church-going fellow who doesn't have a criminal history and has the support of his community. All pretty standard stuff.

But then there's this.

The lawyer for a Shelton man accused of sexually assaulting his neighbor's horse claimed Thursday the case has been blown out of proportion.

"If this was a guy and a sheep in Litchfield, and I've had a few of those cases, this would not have gotten nearly the media attention it has," said Ralph Crozier, who represents 63-year-old Marian Wegiel.

"But I guess because a horse is higher off the ground it leaves a little more to the imagination."

Just stop for a second and let that sink in.

"I've had a few of those cases."

Not sure about you guys, but I translate that as sheep fucking is routine in these parts. And if it's me, I'm picking up and moving the hell out of those parts just as soon as I can.

And I'm pretty sure the reason that this case is being blown out of proportion has nothing to do with the fact that horses stand taller, but rather because in a lot of places it'd be hard to find a lawyer to whom sheep raping is no big deal anymore.

Boy, the TV commercials this guy could have. It's too bad things didn't work out a little differently. If he knew the right people, his firm could have been called Cellino and Barns.

I Hear Through The Grapevine That He Might Be A Bit Upset

What to do when the 71-year-old ex wife you share your home with has a problem with you having your new girlfriend over? If you're 75-year-old Sebastiano Russo, the answer is easy.Drunkenly throw a grape at her head, then threaten to murder her and burn down the house.

A witness told the investigating deputy that Sebastiano Russo sat at a table, slamming his hand on it, saying, "This is my house." He told his ex-wife he was bringing his girlfriend to the house, the report states.

When Claire Russo told him, "No, not in my house," the ex-husband threatened to kill her and then attacked her with the grape, the witness told the deputy.

The story says that the pair live near a place called Orange City. For Claire's sake, it's a good thing old Sebastiano stuck to throwing grapes. An orange surely would have hurt more.

This Is A robbery. This Is Also A Bad Choice Of Paper

The worst part of this guy's night wasn't that his name is Bruce Manlove, though I'm sure that's its own brand of personal hell. NO, I dare say his worst moment was the time hewrote a robbery note on the back of some department of corrections paperwork, paperwork that just happened to have the name Bruce Manlove written on it.

He made off with 17 packs of smokes, but he didn't get far. Police arrested him a short time later.

I guess it's back to jail for him, where there may well be some manlove in his future.

A Change Would Do You Good

Anthony Wilson can't be a complete moron. If you're smart enough to get away with robbing 5 banks, there has to be at least a little something going on upstairs. but maybe it's more important to be quick on your feet than quick in the head, considering how his enterprizeultimately came undone.

FBI agent Juan Herrera says a tipster called after seeing bank surveillance photos. The tipster offered Wilson's name, and the FBI found his profile photo on Facebook.

Herrera says there were Facebook photos of the 25-year-old Wilson wearing clothes that were worn during a robbery.

So...What are the odds he robbed all those banks to get money for clothes?

This Is A Robbery, I Think, Maybe

Poor Harold Luken. He's obviously not a criminal. He must have been desperate or something. What else could explain this complete and utter failure of a robbery attempt? His first mistake was to walk into the bank with only an Acoustic guitar. Yup, just an acoustic guitar. He said he had a gun, but a guitar was all they saw.

Next, he proclaimed that he was going to rob the bank, but he would wait in line, or on line as he put it.

When he got to the teller, he even told the teller he was going to pass him a note before doing so. I wish the story had said what was in the note. All it says was that it was unconvincing.

When the teller wouldn't give him any money, he said he would even have settled for the balance of his own account! Or maybe he just wanted to know how much was in there. I'm not sure.

At any rate, he got nuttin', and vowed to go rob City Bank. Unfortunately, he didn't make it too far because he was grabbed by some cops and carted off to jail.

I kinda feel sorry for the guy in a strange way.

When Raffi Says It, Ya Just Gotta Do It!

Wow. Everybody's getting involved in this election, even Raffi! He even wrote a new verse to all us grown up belugas out there.

Cute. Who knows what'll make someone vote, so good on Raffi.

Babies Wait For No Health Care System

I know rules are rules, but this is ridiculous.

A couple immigrated here from India. The mom was three months pregnant. Apparently, in Ontario, the rule is that you have to wait 3 months before you are elligible for OHIP, the province's health care. Well, the twins didn't want to wait that long. They were born in Sunnybrooke hospital, and by the sounds of it, they're doing well. Thankfully, their care was covered since they were born here, but mom wasn't so lucky. That'll be $22000, please.

I sort of kind of understand a rule being put in place to keep people from coming over, getting some kind of care they couldn't get where they were, getting it for free, and leaving, even though that seems like a far-fetched scheme. It's not easy to immigrate here. You would have to go through one hell of a lot of hoops just to leave again.

But even if I completely understood the rule, this was not planned. This was an emergency. Plus, what kind of trouble are we setting people up for if they can't get access to health care? What if someone who doesn't have a lot of extra money gets some kind of contageous disease and feels they can't pay for it to be treated? Wouldn't it end up costing the system more in the end?

The couple is saying they'll find a way to pay, and are amazingly not angry. But it's just ridiculous that no one wants to revisit the issue of this three-month waiting period rule, even though this case seems like the perfect reason to have a look.

Petting A Dog Without Asking Just Came Back To Bite Her

I have a feeling 99% of the people reading this are going to take what I'm about to say wrong. Oh well, off I go.

The story goes that a woman walked into a Home Depot with a yappy little mut in a shopping cart. Over came a greeter, said hello to the woman and thought she'd greet the pooch too. Pet petty pet pet went the Home Depot greeter. The pooch didn't like her and bit off part of her nose. Now the greeter's being all huffy about it. "I'm happy it was me and not my little girl. We pet dogs all the time. There will be no more petting dogs we don't know from here on in."

And to that I say, it's about damn time.

As a guide dog-handler, I've had it up to here with people who think they can just walk right up and pet Trixie. The fact is they shouldn't walk up and pet any dog. The working thing is important, but really, should you walk up to a strange unpredictable animal and start molesting it? No! You're asking to be chomped.

I think it's absolutely cowardly that the woman in home depot who owns the vicious little thing tried to leave the store. Yea for the paramedic that put a stop to that plan. I also think that her dog, even though little, is dangerous and probably has issues serious enough that it may have breathed its last if it just bites people at random. I feel sort of bad that the Home Depot greeter will require plastic surgery. But I don't feel bad that she got bitten. Maybe she will not be so presumptuous. Maybe she will learn to ask before waltzing up and putting her hands all over an animal as if she has a god-given right.

It Wasn't Free Speech, He Won't Be Free.

Remember William Melchert-Dinkel? Well, a judge saw sense and found him guilty. Now we're just waiting for the sentence.

That's such a relief.

Colondra Hamilton Update

There's anupdate to thestory of Colondra Hamilton,the woman busted last summer driving down the road while getting herself off with a sex toy to a pornographic video playing on the computer of her passenger. You remember, the one with the overly tinted windows. Yeah, that's her.

She's been sentenced to 10 days in jail, fined $200 and had her driver's license suspended for 6 months after pleading guilty to a drug charge.

This by no means brings her troubles to an end, however. she was arrested again a couple of days ago in connection with 3 shopliftings from a Fairfax, Ohio Walmart. She's aledged to have stolen an air mattress, a Blu-Ray player and some cleaning items. Given her history, that all makes perfect sense.

What A Crazy Old Bird

Now and then one of us will come across a story that we're just not sure what to do with. Sometimes we can chuck it to the other guy and whoever that is will run with it. Sometimes one of us will ask the other for some ideas and go from there. And other times, there'sa partly naked woman in her 50's driving a Chevy Malibu, laying on the horn while a budgie flies free.Just what in the name of all that stretches the bounds of sanity are we supposed to do with that?

When the officer turned around to see what the problem was, the driver tried to leave. As she did, she struck a car, reversed into the police cruiser, and then hit a Grand River Transit bus.

The woman continued south on King, with police cars, their lights and sirens going, in tow. It wasn’t really a pursuit, said Staff Sgt. Chris Goss, because speeds weren’t excessive. She just didn’t stop.

Two cruisers blocked her in at King and Victoria streets, where the Malibu rear-ended a minivan. Officers had to break the driver’s window in order to open the door to get the woman out.

At this point you're probably thinking ok, she's clearly drunk. You'd think that, but that's part of the degree of difficulty here. Nobody knows, or if somebody does, that person is keeping it quiet. Maybe she was hammered out of her tree or high as shit, or maybe she was suffering from some form of dementia. Maybe she just snapped, or did she do it on a dare? Only she knows for sure...or perhaps she's just as stumped as the rest of us.

The only things I know for sure are that I want, actually make that need to know more, and that I have no freaking idea how to properly tag this.

Say Cheese, Michael Sona!

Well, all that stuff about Michael Sona trying to deflect questions about him being at the polling station at the university? Good luck with that deflecting now. There he is, in photos. None of the photos show him grabbing for a ballot box, but he tried to make people think he wasn't even there. Well, he actually told them that they should talk to the folks in Ottawa to tell them whether or not he was at the polling station. Ok then.

Well, now we know he was there. Thanks to whoever sent these pictures, he's kind of out of options.

I Don't Take Police Orders, I Give Lunch Orders!

Now there's a woman who won't let anything get in the way of her fast food lunch.

Police wanted to stop Roberta Spen, 64, because they noticed her brake lights were faulty. So, they flashed their lights at her trying to get her to pull over. No sir, she was not going to pull over until she got her lunch at McDonald's.

She pulled into the drive-thru and ordered lunch. The officer ordered her to pull out into the parking lot for them. No sir, no she wouldn't. She paid for her food and drove off.

The officer was able to stop her for a minute outside the McD's, where she only rolled her window down a crack, said she was not speeding and would not roll her window down or hand over her license. She drove away again.

Not to be deterred, the cop continued to chase her, flashing his lights and calling in backup. They tried to box her in at a red light, but she backed out of the box and kept going.

Only when she stopped at a gas station were they able to totally surround her vehicle, and even then, she did not come out. So, they smashed their way in and grabbed her.

And why did she try so hard to run from the cops? We'll never know. She had no previous criminal record at all. But they now are sending her for a mental evaluation.

My only theory is that she met a bad cop along the way, and didn't trust any cops. But even that is a stretch.

Either way, I doubt she got to eat her lunch.

Fork You!

Here comes another story of a burglar thinking he was dealing with a weak old man. What he got was a Korean war vet, and what the vet gave him was a frying pan full of potatos in the face and a pitchfork in the side. Bleeding, the guy ran away, but the old guy got his wallet back.

I hope they find the burglar. He sounds like he's a special kind of asshole.

Now It's Time For You To Go To The Cage

Here come some more parents of the year.

Alayna Higdon and John Eckhart sound like a pair of prizes. John has two kids with autism from another marriage. He and Higdon thought it was completely acceptable to keep them in a cage-like room, not send them to school, and leave them in diapers. Apparently the kids have been in the dark cage for 6 months. I found this quote to be hilarious.

“What am I supposed to do?” he asked police. “Let them run around the house? What kind of (expletive) parenting is that? They are both autistic.”

So putting them in a dark cage and leaving them in their own filth for months is *good* parenting?

You say you couldn't find a school that would take them? Try harder. Anything is better than that.

Now the kids are in care and the parents are in jail.

Prescription For Revenge Filled

This story makes me laugh almost as hard as the guy who stole everything under o.

It seems a pharmacy was about sick of getting robbed, and the burglars always taking the same thing. Lortab. So, the pharmacist fixed their wagon good. He took a big bottle labelled Lortab, took the pills out, filled it with red beans, and left it as bait. Completely predictably, someone came in, triggered the alarm, and yoinked the decoy.

At the bottom of the story, police are still looking for the thief with the bottle of beans, and are asking for anybody to call them who has tips on the burglary. I bet the thief himself will call in saying this pharmacist is ripping people off, giving them beans instead of Lortab! I will laugh, and laugh, and laugh if he does.

Divergent Thinking Survey

Here's a funky little survey I did yesterday. I guess the undergrad student is looking for participants with normal vision and those who are legally blind. Here's the blurb about it.

Hello:
If you could please post this wherever you would see fit to advertise, I would greatly appreciate it! Thank you! I am looking for survey participants who are legally blind and computer literate. Participants must be able to complete timed tasks. The survey is for an undergraduate research project conducted by my professor, Dr. James Kaufman at California State University, San Bernardino. The survey can be accessed at the following link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8CHSFM9
Thank you for your time!
Jessica Rickards

One thing to note. For reasons I don't understand, the consent form was written out as well as placed in a graphic. So when it says picture as described above, the picture is in fact of the consent form you just read. When I read that, I thought the survey was starting, and this crazy person was asking blind people to agree or disagree with photos or something. But once I realized what was going on and clicked yes, all was good.

I didn't like the wording on some of the questions, but I'm comforted to know the student herself is totally blind, so it's not the case that completely ignorant folks are doing this study. I emailed her about the questions and it sounds like she didn't have much of a choice in them either. Total boo, because I don't think they're getting at the true variable they're trying to measure.

The theory is totally not what I expected. If you do the study, do you end up supporting the theory? If you comment, don't let the cat out of the bag as to what the theory is.

My God, Even They Think So

I don't know why I'm up right now. Probably because I'm a total idiot. But I found this, and had to put both hands over my mouth to prevent myself from shrieking like a banshee.

Someone has gotten cute, and smart, and has taken this song and has gotten a bunch of synths to sing it, and quite well. Sing it, synths! Who knew that's what they thought too?

Kindergarten Baby, Wash Your Face In...A Suspension For Crying

What a baby Bronson Clark must be. I mean geesh, kid got suspended from school for crying. Must be one huuuuuuuuuuge baby.

Actually no, he's a little one.A 6-year-old one in a kindergarten class,to be precise.

Seriously. The brain trust (and I'm using that term very, very loosely here) at Virginia Beach's Tallwood Elementary School determined that because little Bronson was a bit of a cryer, he was a disruption to the educational process and sent him home. No time for dealing with what kindergarten teachers deal with several times a day, not when there's learning to be done. Kid's a pest, he's not our problem, you deal with him.

Just wait until they learn the hard way that not only do 6-year-olds cry, but they sometimes shit in their pants. I'm sure that'll be grounds for expulsion, and police and a hazmat team will be dispatched before you can say "when will this madness end?".

But at least we know where the name Tallwood comes from. Clearly it must be representative of the gigantic pricks in the decision making department.

Found Him!

Am I seriously going to have to make a tag for dumbnuts who use flammable things in stupid ways when trying to get a little light? In this case, it was a candle held under a bed while looking for a dog. The bed lit on fire, the house was destroyed, and the dog is dead.

Kid, two things. First, instead of a candle, use a flashlight! And second, it's a dog! Call it. Or grab a bag of his favourite treats and shake 'em! Or do something else you do when you want Sparky warky doodle to come for his walky walks and eat his foody food.

Well, now your family will have to start looking for a new home. I don't recommend using a candle for that.

Missing Money, Missing Brains

Thanks Ann for this one. You know how to find some real doozers.

These four robbery suspects should just take this whole mess as a sign that they aren't meant for a life of crime.

The story goes that Antonio Epinger, Kevin Dennis, Seluvaia Ita and Vanessa Perry robbed a restaurant late at night. They held out a gun and demanded money. They got a bunch and ran off. But one of them dropped some of it. Instead of realizing that the money is a lost cause and moving along, they came back for it. Yes. Robbers, who were seen by several people, came back to the scene of the crime to collect the money they dropped.

Luckily for them, the place wasn't already swarming with cops and they managed to pick up the lost loot and get away. But they didn't get far before cops found them based on the witnesses' descriptions.

And to show more stupidity, two of the suspects tried to slump down and hide in the back seat, and as they were all made to exit the vehicle, some of their money fell out, again.

Here's the saddest part of this whole tale. None of these people were crazy young. The youngest one was 26. By the time you reach 26, shouldn't you know that coming back for money you dropped and trying to scrunch down in the back of the car aren't going to work?

Just sad.

I Felt The Earth Move Under My Feet. Then It Told Me To Go Left.

Remember I said something about vibrating shoes a couple of posts back? Honest, I wasn't just making up random things. I really have a post about vibrating shoes, vibrating GPS shoes for the blind, in fact.

Well, I guess the GPS is in an Android device, but the directions will get sent to an arduino, which I have just learned is a bunch of sensors that can perceive the world, and were the brains behind that service that called you when your plants needed water, and then this thing sends its directions to vibrating thingamadoodles in the shoes.

Hmmm. Definitely interesting, and definitely lower on cables and wires than other GPS things because signals fly via Bluetooth. Definitely cool that nothing talks in your ear. Hmmm. But is there a way to transfer the motors from pair of shoes to pair of shoes? What if you have to wear orthotics like I do? What if they get wet? How do you recharge your shoes?

Somebody was thinking for sure. I would say it would take some getting used to, but it's a neat idea.

Let Elizabeth May Speak

Yeah, remember what I said about being done with elections? Not so much. I forgot about this.

Steve has yelled about Elizabeth May being excluded from the debates before. Funny how that wasn't even 3 goddamn years ago. Anyway, that time, she got in. This time, she was not invited once again, and when she went to court to fight it, a judge ruled there wasn't time to hear the case properly. What's up with that? Anyway, she has been excluded.

Now, there is a petition demanding that she be allowed to be involved in the debate.

I put this down for two reasons. I think it's a petition worth signing, and I have nice things to say about John Lawson, the Guelph Green Party candidate.

I will say that as of this moment, if you're blind, the petition is impossible to sign without some CAPTCHA-solving thing. I tried to use the audio link, but I got no audio. I also bounced around the screen pretty hardcore when using IE. Getting bounced around the screen while trying to fill in fields on a form is reeeeally annoying. Imagine you're writing on a paper, and someone grabs your arm and yanks it around the page. But with Firefox and WebVisum, I got the job done...or at least I think it got done. I saw a heading that says "Thank you for your support!" but it was right next to a donate heading. So, I couldn't be sure if that was something thanking the user in advance for considering donating, or whether I signed. But there were oodles of share buttons that I hadn't seen before, so I think that's a pretty good indication that I'm on the petition.

But here's the nice things to say about John Lawson part. I tweeted at him telling him I was having some pretty significant difficulties signing this petition, and he passed me on to someone else who might be able to help fix things for all of us. How cool is that? Taking accessibility seriously is something I like to see in the people I vote for. It means that if they get elected, I can hope that if I have a disability-related concern, they just might listen, unlike some of the bigger guys.

So, blind folks, they're hopefully working on this for us. But I still wanted to put up a link because more than blind folks read this blog. So if you feel the same way I do, you know what to do. And if you're blind and can't sign the petition but want to, give me a yell and I'll give you the person to email. I just don't want to put his email address up here and subject it to spam.

More Election-Related Things

Let's just keep the election bandwagon rolling. I have a feeling after this post, I'm going to write about a dumbass, but hey, for now, the election train continues.

Brooke over at Ruled By Paws told me about a site with a funny name but a serious message.

If you want to quickly see things Harper has done that might be good reasons to not vote conservative, check out Shit Harper Did.com. That's what it's called. Hit the refresh button and get another random piece of shitty Harper history.

Here's a video all about lots of women breaking up with Stephen Harper. It's Over Steve! Funny, funny stuff.

And, to throw a local bit in here, we discovered that the Guelph Returning Office is just around the corner from us. It's in that plaza with the roof that Trix didn't want to leave in a rain storm. It's where the drug store used to live before they moved it into the place with the automatic doors. So screw finding a polling station. Steve and I will just take a teency weency walk down there, vote, and be done with it.

Now that this is out of my system, prepare for stories of stupidity, weird vibrating shoes, dogs, and who knows what else.

Bluegrass Mario

To break up the election stuff a bit, here's somebluegrassish Super Mario music by The Cleverlys.The only thing missing is the song you hear when you're swimming. That would be awesome.

Thanks Elections Canada

This sucks. I was so happy yesterday when the votes counted at U of G. Now, I'm mad all over again. Because of that mess, Elections Canada has banned all special ballot stations at universities because another one *might* cause a similar problem.

Give me a break. Just, give me a break.

Everybody who cares about it, vote. Don't be discouraged from voting because you can't vote on campus. It sucks that it's been made harder for you, but vote anyway. Do it for your future. It really does matter.

Grab That Box And Spin It!

Sorry for turning this place into election central lately, but elections are important. Besides, there are certain scoops that just cannot, under any circumstances, be passed up. For instance...

The Globe and Mail sure is on top of things. NO wonder it has the kind of credibility and respect it does. Afterthis week's ballot box grabbing incident,the Globe's Robert Silver worked some connections and got his hands on the talking points the Conservatives plan to use to spin the issue.give them a read, they really are fascinating.

Democracy 1, Conservatives 0

Yea! Yea! Yea!

This morning, I was ripping mad at the conservatives, and worried that all those university students who stood in line for hours to vote wouldn't have their voices heard. I don't have to worry anymore. Elections Canada has ruled that although some small procedural mistakes were made, the votes will count.

What's that I see? The conservatives Backpedaling hardcore? Yup, that's it. Now that Elections Canada says the votes will count, they say the following.

The Conservatives issued a statement on Friday afternoon, saying the party welcomed Election Canada's decision.

"While the Elections Canada statement confirms that what happened in Guelph lacked proper authorization, we applaud the decision not to disenfranchise University of Guelph students because of errors by the local returning officer," the statement said.

Oh, reeeeally? Is that so? Allow me to quote from the letter your lawyer sent to Elections Canada, or at least an image of what was supposed to be a letter sent by your lawyer to Elections Canada.

However, on the strength of the unequivocal, express representation you provided yesterday, in accordance with the authority provided to you by the CEO, we require immediate confirmation from the CEO and the Returning Officer from the electoral district of Guelph that this ballot box and all of its contents will remain sealed and that none of the ballots contained therein will under any circumstances be combined with, added to or otherwise dealt with when the final tabulation of votes cast for the various candidates in the electoral district of Guelph takes place. We require this confirmation from the Returning Office and the CEO in writing without delay.

Hrmph. So, unless your lawyer from Cassels Brock sent that letter of his own accord without any intervention or direction from you, you *did* want to disenfranchise a few thousand people. Just go away, and yesterday.

What is this, Marty Burke and company sucks day? I think that's what it is. But it's also the right people won day because those ballots will count!

Meet Marty Burke

If you're wondering what kind of person would employ somebody who thinkstrying to walk off with a ballot box from a legal polling stationis a good idea,it's the same kind of person who would write this sort of dreck.

Not only are these Marty Burke's quotes, but when asked for comment on them, he provided yet another humdinger for the pile.

Burke, whose campaign website says that “his informed opinions on current events are frequently published in local and national newspapers,” told the Tribune that he doesn’t think people care about such things.

“Having knocked on quite a few doors since this latest Liberal attack, not a single person has raised this issue,” he said when asked whether he had any comment on the Liberal news release or any comment, clarification or elaboration about any of the quotes attributed to him in the news release.

“But what I am hearing at the doors and in the coffee shops is that the real issues of this unnecessary election are jobs, the economy and the need for a stable, national government and not a coalition of Liberals and separatists,” he said in an email sent in response to a Tribune query.

“Instead of talking about issues that matter to the people of Guelph, the Liberals have resorted to smokescreens,” he wrote. “I am going to continue to talk with Guelphites about issues that matter, and the Liberals can keep playing all the games they want.”

People don't care about such things? Really? People don't care about our country's international reputation? They don't care about health care? Child care? So much for your opinions being informed. And it's nice to see you sticking to the Harper talking points. We can't let a quote opportunity pass without slipping in a shot at coalitions, can we?

I don't know about the rest of you, but as far as I'm concerned a vote for Marty Burke is a vote for more Conservative fear politics, a vote against the young people of Guelph and a vote for more of these letter to the editor attacks. I haven't decided who's getting my vote yet, but I know who isn't.

Behaviour Like That Doesn't Win Votes

I'm sorry, who is it that is being undemocratic? Who? local members of the Conservative Party of Canada, that's who.

The University of Guelph had a special polling station in the University Centre to encourage students to get out and vote. They did. Hell, people stood for hours in line to vote, and this is during final exams, kids. So many voted that the president of the university had his face painted blue because it was such a success.

And now representatives of the Conservative party of Canada, or at least people working for our local candidate Marty Burke, are asking that all the votes be rejected, claiming it was an illegal polling station. Oh? And trying to steal a ballot box is o so legal. Michael Sona, if that was you, you disgust me.

They claim that there were violations of the Canada Elections Act. I had heard that someone was there trying to hand out literature, but they got the boot. I have my suspicions that all Burke and company were trying to do was discourage student voting, and that makes me angry beyond words.

Don't you dare talk about lack of democracy, ever. After behaving like that, you haven't got the right.

Access Recreation Day

I haven't talked in a while about what the Guelph Barrier Free Committees is up to on the subject of recreation. Well, we've been busy!

We're planning an event that I think has the potential to be really awesome if we can get lots of people out to it. It's called Access Recreation Day and it's happening on June 2 at the West End Community Centre in Guelph.

The event has two parts. From noon until 6, we have a bunch of local organizations who promote or support recreation for people with different disabilities all coming to sit at tables and be available for people to come and learn about what they do. And, in the gym from 3:15 until 5:00, we'll actually be able to play a couple of sports. We have representatives from Ontario Blind Sports Association and Ontario Wheelchair Sports Association coming to lead us in games of Goalball and wheelchair basketball. How cool is that? People can come out and actually play some Goalball or wheelchair basketball and learn first-hand how much fun it can be.

I've been promoting this like mad in the hopes that we'll get lots of people out. Maybe you can help me out. Here's a PDF flyer. Here's the text of the flyer:

National Access Awareness Week
Access Recreation Day
Demonstrations and Information (free)
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Participants
Accessibility Advisory Committee
Backpeddling Bicycle Emporium
Canadian Paraplegic Association
City of Guelph Recreation Services
Guelph Enabling Garden
Guelph Barrier Free Committees
Cyndy McLean
Ontario Blind Sports Association
Ontario Wheelchair Sports Association
Sunrise Therapeutic Riding & Learning Centre and more . . .
Demonstrations
3:15 to 5:00 p.m.
Goalball
Wheelchair basketball
“Come on out and give it a try!”
12:00 noon until 6:00 p.m.
West End Community Centre
21 Imperial Road South
Guelph, Ontario
Sponsored by the Guelph Barrier Free Committees
T 519-265-8996, TTY 519-837-5688

And just so you can laugh at me, here's my ad I made for CFRU. Don't I sound chipper? Every time I do one of these, I sound kind of surly in one spot. In this case, I think it's when I talk about Twitter. But the event is freeee! God I'm a dork.

But whether or not you think I'm a dork, you should come out to this event. Tell your friends! We want lots of people to come out and think more seriously about people with disabilities taking part in recreation too.

Downtown Guelph On The Weekends Explained?

Somebody working in the Guelph Tribune office clearly has a much different idea of entertainment than I do.

As I sit here catching up on some news from the last few weeks, I've seen a story aboutsome maniac running around threatening people (kids included) with a butcher knife,a guy calling in a fake bomb threat,a ransacking and theftand3 dudes getting arrested with 3 pounds of weedall get the A and E tag. And as I look closer, this is all in the same week.

Bad day? Cry for help? Whatever it is, you might wanna fix that.

The Sad Decline Of Maggie Laidlaw Continues

I'm a bit late on this, but it's still worth a mention.

TheI know how to use Google Maps and I can see you have stuff so quit your bitchin'issue hadn't even begun to die down for Maggie Laidlaw when she found herself in trouble again. This time she got caught on cameracalling one of her fellow city councilors an asshole during a budget meeting.She didn't say it directly to his face, she mouthed it to someone else while he was speaking.

“I was unexpectedly ‘on camera’ when I mouthed a somewhat derogatory expression in a brief moment’s discussion” with Coun. June Hofland, Laidlaw wrote in an email dated March 20 and posted on Coun. Ian Findlay’s Ward 2 blog. “I had not expected to be on camera at the time, as someone else was addressing an issue and I would have expected the camera to be on that person. Nevertheless, the expression was certainly inappropriate for council chambers, regardless of whether it was actually stated or just ‘mouthed,’ and I apologize to my council colleagues, and to the mayor, for any embarrassment this has caused.”

I'd give her some credit for owning what she said, but from the sounds of it she had no choice. She was clearly visible on film, plus there's some talk that she may have violated the city's code of conduct. But maybe I can give her a few points for not coming up with some story about how the guy really is an asshole because she's seen his house and car, and just so happens to know that he doesn't eat cage-free eggs or support roundabouts in ridiculous parts of town. That's something, right? Even if it's not I encourage her to take it, because she needs all the help she can get at this point.

When Did Stephen Harper Become A Comedian And Other Questions For The Conservative Party

I missed last night's leader's debate. Yes, I missed it by choice. No people who know how I am about these things, I'm not sick. I chose not to watch because I already knew what I was in for and decided to do more useful things with my time. I knew that none of the leaders would have anything new to say. Nothing interesting. Nothing I hadn't heard before. I watch, listen to and read enough news that by this point I could probably have this debate in my head.

"You suck!"

"No you suck!"

"Oh yeah? Well, you suck more!"

"Does all of this sucking do anything to benefit the nation of Quebec?"

"Working families!"

"Tax cuts to large corporations! Blarf!"

"Raising corporate taxes will hurt the little people! You like hurting little people? Blarf!"

"Your lack of accountability hurts the little people!"

"It doesn't matter, because you suck!"

And I think that about covers it.

But on the CBC news this morning I did hear one interesting line from Harper. I don't have the quote in front of me, but it was something like the tone of this debate and all of these personal attacks do nothing for Canadians.

Wow Mr. Harper, those sure are some massive testicles you're sporting, sir. Had my tea been ready, it would have found itself spit all over my radio. The guy who's spent millions upon millions of dollars on commercials letting me know that Michael Ignatieff didn't come back for me thinks he has the moral high ground on the issue of personal attacks? That's rich! Nobody, and I mean nobody in the last several years has done more personal attacking than the Conservatives. their entire election strategy is built on exactly that. It's all American style attack ads and fear politics, using the threat of a coalition that's perfectly legal I might add to scare voters into giving them a majority government. Or maybe I should say it was their strategy, since Stephen Harper has just come out against his own methods.

All of this brings me to a question. If negative campaigning is suddenly bad, can I expect the Conservative party to cease it immediately? Will I never again hear the phrases "he didn't come back for you" and "just visiting?" Will those ads be replaced by ones telling me what the Conservatives will do for me rather than ones about what the other guys can't and won't? And if I do see even one more attack ad, should I consider that another broken promise and a clear indication that the party is not to be trusted?

Ok campaign operatives who's job it is to scour the internet for things just like this, ball's in your court.

A Random Bunch Of Brain Blarf

I stayed up until after 2 AM to listen to the Jays last night. I shouldn't have. I should have gone to sleep earlier. It still would have been late, but it would have been some extra rest and I wouldn't have had to se...that.

When I thought about turning in for the night, it was the 8th inning and the Jays had a comfortable cushion. My memory is a little fogged by tiredness, sadness and rage, but it was either 7-1 or 7-0. You know, the kind of score that means yeah, go to bed, we've got this one. Thanks for the support up to now.

But as I started to doze with the game in the background, I noticed something. They didn't have this one. the bullpen that had been so reliable to this point just...wasn't. A couple hits and a whole bunch of walks later, the Jays went from a possible shutout to losing 8-7.

I'm not sure who to blame, it was everybody's fault. Shawn Camp bailed everybody out once, but just couldn't finish the job. But him...at least he looked like he might have a chance. Rzepczynski, Dotel and Purcey...I honestly have no words. It was like watching a troop of Kevin Greggs, except none of them could ever find the strike zone amidst all the walking guys and making closing out a laugher look way harder than it needs to. Say what you will about Gregg and believe me I have many times, but at the end of the day he saved something like 37 games. These guys, to borrow a line from somebody on Twitter, didn't look like they could have saved a Word document.

Honestly I'm not even sure why I'm writing about this. It was ugly. One of the worst pieces of baseball I've seen since that time I watched a Mets game by accident. But for some reason I felt the need to crack open a blank file and fill it up with something, and I guess this is that thing.

Wait, I remember now. Fuck intentional walks, and not just because one helped the Jays lose last night. I hate intentional walks! Maybe it's because I'm not much of a gambler or maybe it's something else I haven't figured out yet, but they drive me up the wall and then back down so I can climb up again. To me it's never a safe assumption that the guy who can hit always will, nor is it always a good bet that the guy who almost never hits won't. It's fine to do your best not to leave something up in a guy's wheelhouse, it's what you should always be doing. but putting a guy on base on purpose is just asking for trouble. If the guy you're pitching to get to decides today's the day he's homering, that's 2 runs on the board instead of 1, and you're fucked. I understand why it's done, it's just not something I'd ever feel comfortable doing. Maybe that's why I'm watching and complaining instead of making calls from the dugout, but that's fine with me. At least this way I never have to be the one to call an intentional pass.

What else is going on?

I got a haircut this morning. I like it. I think I might take another blind guy cellphone picture later on. I might even post it here, but I know for sure it's going to be my new Twitter photo. What, you don't follow me on Twitter?Go fix that now!There, that's better.

You know what's great? Restaurants that open their outdoor patios at the first sign of good weather. Yeah, real scoop there, I know. Carin and I were lucky enough to find one open nearby on Saturday night, so we took advantage of it. Wings and beer in the sun with the Leafs on, it was great. That game could have gone better, but the night was nice.

By the way, my vote is for "that could have gone better" to become the new slogan for Toronto sports. Most of my favourite teams come from Toronto, but come on, history don't lie. Besides, you know as well as I do that any other decent slogan we could come up with would have the word sonofabitchmotherfuck in it at least twice.

I suck at transitions, especially when I have to go from what I just wrote to what I'm about to write. So to hell with it, it's new paragraph time.

Yesterday was a sad day for wrestling.

First came the news that"Sweet & Sour" Larry Sweeney had taken his own life.He was only 29. He'd been battling bi-polar disorder for years, but it seemed to have gotten much worse in the last year and change. A lot of people worried about him, and I guess for good reason. I can't imagine how it must feel to think that you've only got one way out. It can't be easy, and it's a shame that illness becomes a death sentence for so many. It doesn't have to be that way. If you think you need help you probably do, so go get it. Easy for me to say, but I've heard words very similar come from those who are surviving it, so I'm not completely talking out my ass here.

I didn't see nearly as much Larry Sweeney as some people did, but I saw enough to know that he was something special. He was a pretty good wrestler, but what really set him apart from the pack were his promos. Damn he was good. If WWE were still a wrestling company and still used managers, he easily could have been this generations Bobby Heenan or Jim Cornette. Look him up, I'm sure you'll be impressed. I may go look him up later just to catch up on some of what I missed.

Later the same day, news came down thatEdge is retiring due to the return of the serious neck problems that sidelined him a few years ago.I haven't seen Raw yet, but apparently he made quite the exit speech that I'll hopefully catch this afternoon.

An Edgeless WWE will be strange since he's become such a fixture and usually has some of the better matches on TV and pay-per-view, but you don't screw around with your health. Good on him for getting out, forced or on his own. He seems like a guy with a decent head on his shoulders who I bet will do well wherever he lands. I'd be surprised if there's not a backstage or office position for him in wrestling if he wants one. The guys coming up now could learn a lot from someone like him. 13 pretty successful years in WWE and travelling the indies for years before, that's a person who's brain I'd want to be picking.

Am I out of things to say now? I think so. Well, I have to throw a leak, so there is that...not that you do or should care.

Ok, I think that's really it. Well, other than I found out today that I know another Coors Light drinker. Seriously people, why? Are you afraid of real beer? Do you enjoy torturing yourselves? Are things that wretchedly awful tasting an improvement over the rest of your life? I don't get it. To me drinking a Coors Light is like having sex in a canoe, fucking near water.

And now...I think I'm done. Yes, for real.

Don't Get Rabies, It Bites.

09 Apr, Sat, 19:00:31
Google:
where do you go for anti rabies shots

Oh dear, did someone just get chomped by a dog?

Well, if you're in Ontario, and probably all of Canada, pop into an ER or a walk-in clinic and tell them you've been bitten by a dog. Even if it's your own, and the dog has been vaccinated, they will ask you to fill out a dog bite report form. Trust me, I know. When Babs chomped down on my hand and I left a bloody puddle on that street corner, and I went to the clinic when my hand was still swolen, they had a dog bite report form for me, and fast!

If you don't know if the dog was vaccinated, someone from Public Health will call you and tell you how to start the process of getting anti-rabies shots. I believe this is done through your doctor, but I've never needed them. They also tell you what kind of a time window you have, and they will be quite insistant that you get on this, because once it's too late to get the shots, and you do get the disease, there is no hope for you.

So...hope this helps you, Mr. googling person with the nice doggy tooth marks.

No No No, You're Doing It Wrong!

This cracked me up so I thought I'd put it up. We all worry about applying for jobs correctly, or maybe we wonder if we're doing everything right on a date. But did we ever think we were doing seven really basic things wrong? Well, we are. I've heard some of these before, but I just thought this article was funny.

I Wonder How Many Flies She Caught

Man. I'm glad this never happened to me in class.

Holly Thompson was in politics class. She says she wasn't bored, but at any rate, she yawned, and her jaw dislocated and stuck open! There she was, mouth stuck open in class. There's no way she could say she wasn't yawning.

After neither her classmate nor the school nurse could get her yapper to shut, she had to go to the ER. Here's a cute little video summary of what happened to her.

Oh god I just yawned. Am I ever glad my mouth closed again.

I'm On The Radio Again

Well...this doesn't give a lot of warning, but what the hell?

Yesterday afternoon, I found out I was going on the radio. Well, I knew I was going to get interviewed, but I thought it would be on a different day. But plans changed, and this morning, bright and early, I'll be heading up to CFRU to be on Jan Hall and Susan Wheeler's brand spankin' new show Accessibility Matters. I've been interviewed by Jan Hall before for the Royal City Rag, but this will be all new.

So, if you want to know what's up with the Guelph Barrier Free Committees, tune in at 9 this morning. Yeah, I should have had this up last night. You can either tune in on the radio at 93.3 FM, or there are streams on the CFRU website.

So...yeah...me...on the radio again. Hope you enjoy.

Spider Man, Spider Man, Walks Down The Street As Fast As He Can

It's nice to see a cute story like this every now and then.

A boy went missing, and managed to hike is little four-year-old self quite a ways. A cop saw him bootin' it down the street, and asked him where he was going. He eventually figured out that he'd wandered off from his family and didn't know where his folks were, and his name was Reuben. Reuben...um...er...Spider man! With a lot of radioing and driving around, and the officer buying him a happy meal at McDonald's, he managed to get little Mr. Spider Man back with his folks.

I don't know what it was about this story, it just made me get the warm fuzzies.

Ooo! Look At My Brand New Commodore 64!

You know what they say, everything comes back in style? Well, it's true, even the commodore 64!

Well, it looks like the old Commodore 64, but it has up to date technology in it. Can you imagine trying to run that old thing today?

Just for fun, here are some Commodore 64 commercials from the day just to remind us how far we have come.

There's this more fun one. It says you can even make music! Hahahahahaheheheheheheheohohohoho! Yeah, PC Speaker music.

Now, on the more serious side, there's this very short commercial, and this one. IBM ran on 16 *k* of memory? Good lord. 16 k?

Oh, isn't being nostalgic fun?

It's Listen Up, Not Light Up

This story of a very drunk man trying to light his hearing aid thinking it was a cigarette reminds me of this old joke.

Two elderly men were eating breakfast in a restaurant one morning. Stanley noticed something funny about Joe's ear. He said, "Joe did you know you've got a suppository in your left ear?"

"I have? A suppository?" exclaimed Joe. He pulled it out and stared at it. Then he said, "Stanley, I'm glad you saw this thing. Now I think I know where my hearing aid is."

Ashley Kirilow's Sentence, Such As It Is

Well I guess this is the end of the line for Ashley Kirilow, and it looks like jail isn't involved. She got a conditional sentence of ten months of house arrest, followed by five months with a kerfew and two years of probation during which she has to do community service. I guess if she screws up, she could get locked away for 14 years.

I have a feeling she's going to have a hard time getting people to agree to let her do her community service at their organization. I'd be making sure she could not get anywhere near the money, and couldn't be in contact with vulnerable people who could be conned. There's a difference between an ordinary thief and her.

#getyouricecoldbeerhere!

What a neat ideathisis, and I'm sure it's exactly the sort of thing the smart tech people have in mind when they invent things.

For the last 5 years, Kevin Zelko has been selling beer at Safeco Field. He normally does the walking up and down the stadium yelling for people's attention thing, but now he's had a stroke of genius that he's hoping will increase sales while making things quicker and easier for fans and himself.

If you're at the game, in the right section and appropriately teched out, send a tweet to@Msbeervendorwith your order in it, and in a few minutes he'll bring it right to you.

This is a business plan who's time has come. Unless people find a way to abuse it, it can't fail. Hopefully we'll be seeing tweeting vendors (twendors?) at every sporting event before too long.

Wayne Robson Has Been Stolen From Us. I'll Bet Mike Hamar Did It

Red Green regular Wayne Robson diesHe was 64.

He had a million different film, television and theatre credits that I was pretty much completely unaware of. The main thing I remember him for is probably the same thing most others do, playing ex-con Mike Hamar on The Red Green Show.

Sadly I can't find many of his segments online, so all I can share is this one.Auto-Biography: Mike Hamar.Mike talks about his favourite car. Well, not really *his*, but it's still a favourite.

Chuckleworthy Things Trixie Does

I haven't done a Trixie post in a while. I'm made of fail. I also fail because I once again didn't post on our dog day anniversary. But I was kinda stressed out at the time, a subject I will hit in a much larger, more epic post. For now, in honour of March 21, have some Trixie goofiness.

I've talked before about Trixie's different behaviours she does around certain people. Well, I have some new ones she does to mom. For some reason, mom likes to sleep on the floor in our spare room. She'll lay down all these pillows and make a bed out of them. Well, in the mornings, Trixie has decided that that bed is meant for sharing. If mom is all over it, she will poke/nuzzle her way in beside her. If there's a spot open, she'll just walk in and take it. It's pretty funny when I find them together.

One day, I was looking for Trixie, and walked in and found her in there with mom. All I said was "You punk!" and she got up and walked away as if to say, "Alright alright, ya caught me. I've been busted."

Another sentence Trixie responds to in a funny way is "What are you doing?" I've noticed if I say it, she will back away from wherever she is and walk to a completely different part of the room. I'm sure this is because I often say that before catching her being a brat. So now she's associated that with her doing something she shouldn't. Silly dog.

She'll even respond to her name if it's said on the TV. We were watching a show, and someone had the name Trixie. As soon as the TV said Trixie, she looked up and walked over to it. Hahahahaha dog, you really know your name.

The huppy has gotten to the stage where he wants to touch Trixie all the time. He cannot figure out the harness on, no pet rule. Poor little guy, all he wants to do is hug the doggy, whose name he can almost pronounce.

But I think the thing is most of the time he sees her, the harness is on. So I think he thinks it's a part of her. In fact I'm pretty sure that's the case. One day, I took it off so they could have fun, and he pointed at the harness which was hanging on my shoulder and said "Doggy broken!" He thought I had ripped off a part of the doggy!

But I know he's seen her out of harness, so maybe that's not the case. Still, "Doggy broken" was a pretty cute sentence.

This winter, Trix and I were even able to walk home using the path sometimes. Not all the time, but sometimes. Pretty awesome. The funniest was on the way out, Trix had trouble picking the absolute best course, but the way home, she did, and most awesomely. She would pick out the least icy, least treacherous way to go, and do it flawlessly.

She also was much more perceptive of ice than all other winters. She would sometimes drag me up on the side because that was the safer way to go. Pretty cool. I don't think I fell once this winter, and I didn't even wear my yaktrax all the time.

I think her face might be getting whiter, or more grey or something. When I brought her home, I was given a gentle leader in black so it would blend into her fur and people wouldn't comment about it. Now, though, people are constantly asking what that thing is around her snout. Damn greying pooch.

And this story was the one that prompted me to write down all these silly doggy things. Ro has often talked about how much Jayden loves his bananas. So Steve and I cut up a banana just to see what Trix would think of it. First, I offered it to her from my hand. Nope. Then I set it on the floor. Nope. The funniest thing she did was sniff the banana that I was eating at the time, then sniff the one I was offering her, then run away. It was as if she said "You're eating that. I'm never able to eat the food you eat. No way in hell I'm gonna fall for this. You're settin' me up!" I had to laugh. Doggy, you're such a goof.

And I think that's all I can think of for Trixie stories...for now. There is a far bigger Trixie story coming. Maybe I'll write it on her birthday. We will see.