Now That, that Was A Birthday!

Man I've been a bad blogger. I don't think I've written for almost a month! Um, eek? I'll make no promises about how much I'll have to say, but I can start with raving about how awesome my birthday was on Tuesday. I need more birthdays like that!

I got up and started getting ready for work. We had the oldies station on and were listening to the usual morning stuff. One thing this station does is announce people's birthdays. I wondered what celebrities also had my birthday. So I'm just sort of listening to the local birthdays when I hear "...and Carin Headrick turns 33. Steve wanted the whole world to know." I think I shrieked.

But I wasn't done shrieking. Somebody always wins a coupon for a Dairy Queen ice cream cake. It's not really a free cake like they make it sound, but it's some money off. Anyway, I won the cake!

Now, when your birthday starts off like that, it's already pretty cool. But I got to work, and discovered a balloon on my chair! Coool! A balloon and lots of birthday wishes. Not only was it my birthday, but it was the birthday of the coworker I work closest with! So, we all went out for birthday lunch! Like, awesome?

All day long, I got birthday wishes on Twitter, email and the phone. That feels pretty good. Then, because said coworker was having a sort of big ish birthday, we got unexpected birthday cake! Damn but that was awesome!

I came home, and found that Steve had got me a Steven Page album. We went out to try the Works Burger, a new gourmet burger place. Man, do they have a lot of choice of burgers...and the milkshakes? Omnomnom! The burger was so big that I had to take half of it home.

When the folks at The Works found out it was my birthday, they gave me a birthday card with coupons for free stuff! Shweet!

So yeah. Damn but it was a good birthday. I need more of those.

Life, #Twittereen, #Movember, And Other Things

Hi there. It's me, ya know, the absentee blogger. I haven't really had much to say in the last little while. Not on email, not on Twitter, not on the blog, not anywhere. But that's ok. I'm surviving, that's what matters. I'm surviving, and attempting to expand this very little brain. By consequence, when I do talk, I ramble, and ramble, and ramble some more.

The job is still going well...although I'm constantly afraid I'm not moving fast enough. Everyone keeps telling me not to worry. All of this worry is completely self-inflicted. I'll get over it, I swear. But I have learned my way around my floor pretty well, which is friggin liberating. Too bad I get to learn a new floor in a couple weeks. But hopefully they can help me by telling me that my new destination is just under some old destination that I know. At least I have points of reference, which is awesome. And I have very patient, awesome coworkers.

Hmmm. More updates. I did not win that iPod in the Twittereen contest, but Steve and I did win *something*. Remember that ice cream/waffle place I was talking about? Well, a bunch of us won a waffle stack! This is awesome, because we can probably coordinate rides and all go together, which means Steve and I have a chance in hell of getting to this place in Cambridge. YeaWaffle Stacks!

But even if I didn't win an iPod, work has lent me one so I can learn how to use it. And amazingly, I'm making some pretty good progress. I managed to write the sentence "This is a test" on the touchscreen keyboard, which to me is a pretty good feat. Soon I will have mastered iThings, mwa ha ha ha ha. But I couldn't have done it without my fellow iThing users helping me out over Twitter. I'm sure people thought there were perverted things going on, what with all this talk of flicking, scrubbing, finger-twisting and other stuff. No really, I'm just trying to use my iPod!

Jennison, a blind guy I know, wrote a tweet that I think is very very true. It read: "One of the true tests of trust when you can't see is when you have to find a new barber." I would like to add another test of trust. Going to the shoe store. Here's why.

A while back I started to notice that my poor old running shoes were starting to bite the big one. Then I noticed there were holes under other holes. Um, eek? This is getting pretty bad. So, I headed out to the Shoeper Store. I wanted to buy a pair of running shoes. Simple running shoes that could fit my orthotics and were comfy and wouldn't make me look like a child.

I told the girl at the store my needs, and she trotted off and came back with a pair of shoes. All she said was "How do you feel about grey and blue?" Since I told her I wanted plain and simple, I thought hmmm maybe it'll be a dark blue with a grey stripe on them. I said ok. I put the shoes on, and damn did they feel good! They fit my orthotics too, so I was double happy.

I came home, wore them around with the tags still on, and thought I think I'm satisfied. But now I have learned a very valuable lesson. Next time, I must wear the shoes, with the tags on, down to someone possessing functioning eyes and good taste. Here's why.

I cut the tags off, triumphant that I had a new pair of shoes. Awesome! And I headed downstairs with the Trixter, at which point I ran into the huppy's dad. "New shoes?" he asked. "They must be new, I mean, they shine so much!" Excuuuuse me? Shine? I asked him to elaborate. It was then that I learned that the blue was not dark, but bright, electric, in fact. It was so attention-grabbing that they were the first things he noticed.

Oh dear dear. Now, for the foreseeable future, I must wear these stupid shoes. I don't even want to have mom and dad see them, because they probably look butt ugly. Maybe they'd be ok if I were a teenager doing some kind of jogging through the woods or something, but that was not what I was going for.

So, sighties, if someone asked you for a plain, simple shoe, would electric blue honestly fit in? Would it not cross your mind to tell me the shade of blue? I knew I should have been worried when her next words were, "Or, how do you feel about purple?" Purple shoes? I reflexively said no when she said purple, but that should have been a great big warning sign. If I'd only left the tags on, I could have taken them back to the store and gotten another pair. I wanted white, maybe black. Nothing crazy like, oh, say, electric blue that draws your attention immediately on sight.

I kind of feel betrayed that this lady sold me electric blue shoes and didn't tell me. I don't always have sighted folks to bring along when I need a pair of shoes, and I'm putting a hell of a lot of trust in the salesperson to listen to what I'm asking for and find something accordingly. I mean, I can't see the shoes. They do feel good, which I guess should be the most important thing, but I'm sure I could have found a pair of white runners that were still comfortable. But now, since I cut the tags off, these electric blue shiny things will be what I wear for the foreseeable future. Maybe I should take a picture of the damn things and put it up.

It's November, or should I say Movember. I swear, this whole Movember thing has gone and pulled a Google in the brain-invasion department. I knew of its existence last year, and I sort of understood what it was all about, but this year, it is everywhere. Granted, I'm seeing a lot more of it on Twitter, but it appears it's really taken off! It's been so everywhere that I dreamed that Steve decided to grow a mo, and was so pissed that he was having so much trouble. I woke up chuckling.

This whole thing of it taking off like crazy is simultaneously great and bad. I think it's great that so many men are getting involved in promoting men's health and raising money for the cause. But it's bad for me! I know so many guys doing it that how on earth do I choose who to donate to? I can't possibly donate to every dude I know sporting a mo for Movember, I'll go broke!

So, I'll do the next best thing, I'll suggest a bunch of people I know who are doing the Movember thing. If you feel moved to do it, toss 'em a few bucks. I donated to this guy, he's one of those awesome colleagues I keep talking about. But work has a whole honkin' team, so there's another way to go at it. Look at that! 63 people doing the Movember thing!

But I know people outside of work who are doing this too. There's our buddy Sean Yo, at least I think it's him, so if you're one of his honeybunches, throw him some dough. Then there's Joel, who saved my butt the first week of work and gave me a ride on the first day. I will always be a biiig fan of Joel for allowing me to, um, get to work on my first day, so he's always a good guy to donate to.

Next up are two guys whose pages I can't find, but would love to. Hey peoples, not everybody can see pictures, so DO NOT USE YOUR PROFILE PICTURE AS YOUR SOLE WAY OF IDENTIFYING YOURSELF. Please please please give me something else to grab onto. Anything. For example, if you're Cam Guthrie, say you're a Guelph city councilor. If you're Dan Gillis, maybe mention where you work or something. Give me something! Unfortunately, you're not the only one with your name, and even if you were, how can I be sure I've got the right dude? I'm about to donate, I'd like to know I'm donating to the right guy.

So as soon as I find those guys' pages, I'll link to them, and then if you feel so inclined, huck them some dough. Good luck everybody doing the Movember thing.

Last Friday, the Guelph Community Foundation was promoting Random Act of Kindness day. On one level, I think it's a really sweet idea. But on the other, I have to wonder. Do we need a day? Can't we just see something and do it? Is it really that hard? And do we need to be given a cookie for doing a good deed? It always bugs me when someone who's giving me a little bit of help says "Ah, I've done my good deed for the day." I'm sure they're just joking, but it always makes me feel just a wee bit like they want a medal or something.

Speaking of cookies, is it wrong that when I saw that one of my Twitter buddies was handing out cookies at a bus terminal, I couldn't help but think "If I received a cookie randomly, would I eat it? Wouldn't Random Acts of Kindness Day be the most perfect coverup to poison random people if you're that kind of person?" Then another part of me slapped myself hard for being so synical. But I still wonder if I would eat a random cookie given to me by a random stranger. But then again, I accept help from random strangers all the time. What's the difference between accepting help and a cookie? I think my brain just exploded.

And another thing that made my brain explode was I saw that Guelph Transit was giving out $20 bus passes with the following instruction "If you get one of these, pass it on!" So, does anyone ever actually use the things? Or do they just keep getting passed around?

I did a couple of random acts of kindness, but sadly neither of them fell on Random Acts of Kindness Day. A bunch of seniors got on the bus I was on and asked if this was the right bus to get them to a certain church. The driver had no clue, and didn't really try to figure it out. So I picked up my phone, looked up information and found them an address. Once I gave that to the driver, she knew exactly where it was and told them they were on the right bus. I didn't do it because it was Random Acts of Kindness Day, I did it because I felt it was the right thing to do, and I felt really good about helping some folks out.

Another time, I found out a friend of mine had a really shitty birthday and said "Oh if only I had some cupcakes!" She didn't know where there was a place near her that had them, so I googled out a shop that would deliver, found a delivery service, and she got some cupcakes delivered to her house a couple days later, which I paid for. I didn't need a bracelet or a card to do it. I did it because I wanted to give her a smile and it made me feel good. Isn't that all the motivation we need?

I guess if it brightens someone's day, then that's all that matters. But wouldn't it be great to move to a kind of community where people did little things for each other all the time just because?

I've noticed something as I follow more people on Twitter. Some of them appear to spend most of their time tweeting about tweeting. Seriously. I guess if thinking about thinking is called metacognition, would this be metatweeting? Don't get me wrong, a little is fine, but these people do it all the time! They tweet about tweetups, effective tweeting, social media conferences, and they hella retweet, but they don't seem to say much of their own...and they have scads of followers! How does that work? I don't get it. I've actually unfollowed a couple of them because I just spend more time skimming their tweets. What am I missing? Somebody help me.

And I think that's about it for now. I'm afraid this will be the trend. Long silences followed by barrages nobody will finish reading. Hope somebody enjoyed this.

Updates, Random Thoughts, And Assorted Stuff

I guess I should probably update folks, since last Saturday I was all full of "help me! Help me!"

I have myself a steady ride! Yeah baby! It's hard to explain how stressful it is wondering if you'll have rides to work, or wondering which days you should say you're available based on who says they can drive you, along with getting used to the new job and everything. I kept picturing those primitive hunter-gatherers, foraging, hoping that if they just looked in the right places, they'd find the jackpot that would keep everybody fed for the next little while. Sure I wasn't hunting for food, but it was sort of the same feeling of stress. Will I have rides for the next week? Where should I look next? When? In what bit of spare time should I start hunting again? What group of people should I ask next who might be a good resource?

Luckily, I have awesome coworkers who were totally flexible and willing to work with me, which took the stress down several notches. Then, one of them helped me find my ride, and for that, I will be eternally grateful.

This job is totally going to rock my socks off. There is a boat load of stuff to do, but it all has the potential for awesome all over it. Plus, the people I work with are all kinds of amazing. I just hope I can do everything they're looking for. I know one thing. I'm going to learn a whole lot of cool things.

I get impressed by simple things. I made Steve laugh when I came home from work and said "Steve, come here! Look at this! It's a card that opens doors!" I know that doesn't sound like much, but whenever I would do stuff for them before, I would have a visitor's pass that didn't have any door-opening power. Don't get me wrong, I didn't need it since there was always someone going with me to meetings etc. so it was no big deal. But now I'm officially one of the crew! Yeah, I know, I'm a goof.

I still come home tired, but I'm sure that will get easier. But until I can zoom about the office without having to concentrate uber hard, I'll probably be a little brain squishy. Oh well, it means my brain is getting a workout. Thankfully Steve's helping me out a bunch. He makes my lunches and stuff. That sounds like a small thing, but it's appreciated.

I think my coworkers must think I'm weird. As they're showing me how to get from a to b to c, I'll mutter to myself about "There's that buzzing thing again. Where should the buzzing thing be?" No, I'm not crazy. I'm trying to use whatever is buzzing as some kind of orientation clue. If I can remember which way the buzzing thing should go, that will tell me later that I'm on the right track. Then I found out the buzzing thing isn't always on! Damn it!

Trix is getting familiar with the place too. She's funny. She basically knows how to find my desk and the lunch room. The funny part is she can find the lunch room on the way to lunch, which involves navigating this snakey crazy turny section of the hall. But when I come back through, she always goes straight and doesn't try to automatically do the turns to get back to the desk. I can only guess that we have gone a couple of directions after lunch a few times, so she just thinks "duh...boss, I don't know where you want me to go, so I'll just go straight." Oh well, that's why we'll get a couple lessons on how to get around, so I'll know those finer points. But I might need a couple more lessons later on, since we're apparently moving to another floor of the building in a month or so. Ah well, it's all good.

There isn't much else new, I'm just getting used to all this new jobby stuff. Wish me luck, this is a pretty huuuuge opportunity. I hope I don't mess it up. And some day soon, I will have enough brain cells left to write stuff for here again on a more regular basis.

Did You Say Frigidaire? No! There's A Fridge In The Air!

Man, these news articles inspiring stories just keep coming.

When we lived in another building back years ago, People used to inexplicably leave fridges in the stairwell. My only guess is that the building was all stairs and they didn't want to be bothered carrying the fridge down. We used to joke that we would love to heave the fridge over the stair rail because it would make a sweet noise, but of course we never did it. This is why.

A rennovating crew was doing some work, and for reasons I don't get, threw a fridge out of the building from a fourth-floor porch. They yelled to the ground and heard no response, but then one of their coworkers walked into the path of the falling fridge, and crunch! He died at the scene.

Could they not have found a safer way to move the fridge?

Expect Him To Use The "You Were Warned!" Defence

I'm not saying I condone whatMichael Yarbrough is said to have done,but really, what did the boss expect would happen?

According to a police report, Michael Yarbrough of the 400 block of Moritz Avenue in Glen Ellyn, was on his first day back at work Nov. 4 after spending two months off the job with a broken leg when one of his bosses told him to “shut up” after she said he wasn’t doing a satisfactory job inventorying some merchandise.

The 2.5-year employee was then pulled into a meeting with store management over the matter, police reports said. According to reports, he told the female boss who initially reprimanded him, “You’re lucky we’re on the clock.” Reports said the boss responded, “What are you going to do? Hit a girl?” The man replied “yes” and was subsequently fired, police said.

The fired worker then punched his former boss in the head, turned around and punched a male store manager in the face before walking out, the Downers Grove police report states.

Yarbrough has been ordered to stay away from the store and to have no contact with the people he punched. He was given a court date and released on $1500 bond.

The Interveiw

The shoe thief sent me this little cartoon they called "Interveiw". Just imagine if your next job interview went like that. Somehow I think this guy will have a hard time filling the position.

H2OOOOOOOOOOO

If you woke up this morning wondering what the kind of fellow who wouldon more than one occasion secretly beat off into a coworker's water bottlemight look like, then according to police, prosecutors and a DNA test, Michael Kevin Lallana (pictured above) is your answer.

Prosecutors say Lallana met the co-worker, a woman in her 20s in 2005, while both worked at Northwestern Mutual Mortgage Company in Newport Beach.

The first instance happened Jan. 14, prosecutors said. Lallana went into the office of the woman – identified as Jane Doe – and discharged into a water bottle that was on her desk, prosecutors said. She later return to her office and drank the water, they added.

She threw the bottle away after feeling "sickened and irritated,'' according to the press release.

Three months later, Jane Doe and several other co-workers, including Lallana, were transferred to the Orange branch of Northwestern Mutual Mortgage Company.

Lallana committed the crime again on April 9, prosecutors say. Lallana discharged into her water bottle on her desk, and Jane Doe later drank from the water bottle and felt sick, prosecutors said.

This time, Jane Doe sent the water to a private lab to be tested, prosecutors said. The lab reported in June that the water contained semen.

Jane Doe called Orange police, which linked Lallana through DNA to the crimes, prosecutors said.

"As far as we know, they were just colleagues,'' Deputy District Attorney Bobby Taghavi said. "But we do think he did it for sexual gratification."

Lallana, who has been charged with releasing an offensive material in a public place and assault, is currently free on $500 bail. $500? Slipping your secret sauce into somebody's H2O is only worth $500? That can't be right.

Guilt Marches On?

The other day, I was complaining to Steve that I haven't had any good dreams to blog about in a while. Well, I got a whole wack of them, and the weird thing is if the message of the dreams is what I think it is, I can only believe that part of my own brain is trying to make me feel guilty...even though most of my brain wonders why I would even remotely think of feeling that way.

Ok, so the first dream I had, I was in Ottawa, randomly walking through Ottawa with someone who seemed to be from there. The problem is in real life, this guy lives in Toronto. Oh well, he was from Ottawa in the dream. He had offered to help me get to this big building in Ottawa. Up to this point, it wasn't clear what was there. We're walking, looking for a bus stop. Then we find out from a bus driver that the bus stop was just gone, unexplainably gone, and we're going to have to either walk some more or get a cab. I look at the bus driver and "Say that's such crap! Why would they just remove a bus stop without telling anyone? People rely on the bus." Suddenly, my companion is telling me to be quiet, and is sheepishly explaining that I'm not from here, I don't know the rule. He thanks the woman, telling her he knows they do good work, and hurries me on.

I walk on, bewildered. Then he rather forcefully shoves me against a wall and whispers "Here, it is illegal to be mean to a bus driver, swear around them, or question them. If you do, you could get arrested." I'm in shock. He tells me to just shut up and walk on in silence to avoid causing any more problems. I try to say this sounds like such bullshit, and he whispers "You're swearing again. We're too close to the bus drivers." I walk on. I want to get to where I'm going. I don't want to be arrested.

We walk and walk and walk, and arrive at the building. It is at this point that my companion asks me why I am here, and I start to stammer. I realize this is a bad plan. I had set out to find the offices of the place where I'd done some website-testing, but I had no plans after finding the office. I wanted to work for them again, and in my crazy plan, I thought that showing up there would make them suddenly say they had another contract for me. But I started to think what if they didn't? How would I explain why I had randomly shown up at their offices.

Um, the company's in Kitchener. I don't know why they were in Ottawa in the dream, but whatever.

My companion also thought this was a foolish plan, and in the nicest way possible, told me it wasn't going to work. He wished me luck though, and left me at the door of the building. Since the bus stop wasn't where it was supposed to be, I was also left with the difficulty of how I would get back.

I walked in, and got escorted to the main desk where I had picked up badges when I had worked there before. By this point, my stomach was spinning. What would I say? I had hoped to randomly encounter a colleague in the hall and strike up a conversation, but this hadn't worked. I got to the desk, and started to talk to the woman, saying I had come to visit a colleague, to find out some information. She told me she wasn't even in the office. I was then asked if I needed help back to the door. The door! I was being shown the door! The guy who Trixie loves to death in real life appeared and told the woman at the desk that he would help me get to where I was going and told her not to worry. And the dream ended as I left the building, dejected.

What was that? I would never in my wildest dreams show up somewhere just hoping to be handed a job. What is that supposed to mean? And what's up with the whole deal with not swearing or speaking up to bus drivers? Is that all over asking a few of them why they don't call out stops? What a strange idea. How did bus drivers get such power?

But I wasn't done dreaming yet. The next dream was just a small snippet. I was outside relieving Trixie and there was another woman there with a guide dog. I don't know who she was, but for some reason she was with me. She must have had a little bit of vision because she was commenting on how the whole lawn was ruined, and it must have been my dog's fault.

Can the guilt fest stop please? I don't think Trixie has ruined the lawn. In fact, mom said a few months ago that the area where she pees seems to be quite lush.

Then there was the last dream. I was suddenly in the living-room of a friend of my mom's. This woman used to babysit me when I was little, and she had a daughter that I used to play with. She was moving around the room, whistling along with the radio. It was playing a country station, just like she used to have on. As I sat there, I began to feel younger and younger, and she began to look older and older, and as if she was carrying a burden that she shouldn't still have at her age. Then the radio began to play Time Marches On by Tracy Lawrence. Man, I hadn't heard that song in years, but it's depressing. Anyway, in the dream, it had different words, relating to my own family. It talked about us being little, and our mom and dad, then us being teenagers, and now...my brother and sister had good jobs, mom and dad were nearly retired, and the implied message was where was I? Sitting in this woman's living-room, acting as a child would.

Ok, stop! Just stop, stop, stop right now! What in the world kind of demon woke up in my brain and put together these movies? Does it have a clue? I'm running a French group, I'm involved in web accessibility projects, I'm helping out with projects for the city, what else do I have to do? What else do I have to do to settle the demon part of my brain that likes to rear up and say I'm stagnating? Just what is it?

Geesh. I don't know how a dream manages to create such nightmarish images in such a peaceful setting, but it did. My brain is evil.

I'm Sorry About All Of This, It Was Just One Of Those He Said, She Vandalize Type Situations

You're a teacher. One of your co-workers makes some comments about you that you don't particularly like. What do you do? If the police theory is accurate, what you do if you happen to be Brenda Sue Rawls is round up a 7th grader from the school you teach at, some sardine juice, condoms and lubricant and then use those things tovandalize a mini-fridge, a teacher’s desk and three lockers at the school you work at.You then have a change of heart and return later with air fresheners to hopefully clean up the lockers a bit.

When that's done, you get charged with vandalism under $500, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and criminal trespassing. You also get your bond set at $1000 for the $250 worth of damage you did to the school.

Yeah, that'll show that mouthy colleague a thing or 2 for sure.

Giant Thought Motherload Comin' In

I've had a few things I've wanted to write down, but I've been kinda busy and when I've had a second, I didn't have the focus I wanted. Now I think I have what I need to write.

Speaking of being busy, I'm still pretty busy right now, so the new template will have to wait a bit longer. Damn life getting in the way of geekery. But one way or another, it will be done. We didn't do all that labeling for nothing.

Last week was the big week when I needed to carpool to Kitchener, and man that made the days so much less exhausting. I was still tired at the end of the day, but it was normal tired, not jesus I need to hit the bed as soon as I get home because I have to get up with the roosters tired. And I was only tired at the end of the day. All day, I felt like I had heaps of energy, and could do a lot better than I did last time. Last time, every little thing felt like a giant effort, and I was constantly angry at myself that I needed to be poked and prodded along because I was so tired that I was running in survival mode. This time, I actually had a functioning brain, which makes testing a website way easier. I also had motivation to do what I could when I got home at night, which helped us get things done just a wee bit faster.

I looked through the archive to see if I'd mentioned anything about what it felt like working for Desire2Learn and I hadn't, and that's a shame! It was amazing both times. The people working at this company are nothing short of awesome. It's an amazing feeling to provide input to such a receptive group of people who get what I'm talking about. Not only that, but they actually put JAWS on one of their laptops so I could read my own notes at the meeting. That is just cream of awesome. They never made me feel like I was a burden if I needed a bit of help finding something. I truly felt like I was one of their equals and nobody was all nervous because of the blind guy factor.

Not only did I have a great experience personally, but they really care about making sure their site works for all. So, if you find yourself going to school and taking a course that has an online learning component and it's powered by Desire2Learn, chances are you'll have no trouble with the interface.

You know, before doing this, I never really thought about how I surfed the web. I just did it. But explaining to someone else what makes things easier really made me break it down, and I realized it's all about patterns. Then it doesn't seem so mystifying anymore. But it was an interesting process coming to the place where I would consciously think about what I already knew deep down.

Not only did I have a good week there, I think Trixie did too. You should have seen her when we got out of the car the first day and she recognized her surroundings. There was a hop, a skip, and then she knew. She even basically remembered where my desk was. I took her harness off so folks could say hello to her, and she spotted...the man with the homemade treats! Oh my my my, how a tail can wag wag wag. I think he enjoyed coming over and giving her some love every day. I know she enjoyed her time with him.

It's amazing how much things have changed for us since the last time I took her there. That time, I kept her in harness most of the time because we were in a giant mass of cubicles and I was afraid she'd go pester some random person she decided she liked. But this time, I trustedher enough that I felt comfortable taking her leash and harness off so she could chill. I think the hardest thing she had to deal with was watching out for people coming over to watch me test stuff and wheeling in chairs to sit down. Ah but she seemed to enjoy that too.

I was surprised at how tired she was when we'd get home each night. I thought when I got home, she would go nuts and want to run and play and do all kinds of stuff. But she spent most of the evenings sleeping. It's not like she never got any sleep at work. I can think of at least two instances where she slept so deeply, she dream barked. Why did one of them have to be during my presentation? Trixie, am I really that boring?

Here's aquestion for everybody with woofs. One day when she was giving her favourite man at the office some love, he noticed there was something on one of her paws. He said "I think it's gum!" I couldn't even find it, I guess it was between her pads. He got a kleenex and got it off after some effort, starting to wonder if it wasn't gum after all. But it was. So...anybody got any tips on how to extricate gum from a dog's paw? And hey gum-spitter-outer, I've got a great idea. Put your gum in the garbage can, ya litterbug.

Something happened to me the other day that was another one of those things that makes me raise my eyebrows. Trixie and I were chuckin' along like we do, and a woman said "What's your puppy's name?" I said it was Trixie. then she said "Will she pull you if I call her?"

Whaaat?

Let's try and address that sentence in the most logical way you can. If she wants to call her, as in "hi Trixie, c'mere, kissy kissy kis kiss", what does she want the dog to do? She wants the dog to come to her! Is it a good idea to beckon a guide dog? No, no, no no no no no! Unless you're working with the handler to test the dog's ability to resist destraction, never call a service dog to you! It's working! If it does respond to your calls, it will likely get corrected faster than you could say "Here puppy!"

On the other side of the coin, if you don't think the dog will be phased by your beckoning noises, why bother? You just look like a dork calling a working dog. It's not going to accomplish anything.

I had to take a couple of seconds to come up with a response that didn't involve calling her a moron or something equally bad. I managed to say "It's never a good idea to call a working dog." as we continued to walk by. Some people are odd ducks.

For the last couple of weeks, our apartment building has done something weird. A few months ago, they had speakers put in the lobby and they'd pipe one of the local radio stations through them. I'm not a big fan of the music, but oh well. It's the kind of stuff you hear at dentist offices and places where you have to picka middle ground in the music department. but it was cool to have on because sometimes you'd catch a weather forecast or a bit of news or something as you were zipping through the lobby.

Now, they've decided that a radio station is not good. Oh no, not at all. What have they replaced the radio station with? Of all the things to choose, they've settled on a loop of those horrible instrumental replications of the kinds of songs that used to play on the radio station that used to come through those same speakers. So, instead of hearing the real song, we get to hear that song as synthesized by a bunch of pianos and guitars if you're lucky, midi synthesizers if you're not. Steve has talked about this, and did a better job than I'm doing. I think I have to say the songs I hate the most that play on this thing are "The Glory of Love", "It must Have Been Love", "Where Does My Heart Beat Now?" and Take My Breath Away." Oh, I also can't stand "Stand By Me."

This shouldn't bug me. You probably think I'm insane for even caring. After all, it's a lobby. Nobody spends more than a few seconds in there. they're always on their way somewhere. but you see, I'm going through that lobby at least 4 times a day to take Trixie to go pee, so I get more of a dose of that crap than your average joe does. Plus, I tend to notice more stuff.

what bugs me even more than when I recognize a song and then notice all the places where they did it wrong is when I can't for the life of me figure out what song they're trying to butcher. As I go about what I'm there to do, it's like a big game, and I'm losing. My brain can almost figure out what song it is, but not quite. The elevator arrives or I go out the dor, and I still haven't figured out what that damn song is.

As I was doing all that labeling, I realized something while looking at the advocacy label. There are few things that I actually followed up on. I have to change that. I do have to say I did follow up on one thing. I asked where my follow-up call went concerning my troubles with the Do Not Call List site.

first, I checked to see if they had implemented an audio solution for their captcha. they hadn't. I checked to see if there was a "hey blind people, call this number or email us or something" link. There wasn't. so I phoned the number that I'd first called. They told me to email their support address, so I did. I asked them what blind folks are supposed to do about the captcha. I got an email back that said they could call the number I just called and they would register my number.

Unfortunately, I don't have any more numbers that are mine that need to be registered. Does anyone want to see how good their word is and see if they'll register a number via the Centre for Excelence as they call it? If you do, call 1-866-791-6601 and say that you can't do it through the website. It would be preferrable if it was a cell phone number or a fax number that you cant' get the automated system to recognize, so then that would leave the website as your only option. Ask them if they'd register the number. See what happens. Let me know how it goes. I'm dying to know. Like I said, I'd do this myself, but I dont' have any numbers left to register.

Let's keep the advocacy hat on for one more second. I've mentioned before that I organize a group that gets together to speak French. This has been a pretty easy task, all thanks to the awesomeness that is the meetup.com service. for a fee, they will manage all the people's email addresses, place them on a listserve so we can all talk to each other without knowing each other's personal details, put up our next times to meet on a website with a little calendar thingy, allow people to RSVP and keep track of it all, and keep a list of the places we've been before, along with lots and lots of other cool features. It's pretty darn cool.

...

Or I should say it *was* pretty darn cool until they went and deployed a new interface. With the old interface, I could use it with no problem. It was easy as pie. Then, in a flash, it all changed. they went heavy on the java script, light on the ability for anyone to use anything but the mouse.

For people who don't know, JAWS and its brothers don't do the mouse. It's all keyboard, all the time. You can simulate a mouse click, but it's far harder to do that and it doesn't always work.

Suddenly I couldn't pick a meetup place or set any of the settings. Everything acted as if you couldn't click it. Thanks to some fancy footwork and astute observations by technically-minded folk, I managed to schedule my next Meetup. But that's no guarantee of success the next time I want to schedule one.

so, being the pesky person that I am, I emailed them. this is what I said.

Hello. I am an organizer of a Meetup group. Ever since you changed your interface, I cannot easily select a location or expand settings areas. I use the keyboard, cannot use the mouse, and use a screen-reader to read the contents of the screen. I have a meetup I'd like to schedule in draft form because I cannot select a location and will need to solicit sighted help to do it. Is there a way I can switch back to your old interface? Would you like help in testing your interface for accessibility, or perhaps a demonstration on how someone navigates the web using a screen-reader? I would be more than happy to assist if I could.

thanks in advance for any help.

Carin

Several hours later, I got this simultaneously helpful and not helpful response.

Hi Carin,

I'm really sorry this is happening...! Screen readers don't always work as well with JavaScript. There's really no way to go back to the old interface, as we're constantly updating the site with new features. But I did change a setting on your account which might help. I permanently expanded the tabs for when you're on the "Schedule a Meetup" page, so that might help.

I also suggest that you contact the folks who developed your screenreader. Perhaps they can suggest a way to optimize it.

I found this really detailed article which might help:
http://northtemple.com:80/2008/10/07/javascript-and-screen-readers

If you have any questions, please let me know.

Ok, first, I'm thankful that the person went in and changed my settings. At least, for now, I should be able to continue using the site. I am also thankful that the person didn't tell me to get an assistant organizer to click my mouse for me. Lots of people like to suggest stuff like that. It's an easy out, and it's not good enough. so I'm very thankful that the person didn't choose that avenue.

But here's where I get a little mad. If they knew that java+screen-reader may equal bad, why not have their new java tested by someone to make sure it would work for all? Why roll out something that they knew would screw users, paying users I might add, over? Nice forward thinking there guys.

Second, I have no problem contacting the makers of JAWS with my problem, but I'm not a super code monkey. I can tell them the site doesn't work, but I can't tell them why. These people know why. Why can't *they* fix it?

I still have to read the article that they linked me to. Maybe it would shed some light.

Edit: It was an article for developers! What am I supposed to do with that? It is teaching me a bit about what java scripts are cool and which ones are not, but it's written for the ones who *write* the code, not little old me, the end user. Way to go, Idaho!

But I just couldn't believe they already knew their interface was inaccessible for some and rolled it out anyway. I guess not everybody is half as cool as Desire2Learn.

I wrote an email back. We'll see if I get a response. It said:

Thanks. I'll give all of this a try.

I appreciate you finding this stuff, but I would truly appreciate it more if
you had any new changes to the interface checked for accessibility *before*
they are deployed. I'm not the only user of a screen-reader who uses your
site, and not the only one paying you money. What if next time you deployed
a new change, you decided to go withall flash and didn't label it? That
wouldn't go over so well, and I would be sad to have to bid you farewell
because you do offer a really great service.

Thanks for your help. I'll give all of this a try. I am using the latest
version of the screen-reader. I'll submit a suggestion to JAWS and see if
they will do anything, but since I'm not a developer, I don't know exactly
what to tell them except "I can't use it!" That doesn't exactly go miles and
miles to finding a solution.

Thanks again.

Carin

so let's see if I can follow this to its end. Failing that, does anyone know of a comparable service to Meetup? I would hate to have to do this, but I may have to port the group over to a service that I can use successfully. I mean, what good is Meetup to me if I can't, uh, schedule a meetup?

I think that's everything. Gees, that took me forever to write. A big heap of congrats go to everyone who stuck with this to the end. You're awesome.

It's Time To Get Somebody Fired

It's been a while since we've put up any guest posts, but that changes today.

This one is from my brother. He recently started a new job, and every time I talk to him he's always got stories to tell about something or other. A lot of them are about the people he works with and to be honest, if he's telling me the truth,I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the idea that some of these people are handling my food.

Anyway, he says he's willing to write some of this stuff down and send it in from time to time. I love this idea, because anything that saves me some thinking time is more than good by me. He's already sent me a couple, and this is the first one. Enjoy.

England swings? Apparently one of my co-workers does too.

I work in a place called the Bun Shoppe. No, it's not some sort of porno palace, it's a bakery. I've worked there for about 6 months now, and am used to the strange people that work there, or so I thought.

Everyone there has worked there for longer than I have, Until Rob started about 3 or four weeks ago. He's a quiet guy, doesn't say much. He's about 18 years old or so, but still seems like a kid somehow, I think it's some of the things he says and does.

The other day, Just Rob and Alice were there. Little Alice we call her, because she's smaller than the other Alice that works there. Anyway, Little Alice, well, to put it politely, never shuts up. She's always talking about something, and you never know what she's going to say.

On Sunday, it was just her and Rob filling bun orders, and they were talking, and all of a sudden Alice, who we all know likes to, well, swop partners with other couples, yes, a swinger. Don't get me wrong, if you can get yourself a wife, or husband that doesn't mind you puttin' it to your best friend's husband's brother's wife or something, more power to you. But Poor Rob had no idea I guess that Alice swings like a pendulum, and out of the blue she launches in to a detailed account of the rules to swinging...yes, apparently there are rules to swinging. She was telling him all about how to properly swing, you have to do everything in the same room as your husband/wife and their new-found partner. Well, Alice was telling him all about how she was with this guy, who she coincidentally is now married to, and her x-husband and his x-wife were doing whatever it is you do while your former mate is watching you. Well, I guess Rob turned red as a beet and just tried to change the subject, but it was too late at that point.

To make this short, he learned that she is in fact still married to this man, but is still wildly in love with her x-husband. No mention of whether her new husband still thinks about his old wife, but chances are he does...maybe they should go to another party and switch back.

Clearing the Backblog

Hope you folks like these random posts, because with all that time I didn't write, I've created quite a, well, thought backblog. I'm sure I'll be able to write something more focused soon. But until then, have a pile of thoughts.

Remember back in another random post, I said I forgot something? Well, I remembered it, and keep forgetting to write it down, so I'm writing it down now. What was it again? Just kidding.

Has anyone else noticed that, among all the phone drones out there, the Swiss Chalet delivery phone drones are the most humourless of all? I could swear they turned their human trainees into cyborgs to be more efficient. When they pick up the phone, they greet you with something that sounds like "hellothankyouforcallingswisschaletcanihaveyourphonenumberstartingwiththeareacodeplease?" Huh? What? Where? who? I'm still stuck at Hello. Even if you make a joke, there is no laughter, there is only "nextitemplease?" Everywhere you go, you're going to get someone who sounds like a zombie, but this is a consistent thing with Swiss Chalet. I think the lady who sold me Chalet soup when I had that brutal cold was the last of the humans.

Can I mention how much I hate hate hate writing big collaborative reports? I mustn't be a team player or something, because I can't stand having to come up with ideas that we both agree on, and then wrangling them into something resembling intelligible english. For the past 6 weeks, I've been working up at the university doing an audit of various areas of their website to tell them how well they work with JAWS. The way it works is I work in tandem with a guy with functioning eyes, and when I have a problem, he tries to tel me what he's seeing in comparison to what I am. Then, we have to write a big report to explain it to the powers that be. Seems simple enough, right? I wish!

Every time he gets his hands on it to edit in his input, the input he adds is either riddled with errors and redundancies, cannot be called decent sentences, or all of the above. I spend more time editing the jabber than adding new input. I showed it to Steve, and after the third sentence, Steve was confused beyond belief, and he knew what I had been doing for the last six weeks. Fixing the report was so brain-sapping that I said to Steve that my brain felt like it needed to write blog posts for nourishment. Well, we know how many of those got created, don't we? If only we always got what we wanted.

Note to anyone about to take a plane anywhere: Do not watch the show called Mayday before you go. You'll wonder if flying is such a great idea. That show is fascinating, but lord you realize how much human error goes on, and then you wonder why there aren't more crashes. Air traffic controlers that don't seem to understand the gravity, ha ha, of "we are out of fuel," engineers that are eyeballing up parts to see if they fit and they don't, pilots punching the wrong entry points into their autopilot and, quelle surprise, getting lost. Ug. You wonder how good an idea it is to put your life in their hands. *Tries to remember* did I watch Mayday before I went to San Rafael? I know I thought about things in it through the whole plane trip. But maybe I'm just neurotic. But the show makes you realize how rare a true mechanical failure is. they're most often caused by human error.

And because people love dog stuff, I figured I'd throw some more doggy tidbits in. I learned yesterday that Trixie is not a fan of being splashed by a truck driving through a puddle. She backed up, spun around and shook her whole body to get the water off. I just couldn't stop laughing. Yep, I'm heartless.

Remember when we called her Visa? Well, now she's upgraded to Visa Gold because she really goes out of her way to be, well, in ours. Holy crap. Silly girl moves and ends up more in the way than before.

Also, remember how, in the mornings, she'd get up and flop like a fish on the rug? Well, now she'll do it on the bare floor! Trixter, doesn't that hurt? But if you're having fun, knock yourself out...well, don't do that. That's what I'm afraid will happen! She also will shake her whole body, but she'll be right next to the couch, so she'll wack right into it! One day, she decided to shake her head the way she does, and I heard a loud click! Dad said that was the sound of her head hitting his knee! Ouch!

I have learned to respect that thumpy tail and its distructive power. We had to more firmly attach the basket we have on the door to catch the mail because she had wagged into it so hard! That, combined with her womping her head off it made it all crooked.

I wish I could record the noises she makes when she dreams. Sometimes, she wags her tail in her sleep. Other times, she makes these itcy bitcy barks. I have to wonder if she's having a good dream or a nightmare. If only I could speak Trixie.

Next week, the guy who does followups for the school, who is also the guy who interviewed me last year, is coming to see me and see how Trix and I are doing. He's coming at 5 at night so we can walk through Friday rush hour. Really putting Trixie and I to the test, isn't he? I'm a little nervous, a lot excited, and a little nervous all over again. I want to hear him say that we're doing well, I pray I haven't let some things slip, I want some pointers on some things, and I hope he doesn't think those things are stupid. Hopefully I'll have a story or two from that.

I think that's about it. Holy crap that was a huge post. Hope it wasn't too long and drawn out.

...And Nothing Else Matters

So, the Jays have lost 4 in a row, the Argos are 3rd of 4 teams in the East, the Leafs refuse to open the wallet and sign Carter, I overslept this morning, I'm not even close to done packing with only one day left to do it, I forgot my cell at home... but it doesn't matter. It's my last day up in this bitch of a job!!! As of 4:30 today I crack a few cool ones with my cousin and then kiss this whore goodbye! Ain't nothin' stoppin' me today, mothafuckas!!!
Peace!

It's Gonna Happen...

Jesus Christ! Click that fucking pen again... I dare you!

Jeez!

Today might be the day I finally LOSE it at this job.

PS. Shawn Lennon's new single SUCKS! Pretty clear music is not genetic - from the way his voice sounds - it's entirely possible that Yoko was sucking on his balls while singing this.

Stream of Negativity

Here we go kids.

So I just finished lunch at Subway - which normally I love. My bread was stail and the meat smelled funny. This leaves me unhappy.

I'm doing company billing today. The program we uses only allows one person in the office to access the Billing section at once to prevent someone from altering a bill at the same time you do cuz otherwise things get fucked up and you over/under charge. I was in it all morning when someone said they needed in for 5 minutes. I said that was fine because I was going for lunch and now that I've returned from my (shit) lunch I find out this person has just left for her lunch and not closed the program on her computer meaning I can't get back in and she's not expected back for an hour. I got deadlines and people wanting to know what they owe!

Eric Hinske of the Jays is a douchebag. Last night while he was at third base he got thrown out in a suicide squeeze where the batter bunts it and runs to first, the pitchers throws it to first because he can get the batter out for sure and if he throws home the guy at third just won't go and the batter gets to first safely. Well the pitchers gets the ball and HInske decides to not wait and runs home and the pitchers throws him out at homeplate costing us a run. Then in the bottom of the 9th with a man on he hits in to a double play, virtually killing the rally and costing us a chance to tie.

Shea Hillenbrand of the Jays is also a king sized fuck tard. He left the team (with permission) on Friday to go be with hims family as they had adopted a baby girl. He returned late Tuesday and was not put in the line-up. On Wednesday he flipped telling the media that the team was a disgrace and there was a terrible atmosphere and if they weren't going to play him he should have just stayed home and how he wants to be traded and a pile of whiney shit. His biggest gripe, though? That no one from the Blue Jays front office called to congratulate him on adopting a baby. Does it deserve congratulations? Probably. I'm not sure what the rules are on that - but I mean come on. To call the team a disgrace if it doesn't happen seems like a little bit of an over-reaction to me.

That is all. Continue with your otherwise pleasant day.

Wow

So a few posts ago I mentioned that all the sports fans were gone to which Steve commented that you have to write about sports to get them to come back via search or whatever. Since this isn't the stupidest thing I've ever heard, I figure I'll try. I mean you gotta get search hits somehow and since we have no pictures of "RANDY ORTON'S PENIS" or "MATT STAJAN NUDE WITH GIRLFRIEND", we'll try it this way.

Hmm. I may have just accidentally attracted the wrong crowd again. Anyway....

Last night was one hell of a hockey game. Edmonton managed to somehow keep the series alive. I'll say this, though. If you're Pisani for Edmonton, you're shorthanded, it's overtime and you're one loss from elimination - you need to have a serious set of nuts on you to stand in at the other team's blue line and hope you can pick off that pass because if you miss it Carolina is going 5 on 3 in to your end with your season on the line and you go from being the hero to the goat. Good on him for having the balls to do it but that could have gotten ugly really quick if he misses that puck. Game 6 is Saturday at 8. Should be great. Enjoy.

Jays continue to impress winning the last 2 with the Orioles. 1 more to go. Hopefully they can take the series with a win.

CFL season starts this weekend. Light up a dube in honour of the Argos most recent signing, Ricky Williams. What's the big deal? So they signed a guy who has more NFL drug violations than he does rushing yards. Oh. Apparently that's frowned upon. I forgot.

Lastly. a note to everyone in my office. Shut up. Just shut up. There's no need to laugh at everything you say yourself. Not everything is funny. Referring to the pre-hole punched paper in teh photo-copier as holey paper is only funny once, and even then it was marginal. Quit it. Do not whistle while you wait for the copier to be done, it irritates the 2 of us who sit right behind us. Do not drum on said copier while waiting for same reason. Do not assume I know exactly what the coaches in the Cup Final should do and bring up the game 3 times a day to me just because you know I like hockey and you're bored waiting to speak to someone else who is busy. I'm still trying to work! So honestly. Just Shut Up for the rest of the day.

Have a lovely day.

I Miss The Days Where Rage Equalled Good Posts

Good afternoon, class.

So I'm at work, and it sucks. And it's Monday. And I'm tired. And everything that everyone is doing at any time seems to be pissing me off. When I started this blog in '03 with Steve - that would have equalled a golden post. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, that no longer seems to be the case. I think, at least today, it's because I'm just a whiney cranky bitch as opposed to having anything close to a "real" problem to complain about. For example, all day people have been chatting directly behind my desk, using the photo-copier directly behind my desk (which someone began right as I typed that) and just generally making innocent enough small talk than I'm just in no mood to respond to. Hard to make a post out of that. I'm just a bitch.

But, irregardless, I'm going to write. If for no other reason than that I'll be typing away which should destract me from the irritations around me which doing the midless work that this afternoon has brought me, would not accomplish. Plus, for some reason, if someone sees you typing away at something quickly as opposed to studying your sheet or screen, they seem to pass you by assuming you're doing something important. Foolish.

The weekend wasn't bad. I had back to Belleville. The party's were not as plentiful as advertised, but the group of us that usually chills together had a pretty good time. I wouldn't quite call it a bust - but certainly not up to par with what I was expecting. Maybe that's my fault for too high of expectations. Whatever.

Great hockey game Saturday night, Jays lose a series to Detroit and the Argo's sign a suspended NFL pot-head. I'll leave the sports at that since there no longer seems to be a large portion of sports fans.

Last night I actually ordered the ECW PPV. First one I've paid for since WrestleMania which I get every year. Before that the last one I paid for was probably... the previous ECW PPV and WrestleMania. All in all a pretty decent show which had much more of a "let's kick off the new brand" feel than a "let's hit all the old highspots from the past" like last year. Nothing wrong with that. Main Event finish was fairly predictable in that there would be controversy. That's probably also fine as they couldn't really afford to make either guy look bad. That should be fixed up tonight. For the third Monday in a row there is a huge hockey game on the same night as RAW so I guess I'll be missing it, but perhaps some channel surfing if the game is a bore.

Speaking of channel surfing. WWE is doing that frantically right now in Canada trying to find someone to air the new ECW show. TSN has said they have no interest in picking up another live wrestling show as they're already going to be pre-empting RAw in favour of Monday Night Football in the fall and will probably have to have a Tuesday replay of the show (the night ECW would air). The Score supposedly may have an interest but are fully aware with how much SmackDown! sucks that ECW may out do it in the ratings and so would most likely want to dump SmackDown in exchange for ECW. WWE doesn't want any part of that scenario either because then they're still looking for somewhere to air that Dud. So if you're in Canada don't bother looking for the ECW show tomorrow night as it doesn't have a home yet. IF anything changes and you give a shit, I'm sure you'll hear.

There's supposed to be a pretty good story on the supposed Toronto Terrorists tonight on Global. Or was it CTV? I don't remember. If you care to see it you'll figure it out. Or maybe someone else knows and can chime in with a comment.

Well. I was right. Rage, today anyways, equals Snooze. But I pissed away some time. So the only real loser here is... well... you.

On that note. Fair well.

My Thursday 13

Before I start, a couple quick things.

We had a complaint on the boards earlier about our choice of topic for the week, so I want to quickly address that. Will the topics always be negative? I have no idea. Planning ahead has never been one of those things that we're overly good at. But it's worth pointing out that none of us are forcing you to read anything we write. If you don't like a post, feel free to stop reading it and skip ahead to the next one. And if ever there comes a time when you find yourself skipping more stuff than you actually read, by all means, feel free to stop coming here. If you went to a restaurant 3 times and got shitty service and bad food during every visit, I'm sure you probably wouldn't be in any sort of huge hurry to go back. So why should this, or any other website, be any different? People have stopped reading us before, but we're still here. It happens. People change, and their ideas about what's funny or interesting or worthwhile change right along with them. Sometimes that means that we just don't fit into their plans anymore, and that's ok with us. We don't spend a whole lot of time getting broken up over it. Bottom line: If you find yourself disagreeing with something that one of us has said and you've got a good reason for it, please, let us know. Constructive debate is fun, and it's lead to a lot of interesting discussions and posts here over the years. But if you outright hate something that we're probably not going to change any time soon and don't have any sort of reasoning for your feelings beyond "eeewww, I don't like it, you guys smell," use some of that free will stuff and move along to something that's more your style.

I'd also like to take a second to thank Matt for all the love. And by the way dude, I'm still waiting for you to show your face at one of these infights. If you had any sack, we would have settled this by now.

And speaking of sack...

13 PEOPLE WHO NEED A GOOD KICK IN THE NUTS

Just like when Matt and Carin did it, these are in no particular order.

1. Drivers who decide that even though the right of way is mine and I've started walking that they're just gonna head on through anyway and I guess hope for the best.
2. Chatty assholes who feel the need to distract me while I'm trying to work. I
covered this a long time ago,
go read it, it's fun.
3. People in broadcasting who can't read or talk. Anybody who's ever listened to any of my shows knows that sometimes I have trouble with both, but who doesn't? I'm not talking about me though, I'm talking about serious chronic repeat offenders here. People like the woman who anchors my local news on the weekends a lot of the time. She sucks. I remember a time when she was reading a story on the dangers of certain types of insulation and she came out with this gem. "To ensure that there is no danger in your home, be sure to check your addict for ass-pest-tose." Ok, so for the sake of my safety, I need to be on the lookout for a guy sucking on a crack pipe who's got a needle in his arm and insulation falling out his ass. got it...I think, at least I do if ever I learn what ass-pest-tose is. It probably wouldn't have pissed me off nearly so much if I hadn't have sat there listening to her over-annunciate and mispronounce everything for a good 20 minutes before that, but then again maybe it would have, who's to say? Well ok, I am, because it probably would have. These words aren't all that hard. At least when I trip up, it's usually on somebody's long ass foreign name that there's no way anybody other than him has any chance of getting even half way right. We're talking about attic and asbestos here. They're common words, and it's not unthinkable to expect somebody who talks for a living to know them and get them right.
4. News reporters who stand next to somebody who's home has just been destroyed by a fire or something and feel it necessary to ask a question along the lines of "so, your house and everything in it has been taken away from you and your lives are obviously in turmoil. How are you folks feeling right about now?" That's just cruel. It's kind of like asking a homeless guy out on a date and saying "so, your place or...oh yeah, never mind."
5. TV evangelists, for no other reason than that they are TV evangelists. Come on, what more reason do you need?
6. Some of those religious people who try to hand you books and talk to you about Christ while you're trying to get somewhere. I remember years ago when I lived in Brantford, I actually had one of these guys step in my way on the street after I said I didn't want to talk and tried to keep walking. That by itself is bad enough, but then he looked me dead in the face and said "you know, if you and your parents had accepted the lord and saviour Jesus Christ into your lives, maybe you wouldn't be where you are right now," obviously a shot at the fact that I was blind. The best response I could manage short of knocking him the fuck out or maybe kicking him in the nuts was simply "fuck off," after which I stepped around him and kept walking. But I never forgot about that guy, and he's one of the reasons why I have such a low opinion of organized religion.
7. Music fans who suddenly start to hate their favourite band as soon as that band gets even a tiny bit famous. If they get famous by changing their style to something totally different and completely crappy, then go ahead, hate them until you run out of hate, you'll hear no complaints from me. But if they've managed to get famous through hard work while staying true to what they are, why hate them unless you're not really a music fan at all, but more a fan of looking like you know something that a lot of people don't? Newsflash: it doesn't make you cool, and nobody cares. Lighten up, and be sure to enjoy the music.
8. Simon Cowell. He's not constructive, he's not intimidating, he's not even funny. All he is is a gimmick, and not even a good one. whenever I see an Idol commercial or happen upon a conversation during which somebody says "what will Simon think?" it's more than enough to make me not only want to kick the man in the nuts, but then proceed to stomp them into scrotum jello.
9. PC douche nozels who get offended on behalf of other people. Seriously, cut that shit out. Everybody has their own set of standards, and all of us are more than capable of figuring out when we should be upset. We don't need you to help us out, so feel free to go do something useful with your time, like maybe run in front of a bus.
10. Those flaming ass magnets who have it in their heads that I have nothing better to do than take their phone calls at 2 in the morning on a week night, or even on a weekend for that matter. I have trouble sleeping sometimes, but that doesn't mean I don't need to or never try.
11. People who ask a question and then pay no attention to the answer. I can't count the number of times that somebody has sent me an email in the morning that includes something like "so, what have you got going on today," to which I'll reply and list a half million different things I need or want to do. I send it off, and not 5 minutes later, the phone will ring, and 9 times out of 10 it'll be the same person I just sent the email to, calling for no better reason than because they just wanna chat. Then to top it all off, these stupid imbeciles have the nerve to act hurt when I say I don't have time to talk right now because I'm busy. I should mention that every time this happens, and I'm talking without fucking fail here, when I ask, every single one of them says that yes, they got my message a minute ago. Sorry partner, but if you don't respect me enough to listen to what it is I'm actually saying, then I give less than a fuck that I made you feel bad. It wasn't even me who made you feel bad, you did it, and it's not my problem. Now get off my phone, I've got shit to do. If you don't' believe me, go check your goddamn email. And here's an idea, maybe try actually reading the shit for once. Ok, that one kinda got away from me there, let's move on.
12. Everyone who thinks that if they call me as many times as they can in as short a timeframe as possible, that I'll suddenly materialize and pick up the phone. Or as I like to call them, many of the people I know.
We've been down this road before, but I think it's worth going down again.
13. People who buy things from spam. Stop that! You're ruining the internet for all of us, you pricks.
13 and a half. Lou Dobbs. He kinda bugs me and
Thordora
says she hates him, so he's in.

That was fun, and I'm much happier than I was when I woke up this morning.

I'll be back later, but I'm not sure if it'll be with something positive or negative. So stay tuned unless uncertainty frightens you.

My Unlucky Thursday Thirteen

Before I start talking about who should get hoofed in the bag, I have good news. We have our miracle apartment! We just have to sign a few papers and hand over a bit more money and it's ours! Now, back to kicks ahoy!

These can be people, or groups of people. Aren't I generous?

1. Nosey people on the street. I do some volunteer work where I go with a lady who's a bit developmentally delayed to the Y. Frankly, I forget she's a little slow because she's hillarious and it's not like I'm having to tell her what to do all the time or anything. hell she's getting us into the Y and finding stuff and setting the weights so it's not an issue. But people who we barely know or don't even know actually walk up to us and have the nerve to ask, "So...who's helping who?" I'm helping you get a kick in the nuts. Is it any of their business who's getting help and who isn't?


2. Chatterboxes on the street. I'll be crossing a busy street that buses go down, and someone will run up to me while I'm crossing and want me to *stop* right there so we can have a jolly good chat. They don't want to join me and walk across with me. No no no. Knowing that after the hand starts flashing, we only have 10 seconds before cars and city buses are going to speed through, they just have to tell you all about their week. How about letting me live to see the next week?


3. My neighbours. But I think I've explained that enough.


4. Creepy stalker people. I haven't known them their whole lives, maybe they already have received a few good kicks in the nuts because of the way they act. There's this one guy who, while Steve and I were together, was always simultaneously jealous and wanting to know what we were doing every fucking minute of the day. Then, when we broke up, he suddenly was calling me a lot more, and still wanted to know where I was every fucking minute of the day. Now that we're back together, he doesn't call anymore, and I can't say I'm sad to see him go. Weirdo! The scary part is, he's not the only one. When will these guys learn that usually we can see through their phony interest in girls for what it really is? Guys! Give up on me dropping everything to be with you just because you're suddenly filling my life with yourselves!


5. People who phone me several times late at night and when I finally pick up and sound a little sleepy, wonder how much I've had to drink. Although several people don't seem to have a functioning clock in their house, there's only been one guy who's actually had the balls to wonder if I was drunk at 4 in the morning when he called. This question got asked *after* I told him never to call me that late again because I'm trying to sleep.


6. Chatty people in a place where I answer a distress line. Seriously, your busy night does not need to be projected to me at a louder volume than what I'm supposed to be listening to, I.E. a distress call.


7. People who cry that they're sick of being judged to soon, while in the same breath, they judge other people as unsuitable friends because they look a certain way or are of a certain race. At this point, I want to say to them, "You get what you deserve." Oh, and I want to give them a kick in the nuts, but well...that's why they're on this list anyway.


8. People who drive for a living who don't know where they're going. Steve and I have both talked about how much that bugs us before.


9. People who enjoy making themselves feel better by making others feel worse. After reading this, need I say more?


10. People who write you emails, you respond, and after two weeks, they respond with "Now what were we talking about?"


11. Parents who don't let their kids ask me questions about being blind. Yeah, teaching them to live in fear of the unknown is a fine way to raise your kid.


12. Other blind people who make people afraid to ask questions. Yeah, making people afraid to learn about us is a fine way to perpetuate ignorance.


13. People who think they're a cut above other people because of what letters are behind their name. Listen, prick, the brick layer or the plumber could teach you a lot.

And like that, I'm done. Now I have to run for the bus, hopefully they know where to drop me off.