The Website, Terrible Beer, Audio Returns And Some Jokes At The End

I just got an email from Molson asking me to "answer the call of the long weekend." I'm sure this is code for please drink our shitty beer, so the long weekend will be getting my voicemail.

That really did just happen.

Anyway, how's everybody doing? I hope you're all doing well and are less tired than this guy, who for some reason woke up at 20 after 4 this morning. Bad times, but it's still better than being sentenced to a long weekend of Molson.

If you've seen it (and if you follow one of us on Twitter and clicked on this post that way you have,) we hope you're liking the new website. It's almost finished, thank the lord. The only thing we need to do before we can 86 Blogger for good is figure out how to make the new server send out daily emails full of our wit and wisdom like Feedburner is doing now. I know we can probably transfer the current feed over and keep everything as it is, but since Feedburner has a CAPTCHA that we can't disable on its subscription form, fuck those guys. If we were content with firing off emails whenever a post went up the problem would be solved, but since we sometimes go on insane posting jags that's not going to happen. We care about you all too much as readers and in some cases friends to put you through that. If anybody knows of something free or close to it that will allow for what I've described, let us know.

Besides that, we're pretty much good to go. All the posts have the correct bylines on them (kiss my ass again, blog importer) and all the downloads that haven't worked for months are now alive and well on our new server which, I should add, is fast as hell. I should also add that relinking them was a much easier process than we had anticipated thanks to a handy search and replace plugin that Carin dug up. That's one thing I love about Wordpress. It's insanely customizable and has loads of functionality built right in, but if it doesn't do something that somebody has ever wanted it to do, that person has probably built a plugin that'll get it done.

If you're thinking about making the move from something like Blogger or even about starting a new site, give Wordpress a shot. And if you happen to be in the market for some hosting for that reason or any other, drop a line to Shane and James. Tell them Steve and #CarinOfTheWin sent ya. I'm not sure what it'll do for you in the favours department, but give it a try and let me know how it goes. If it does nothing, I'm putting Shane on notice that at some point I may have to resort to tossing him around like I used to when he was little. Wait, what am I saying? He's still little.

Oh, I almost forgot, we need to get AdSense up and running as well. I'm not looking forward to that. Messing with ad sizes, styles and positioning when you can't actually see what your site looks like isn't high on my list of fun activities. Carin's either, as it happens. If any of you have a good idea of what might work around these parts, please get in touch.

But AdSense or not, daily digest or not, it's time to celebrate! And what better way to say thanks for putting up with our quietness and website talk and to break in a new server than a little something we like to call Long Audio Weekend!? Quiet down, crickets! You're drowning out the cheers of celebration that I'm sure are coming from all over the world! But yes, now that we have a reliable place to put them, we can do casts again, and do casts we shall...unless something bad/unexpected comes up. I'm not sure what we'll talk about, but we'll think of something. All the stuff we haven't gotten around to writing down might be a good place to start.

With all that out of the way...I suddenly realize I can't remember what else I was going to write down. This is embarrassing. Hmmm...what to do? I know, have a few of the jokes I've been saving. That and be sure to follow @ShakespeareSong if you don't already. One of my favourite things ever on Twitter.

See you for audio weekend unless I remember something between now and then.

Ok...jokes!

*Okay, I know the order of the pedals is clutch - brake - accelerator, but how do I start this piano?

*There were two fish in a tank. One of them said to the other: "How do you drive this thing?"

*Some guy called my wife a pig the other day. I said, "Don't listen to him, Babe!"

*In 1950's Ireland, the Catholic Church ruled the country with an iron fist. It was a tough time to be an altar boy.

*After the accident, my wife was left a vegetable.

"Who left this vegetable here," She asked.

*I just heard on the Radio that the Leader of the Monkees has died. R.I.P. Nelson Mandela.

*As the sperm swam with a mission in mind toward the egg, I thought to myself, "Wow, I've really ruined this breakfast buffet."

*Q: Who is a Catholic priest's favourite singer?

A: Kneel Young.

*Muhammad Ali vs. Michael J. Fox: The Quickest Game of Jenga Ever.

*Two gay guys were on the beach. One says to the other, "shall I put the umbrella up?" The other replies "yes, but don't open it!"

*My mate has got a computer document full of 16 year old girls. What a PDF-file.

*Q: What do you call someone who's had their car stolen?

A: A taxi.

*A man walks into a bar and orders 6 shots of tequila.

"Why so many, buddy," the bartender asks.

"I'm celebrating my first blow job," The man replies.

"Well hell, congratulations," says the bartender. "I will give you one on the house."

"No thank you," replies the man. "if the first 6 shots don't get the taste out of my mouth, one more won't make a difference."

I Went To A Ball Game And Did Some Other Stuff

Before I say another word, I seriously just watched John Cena beat Brock Lesnar at Extreme Rules. No really, that happened. Don't ask me *why* it happened, but it happened. I guess I have to allow for the idea that this might be going somewhere and is part of a larger story, but this is 2012 WWE, so I might as well get my Jesus motherfuck on a slice of toast that was dumb out of the way now so there's no need for it later when they screw this up even more and I'm really pissed off.

So...how's everybody doin'? Other than that, I'm pretty ok.

The new site is coming along nicely. All the posts are now written by the right person, which is one huge job out of the way. the next part of Operation New Comet is to upload all the audio and video downloads to the new server so you can actually download them. Yes, that means all the VC Casts, the singing screenreaders and everything else will work again, and probably a lot faster than before.

I took a break from all the site business and had myself a fun weekend. I spent a good bit of it with our old friend Greg, who some of you would remember a lot better had Echo not hosed us so bad on that comment deal. Side note: Check out where that link goes. Remember, we're not finished yet. If it looks a bit like crap, cut us some slack. I'm just getting myself used to linking to the right site.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, weekend with Greg.

We spent Saturday afternoon down at the Dome (it'll never be the friggin Rogers Centre to me) watching the Jays take on the Mariners. These are always fun, especially because Greg is as much a Mariners fan as I am a Jays fan. Old brain injury, I think.

I was a bit worried about the trip because of Friday's debacle, but the Jays came through big time, sparing me an evening of listening to more laughter from a fan of a team much more terrible than my own.

It was a memorable game for a couple of reasons. It was my first ever live shutout (Jays 7, Mariners 0), plus I got to see my first ever major league grand slam!



Thanks, Edwin! I know you and I haven't always been on the best of terms, but that's all because your managers have had this weird thing about making you field. Your hitting I've never doubted. In fact I'm one of those people who wanted you to be a DH forever ago. It's that sketchy aiming and throwing stuff that gets me all riled up and angry about you. Now that you're where you belong and can focus on what you're really good at, you and I are just fine. I'll go so far as to say that this year, I look forward to your at bats even more than Lawrie's and Bautista's. You're the man, artist formerly known as E5!

There was also, like there is at most games, that guy from the visiting team who gets mercilessly heckled. In my section, it was Chone Figgins. It was pretty standard stuff for the most part, just people slowly yelling his name at him. Expecting much more from the people in our area would have been asking too much. I'm not sure how a few of them walked and breathed at the same time long enough to find seats, to be honest. But the best was when a little girl (at least we think it was a girl) who couldn't have been any more than about 4 looked over at the person next to her and asked "what's that guy's name?" She got her answer and the next thing you know, that cute little voice takes a deep breath and let's out the loudest "FIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNSSSSSSSS!!!!!!" YOU'VE EVER HEARD, OVER AND OVER AGAIN. She was much more amusing than that stupid woman behind and to one side of me who kept calling him Shawn Desman, chanting "we love BJs" and laughing at herself all afternoon. I hope something mildly unpleasant happened to her later, something like being forced to struggle with the plot of a Dick and Jane book.

and because I usually can't let an outing like this go bye without commenting, wholly crapshite the price of beer at these places! I go in knowing it's not going to be pretty, but $9.75 for a woman to reach into a cooler, pull out a tall boy, open it and hand it to me? Yes, I said one tall boy! Not two! One! They were $9.75...each! Legalized robbery is what that is. It was extra off pissing because we'd both just finished buying 12 of the fucking things at the LCBO for $30 before we left for the game. If the aim is to get people not to drink so much, forget it. the problem ones usually have more money than they know what to do with or are smart enough to drink beforehand, smuggle the shit in or both. You're just screwing guys like me who want to have one or two while we enjoy the afternoon.

Speaking of drinks, I finally tried one of those Tim Hortons smoothies. They're ok. I'd probably get one again. but I have to ask. Why is adding yogurt extra? Yogurt, at least on planet earth where I come from, is kind of what smoothies are made of. Yogurt, fruit and juice. You cant' have a smoothie without yogurt, it's just not possible. At all. Ever. Cannot be done. What is Tim Hortons putting in these things to make people think that going yogurtless is an option, and how can they still call whatever it is a smoothie without running afoul of some sort of regulation?

Oh, and speaking of running afoul of regulations, I learned something useless yet amazing from Greg when we were back home enjoying our reasonably priced beer.

Poker Face, the song that everybody but Lady Gaga can make sound good, is not as it seems.



Pick a chorus and listen to it. When she's doing the thing about pa pa pa poker faces, tell me you don't hear "fuh fuh fuh fuck her face" at least once. I never noticed this before due to my tendency not to pay attention to crap, but poor Greg spends a lot of time with a Gaga loving child so isn't so fortunate. I went in with an open mind just like I do when one of those Islam is the light type things comes along, but unlike most of those I heard "fuck her face" without a doubt. It's not just our imagination either. Carin heard it, and a little Googling turned up this guy. How is everybody so clueless to this, or are they just choosing to ignore it and see what they can get away with?

That's about all for now. I'm hungry and it's supper time. I may even have a beer afterwards. And no Rogers, I won't be paying $9.75 for it, you arsecaps!

Spring Ahead...Into My Thought Pool

Now that I've got my email fixed, it's ramblin' time!

I'm so happy that winter was not too bad to us, but I'm even happier that spring just might be on its way. It'll take me a long time to truly believe it's here since winter never really got going, but whatever this weather is, I'm enjoying it.

I've noticed lately that Trix has this new bizarre morning ritual. She comes out, heads for Steve, snorts, and spits all over him! She never does this to me, just poor Steve! And I swear she makes sure to maximize how much of him gets the snort shower. What the hell does that mean?

The other day Steve and I were watching Investigation Discovery, a channel all about looking into violent crimes, forensics, all that sort of stuff. There are lots of stories about dismembered corpses and such. There's this commercial for St. Ives lotion that plays all the damn time on there. Here's the commercial. What does it sing about? Body parts! That would be perfectly innocent, except for what most of the content of the channel is? Hands, shoulders knees and toes...some in the river, some in concrete. Thighs and heels...in a dumpster. Ankles and elbows...in a bag. You get the idea. If I ever bought that lotion, I wouldn't be able to stop thinking about gory murders.

A long time ago, I talked about how when Trix was new, I would do stupid things like tell my friends to come and heel. Well, I did it again the other day, to the huppy! At least I had half an excuse that day. He was wearing one of those kid leashes and I was holding it. His mom had to go to the ER and didn't know how she'd manage the Huppy too. I said I'd help but he had to wear his little harness dealy. I had to hold onto it when they had a look at her, and I wanted him right beside me. Without thinking I said "heel!" Then I laughed out loud.

The other day, I had it brought home to me how we truly are spoiled by technology. Our internet broke down. That sounds like an odd sentence next to talking about being spoiled, but just wait. I had some things that really needed doing, so Steve and I decided screw waiting for the internet. We'd just go to a restaurant that has free Wifi and get things done. And so...off to the Baker Street Station we went, ate some yummy food, and I clickity typety sent my emails.

Seriously, how cool is that? Years ago, we would have been waiting for our internet. But the other day we just picked up the office and took it elsewhere. When we got our stuff done, we came back home, and hey, would ya look at that? Internet! We really are sitting in a chair in the sky.

I mentioned a while ago that I found myself a dentist. Thankfully I doubt she'll be a scary dentist. She's actually pretty cool. She loves dogs, and after we're done, I take Trix's harness off and let her pet the ol' boodog. By consequence, Trix loves the dentist's office. There's a small part of me that wonders if she enjoys taking me in there because they do things to me in there, not her, but she still gets lots of love. But oh man does she love going to the door. It makes people laugh who see it. I was also relieved that the high pitched noises of the equipment didn't bother her. She just lies still and is a perfect pooch.

And I think that's all I've got for this installment of Carin bores the bejeebers out of readers, then disappears. Get out and enjoy today, it's supposed to be awesome.

I'm Baaack...I Think

So yeah...I haven't posted for nearly two weeks. Definite fail...although failing at blogging seems to be a regular occurrence for me now.

I think, *knocks on wood* that I'm out of the medical woods. I feel better, and bunches of my problems appear to be vanishing. It's funny. I've had this since I was a kid, but only now am I truly learning about its funky intricacies. It appears I have to learn everything by breaking it. But whatever, now I appear to be feeling better, and normal life appears to be within my grasp. This makes me the happy.

Before I forget, the sixth assistance dog blog carnival is up, has been for a couple weeks. Yeah, I fail. Now I have to go read everybody's stuff. Hmmm I'll be busy.

I must be getting close to normal. I'm scrutinizing random oldies songs. the other day, I heard Barbara Mason Yes I'm ready. I wasn't paying attention, and then I heard "I'm ready to learn to fall in love with you." Learn? Excuse me? Learn? If you have to *learn*, you're not falling in love. I don't know what it is you're doing, but it's not that. It sounds like some kind of sick and twisted arranged marriage song. And is it me, or does she sound drunk out of her mind in that song? It sounds like she's had to get totally plastered just to work up the courage to kiss this dude...I wish I could make JAWS slur its words and say "I'm ready...to learn...chugga lugga glugga.

Then I heard Hey Baby They're Playing Our Song and one line stood out to me. "It's the one with the pretty melody." Yeah, that narrows it down. I mean, come on. There's only *one* song with a pretty melody. The rest of those melodies are all discordant and sound like fingernails on a chalkboard. Well...maybe that would fit *now*, but not so much back when this song was made, which according to Wikipedia, was 1967. What a totally stupid line! But then again, oy...there were quite a few in that song.

This also got me thinking about how Please Mister Please won't make any sense to kids anymore. It'll join rotary phones and broken records and all those things that make them stare at us like we're talking a foreign language.

I have two more observations to add to my pile of silly wrestling-related observations. So far we established that I like the way Lilian says John Cina and JBL's old mooing song was the best. Well, now I have more, and I might as well make fun of myself for them.

Steve was watching some old NWA shows with Gordon Solie and Bob Caudle. I walked in, sat down, and didn't say anything for a minute. Then I couldn't contain myself. I had to ask. I knew who Gordon Solie was, but that other guy sounded...just like Johnny Cash! I asked him, and after he finished laughing his ass off at me, said no. That was Bob Caudle. Come on. Can't you just hear this voice saying "My Name Is Sue! How Do You Do! And Now You're Gonna Die!" No? I'm the only one? Ok then.

And one day, Steve was watching some wrestling and John Laurinaitis came on. I listened for a minute and then said "Whenever he talks, he sounds just like Bill MacKendry!" I don't know how to spell Bill's name, because he's only famous at W. Ross, the school for the blind, but I hope someone reading this, besides Steve, both loves wrestling and knows good old Billie. It would be even more awesome if they happened to have a clip of Bill we could put up. Last night, John Laurinaitis said something about Oksanna, and all I could think was "Tanja?..." Again, that'll only make sense to the people who went to W. Ross at the time when Billie was there. But I seriously can't hear this guy talk without hearing Billie's voice behind him yelling "I want a girl!" Am I alone in this?

And speaking of that old school, remember back when I said it was getting sued? Our buddy Shane found the W. Ross lawsuit in all its glory. Yikes. I'm glad I didn't go there during that era. I haven't a doubt in my mind that stuff like that went down...but when I was there, nothing that attrocious ever happened that I know of, except I think there was still the...um...sexual stuff happening between boys. I never knew about it until after when I would hear things. I do have to chuckle that the term "Braille Jail" made it into a legal filing.

The one thing I can't figure out was the repeated references to things being run by the bell and the whistle and being made to line up. Um, regular schools did that too. You had the recess bell, the lunch bell, the bell for each class, the bell at the end of the day. And yeah, we had to line up. That's how they can keep track of everybody. There must be some context I'm missing. I definitely want to hear how this plays out.

There's this commercial that comes on that makes me laugh whenever I hear it, but I have no idea what it's for. All it says is "I just told my boss I'm in bed with a nasty clown. I meant cold! How the hell do you turn off autocorrect?" I get the sense it's for Telus, but how? Do they have easy to access tech support people? guides on all their phones? What? Other people can't seem to get the message either, as google can't give me a definite answer. But everybody's laughing. Anybody know what the commercial's for? Edit: According to this, it's some kind of free Telus learning centre. here, laugh at it yourself.

The other day, I had something odd happen to me when I was out walking. A girl walked up to me and kept saying I'm gonna get one of those soon! I hope I hope hope so!" At first I assumed she was just talking on her cellphone, but something told me no, she's talking to me. She's talking to me and she's talking about a guide dog. So I asked her what school she was applying to, and she said "The CINB." I think she meant CNIB, so I had to tell her the CNIB doesn't have a guide dog school. She then said "I have workers looking into it." At this point my heart sank. I really think a person making this kind of an investment needs to be the primary person doing the research and looking into it. I asked her to come walk with me so we could talk, but she said she was going elsewhere, so I lost the opportunity to maybe talk to her a little bit. But I hope I see her again, and maybe have a better chance next time. I've never had the opportunity to really offer my experience as something to learn from besides what I write up here. I hope to be able to give to someone else what I got from that other handler so many years ago. But something tells me this person might not have been ready for it. Who knows though?

And I think that about wraps it up. I have other ideas for individual posts, but we'll see what happens. I'm so unpredictable these days.

Getting Back On Track...?

Would you look at that, I've decided to crawl out of my hole and post something! And what a suckass hole it is, I must say.

The things that put me into said hole are thankfully getting better, which is great. but as that situation improves, dealing with it has caught up to me in a big way. Essentially not sleeping for a month...don't ever do that, everyone. It's not good for you. At all. I have no memory, no focus, migraines and the constant feeling that I've had the stuffings kicked out of me and been thrown down a flight of stairs...and that's just the constant stuff. I'm feeling a bit better, but garbage and I are still close to each other on the feeling like scale, so I think I have a way to go before I can call myself what passes for normal.

Due to all this, I haven't been the most exciting fellow. I'm just sort of existing. I'm behind on just about everything and need to start catching up. I owe lots of people phone calls which upsets me because telephones give me headaches, but on the bright side, I think I'm close to the point where I can start rounding up stupidity and writing about dicks again. That's me, always trying to find the bright side of things. Hooray for dicks!

There are lots of things catching my attention that need a word or two like the whole Harper Government robo call deal, but they all require far more brain power than I currently possess, so let's start with sports.

Ron Wilson finally got fired. I say good decision. He had his few years at the job, and it's obvious that something wasn't working. Obviously not everything wrong with the Leafs right now can be laid on him, but it's clear after three plus years that things had to change. The Leafs should be right in the thick of the playoff race right now,but instead they're falling further and further behind. You don't lose 10 of 11 games this time of year with the talent level these guys have and hold the coach blameless. It's his job to get the players to respond and bounce back, and it just isn't clicking.

And while we're making coaching changes because of things not clicking, can something be done about the goaltending? Neither James Reimer or Jonas Gustavsson are bad goaltenders. In fact both have been downright awesome at times. But sometimes it seems that both of them have absolutely no confidence. Whether that's the fault of Francois Allaire, Ron Wilson or something else entirely isn't obvious to me, but it's an area that could definitely use some looking at. Even if by some miracle this team makes the playoffs, flakey goalies aren't going to keep it there long. You kind of live and die by what's going on in net, and given some of the mistakes guys have been making lately and some of the less than stellar defence, what's happening in the net needs to be top notch.

On the subject of playoffs, MLB has added a couple more spots to theirs. This is great news. It's great news because I'm a Jays fan and making the playoffs in the ridiculous AL East is pretty damn hard. Any extra chance that exists can't help but be a good thing. It's also good news for every other team for the same reason. It gives teams that are playoff worthy an actual sporting chance against the stacked teams to whom money is no object. Oh, and let's not forget that it means there will be more meaningful baseball games later in the season and perhaps even more meaningful trades and roster moves. I like that. I'm not sure how you could view this as anything other than a win. More teams have a chance to make more money by staying in the race longer, and more fans have more of a reason to keep watching and stay invested. I can't wait to see how it all plays out, even if the Jays don't make it this year.

Before I get out of here for who knows how long again, I need to vent about one small wrestling thing. For once it's mostly fans and column writers rather than anything stupid a company did.

The other day, a story came out that Ring of Honor had blocked a few of their guys from signing with WWE by enforcing contracts and not letting them go. This pissed a bunch of fans off, getting them all up in arms about how unfair it is that one company wouldn't let them leave and go make more money in another. ROH and the named wrestlers all deny it and have even made fun of the idea, for what it's worth. But heres' the thing. So what if they did? These guys are under contract to the company. Unless I am fundamentally misinformed about how contracts work, that means they can't just pick up and leave unless all parties agree to it. If ROH doesn't agree, too bad. Yes they've let guys leave before, but things are different now. ROH has a big TV deal and are now owned by a broadcast network. They're trying to grow, and you can't grow if you can't keep your talent. Look at it this way. ROH has a big 10th anniversary show tomorrow. It has title matches and important storylines are going to progress. Are you telling me that if WWE threw a bunch of money at everybody on the show to leave, that ROH should just be fine with that? That's insane! Of course they shouldn't. That's why there are contracts. The company has to protect its interests and its ability to make money and put on shows. Wrestlers aren't interchangeable and fans aren't stupid. If you slot somebody else into an angle built for a specific person, it won't work. It's fine to let people go if those people aren't involved in something, but for the sake of logic and business, you can't just let anybody with bags of money loot your promotion and kill it dead. How people don't understand this is quite honestly beyond me.

That's all for now. Time to rest my head, get some breakfast and prepare for the first Blue Jays game of the year! I know it's only spring training ball, but hey, it still means the Jays and baseball are back!

Wait. since I mentioned Ring of Honor and their 10th anniversary show, you really should order it if you like wrestling. It only costs $10, and I promise you you'll get much more action and quality storytelling out of it than you will out of just about any $50 WWE offering. You can head over to GoFightLive.tv for all the details.

See you soonish...I think.

Getting A Blood Pressure Monitor Shouldn't Raise Blood Pressure

I have to write this down in the hopes that it might help someone.

So I'm going through some fun mystery health issues. Yee ha. When they're not too bad, I can get out and about and lead a normal life. But when they rear their ugly heads and start beating on me, I'm pretty miserable. The fun is it changes from moment to moment. I'm seeing docs, docs are scratching their heads and tapping their fingers in puzzlement. I really do feel for them, none of my symptoms make sense. I think it has to do with a long-term condition I have, but then the question is how and exactly how do we fix it?

Anyway, one of the fun new wrinkles in my life is a few days ago, I noticed my pulse rate was sky friggin high. I mean, I'm sitting on the couch waiting for the 11:00 news, and jeebers I'm sweating and my whole body's going baboom baboom and fast! I broke out the stopwatch on my iThing to confirm, and wouldya look at that? That's one fast heart I've got there. Since counting beats and manipulating a stopwatch was a giant pain in the hoop, I decided it would be good to invest in a talking blood pressure monitor, and this is the reason for this post.

I was going to search out one on the internet, but of course, if I had any questions about it, I would have to wait until Monday to talk to a person. And then I would have to wait for it to ship...bla bla bla. If I could avoid it, I didn't want to suffer through another night/day of babooms wondering if I was overreacting or really, was my heart about to jump out of my chest and I should be hooked up to things that go boop. So a buddy said I should call some local pharmacies because they do carry some specialty stuff. And this was where the fun began. She had found two that would bring the product in, but again I would be waiting a few days. If I wanted one *now* I should try some of the big chains that stay open late and have stuff like wheelchairs and walkers. What a brilliant idea! I was so brain fogged by all this stuff that calling locally hadn't even crossed my mind.

I called Zellers, Walmart and Shoppers. I asked about whether they carried a talking blood pressure monitor, an their first response that whipped out of their mouth was "I don't think such a thing exists." It wasn't "hmmm I've never heard of that." or "We don't carry that." Nope, it was that item has not been invented, ha ha ha you silly person, why must you have such pipe dreams? This is ridiculous because things like this have existed for years. Luckily, I knew better, and pushed them to *try* and do some digging. They said they didn't carry them, and one of them did manage to recommend another pharmacy that I found out can order them in, but that was only one out of the 3.

This scares the bejeebers out of me, and here's why. We are living in a society with an aging population. Old people a. tend to get bad eyes, b. tend to need to monitor blood pressure, and c. tend to take their pharmacist's word as gospel. To be told by some assistant that such a thing doesn't exist could end that person's search for such a device when it's out there.

That's another thing. Even when I pressed them to look harder, I never actually got transferred up the chain. They put me on hold and came back and said nope. I have no idea whether they did more than take a closer look down the monitoring stuff aisle.

Luckily, I found links to some on the internet, and eventually found one at Radio Shack aka the source. The dude even let me test it in the store and make sure it would read enough. Funnily enough, some monitors talk, but only enough to tell you to put your arm in the cuff, sit down and cram it. They don't actually read the readings. But this one did, and did pulse and compared my reading to WHO standards. It even says it wishes you all the best and stay healthy. That always makes me chuckle after it's given a high reading. It's comforting to know I can monitor my own blood pressure and pulse at home whenever I feel like it.

But people who work in pharmacies, please, make an effort when someone asks you for a specialty product. Even if you've never heard of it, please look. You guys have access to company reps and distributors that we don't have. Please, get educated! And if you can't do it because you're not a pharmacist, please connect the person to someone who can devote the time to doing proper research. You could actually stand between someone and the device they need.

A Post With A Bunch Of Stuff In It Just To Show You We're Alive

So...this place sure has been hopping lately, eh? Yeah...about that. I'm sorry. Really, I am. But to be honest, it can't be helped, and I can't say when it's going to get better.

I don't want to get into a whole lot of specifics, so I'll leave it at this: There are a few things going on around here that are making dick jokes, bad music, random videos and stories about retarded people doing even more retardeder things seem much less important than usual. To those of you who know what's been happening, thanks for the support. To the rest of you, hang in there. We're not trying to be lazy asses, That's just how it's had to be for a while.

By the way, remind me never to have a sleep-related brain snap around the same time as a very stressful ongoing event. It doesn't end well, I'm finding.

Now...what can I tell you that you might not already know?

If you're James McGhee, you don't seem to know that wearing a shirt with best dad written on it in your sex offender registry photo isn't the best idea you've ever come up with, especially since you needed that photo because of a little thing called sexual exploitation of a minor.

If you're Misty Lawson, you may not know how much trouble punching your 10-year-old son a few times during a visit with an anger management counselor will get you in, even if the kid might be a little shit.

If you're Vince Russo, you most definitely do not know how cocksuckingly horrible you are at your job about 98% of the time. You may, however, be aware of the celebrations being thrown by wrestling fans upon hearing the news that you've finally been relieved of it. If anything was going to make me feel happy enough to write again at least for a moment, it's this.

"TNA and Vince Russo have mutually parted ways as of this week. The separation is amicable and professional. We are glad for the opportunity to have worked together and wish each other nothing but good luck and success in the future."

Here's to success meaning that he opens up another video store and stays away from the wrestling business he's helped ruin for good. Good riddance to whatever it is that books worse than bad rubbish.

If you're WWE, you have no idea how sad I am and how much I kind of hate you guys right now for taking the Funkasaurus away from me. He was different and he was fun, both things that your product mostly hasn't been in years. Oh well, at least we'll always have the memories.



Somebody call my mama!

If you're the Earl Witty responsible for running the RIDE program, you could, pending the results of the current investigation, soon learn that showing up to work while on the sauce might sound fun on paper, but really isn't all it's cracked up to be. Not very witty of you if I may say so, officer.

And finally, if you're lots of people, you might not know that the 6Dot Braille Labeler that Carin made mention of a while ago is out of the development stage and ready to be ordered! On the list of blind folk gadgets I'd like to own, this one ranks pretty high. I'm saying this sight unseen, by the way. Yes, I do hear you chuckling at that, sighted person. Carry on.

And for now, I think I'm going to make that everything. You all should be well and learned up now, I hope. We'll try to check in soon, whenever that is.

It's Brain Splatter Time

Well, I might be able to babble a while. That last post was kind of lame.

The other day, Honey by Bobby Goldsboro came on the radio. My memories of that song were that it was a kinda sappy song that made me all sad. But listening to it now, again I notice myself turning into quite the jaded individual. When I heard it again now, I thought gees what a needy woman! I think I'd go mad if I were him! Crying because he wasn't home just at the right time? It sounded like she was more like his kid than his wife for Pete's sake! He really enjoyed having someone so dependent and so...well...kinda dumb? What's wrong with him? I wonder does he miss her, or now can he actually live his life? So is it me, or is it the song? Maybe it's a little bit of both.

Man the huppy's growing up. He can talk in sentences, he can count to at least 5, knows his full name and you can almost have a whole conversation with him. He's always trying to help me, and the other day he tried to tell me my boot had come untied. All he could manage was "Carin! Your brown boots!" But the way he said it I knew he was trying to tell me something. And he was just an itty bitty baby not too long ago. He hasn't even turned 3 yet.

Back a while ago, I mentioned that wicked cold. Well, now it's left a bit of a legacy. I still have a bit of a cough and can't seem to get enough air. But my chest x-ray is clean. I'll be going back to the doctor hopefully Monday so we can try and figure this out. I hope it's an easy fix. Something similar happened to me years ago and all we had to do was change a medicine, so hopefully that's the case this time. It's not a comfortable feeling having to take huge deep breaths just to get a normal amount of oxygen. A couple of times, I've wondered if I should get my buns to the ER. Hopefully it won't come to that.

Here's a commercial I don't get. It's for the cheesy bites pizza from Pizza hut. I can't find it, damn it, but you hear this woman say "I love what you've done to the place." and then you hear the kid say "I told you this would be fun." and then you hear the adults sound like they're about to hurl going, "Yeah, real fun." and then it ends with a guy telling us to make dinner time fun time with the cheesy bites pizza, with 28 fun cheesy-filled bites.

Whaaa?

Even if I don't pay attention to the weird dialog, what's so fun about some cheese on a pizza? And cheesy-filled? Makes me think there's no cheese in there at all. At any rate, I really don't want to try one.

Now on to some Trixter talk. I have discovered she's very picky about her water! Either that, or she just hates the water cooler at work. I would always fill up her bowl, and she would never drink out of it. Then she would come home, tank up like mad, and need extra pee breaks. I thought it probably wasn't healthy for her to drink like that, and Steve thought maybe she didn't like the water out of the cooler. So I started bringing water bottles filled up from the tap from home, and she definitely drinks more of that water than the water cooler stuff. Trix, you're odd. But at least you're not drinking all your water at night.

I've noticed the last little while that if we walk a long way, she will need extra chances to pee than she used to. She used to only maybe pee once, and maybe poop once if we went really long. Now, she pees at least twice mid walk, once at the beginning and once at the end. Is this just an older dog thing? She doesn't seem to need extra relieving times when at rest, but there are definitely more pee breaks on walks.

This winter, or near lack of it, has had Trix all confused. By January, she was acting as if spring had sprung. Silly pooch. I'm sure she was very disappointed when more snow came.

Man, Trix was mad about the new bus locations. Well, it was more that she couldn't go on autopilot after a long walk. She knows where the old bus to go home was. Unfortunately, that's nowhere near where the bus pulls in now. So when I asked her to go to the new location, she pretty much threw a fit! She thought we weren't going home, and she wasn't having it! Ah Trix, you've forgotten. We get on the bus over *here* to go home now.

I don't know what it is, but lately I've had more fears about Trixie retiring. It's a scary thought that she's almost 7, and the average dog's working career lasts until they are 8 or so. So when I see things that are of concern, they really play into my fears. It's probably unnecessary, but I'm a worry wart, it's going to happen.

First there are the wee little things. Stuff like the amount of stretching she does when she gets up. She used to give it one good stretch. Now, she has to stretch one way, then another, then stretch again, and then she's ready to go. That's probably just her getting older, but I notice it. I also notice her doing the full body shake, like she's shaking off water, more often. I've heard that can be a stress thing, and I worry that all this zooming to Kitchener and back is stressing her out, even though I don't think so because I've done my best to keep her actual schedule close to what it was.

Then there are the bigger things. For a while it seemed like she didn't like jumping into the truck with me. As we headed to the elevator, she would walk all slow. I also noticed that sometimes, when navigating my work space, she didn't seem to know what to do. Going around the pole seemed like an impossible task. And once, recently, she got really confused at a complicated intersection and targeted the island in the middle of the road. This floored me because she knows not to hit that island and to go all the way across. I'm hoping that was just a freak occurrence. But other days she is just fine.

Then yesterday, after we had done a big walk downtown, when we set off to Dairy Queen, she fought me all the way. It could have just been that she didn't like to walk in the falling snow and sensed it would get worse, but it scared me.

One day, she stepped on something that bothered her paw. But she didn't lift the paw like she usually does. She dug all four paws in and wouldn't move. I could not for the life of me figure out what was wrong. She wouldn't even heel, and we were headed towards home! It was at this point that I felt panic set in. Was she telling me she was done? Out of desperation, I rubbed each paw, and once I fixed the one that was bothering her, she took off like normal, but I didn't like the way that putting on the brakes made me feel.

Then other days she's awesome. It scares the hell out of me to think that that awful day is looming far sooner than I expected. Hopefully not, but only time will tell. I was hoping Trix could work until she was at least 9 or so. Hopefully I get my wish.

And I think that's all I can think of. I hate to end things on a downer like that, but I'm all out of ideas.

A Word Or 6 On Fixing Computers, And Happy Birthday Carin!

I'm not a hardcore tech support guy, but enough people look in my direction when bad things happen to perfectly good computers to make this seem like a worthwhile article. 5 Things You Should Know Before Trying to Fix Your Computer.

There is much great advice to be found here, but sadly most of it is going to fall on deaf ears, I'm afraid. I'm not sure what it is, but completely smart, reasonable people are just not capable of understanding anything when it comes to computers. You can put things in the simplest of terms and they're completely lost. Sometimes it looks like they get it, but you're fixing the same damn thing for the same reason within a year, usually a lot quicker than that.

The malware section I find particularly amusing. That, more than any other computery thing, is my department. And it really is that hard to get people to click the fucking button...whether that button be fix or update.

Which, I should point out, brings me to another problem. Those free programs are awesome. They've saved many a system that I've set them loose on. But as with anything else, there's a catch. The free version's don't run in the background and more importantly, they don't update automatically. You can install the best software there is, but if nobody's updating it and running it now and then like you've told them to, you're no further ahead. It's hard to fix today's infections with 5 months ago's detection routines. I really can't fault the software companies. They have to make a buck to keep development going and selling automation is a good way to do that. But it's a serious pain in my ass when somebody gets one of those no, I'm not letting you update anything kind of infections and I have to find a way around it.

I guess what I'm really trying to get at here is people, please do what I tell you. If I say it's ok to hit the button, hit the thing. If I say please update this program once every week or 2 and then run it when you won't need the system for a while, it won't kill you to wait on putting up that awesome Facebook status for a while. In fact it'll save you lots of waiting when you don't have to pack your system off to Mr. Fix it again. Please, just listen to me. I'm trying to help.

Ok, I'm off to buy Carin a birthday dinner at Guelph's new Works Burger. I hope not to think much about computers while I'm gone.

Happy birthday, Carin! I hope it's been a good day even though they made you work through it. And I'm happy I could help you win the DQ cake from CJOY. Yes me, involved in winning something. I can't believe it either.

Thanks again to all of you who threw gift suggestions at me. Something is coming, albeit a little late. But that doesn't mean I shafted her on gifts. She got something today. Not that, you perverts...at least not yet.

Ok, I've said too much. I'm seriously going for food now.

Hopefully This Song Doesn't Predict My Future

Well, the day has come. I have found a dentist, and I'm headed there. I kept putting it off, and I finally made myself go.

Partly because of our dentists tag, and partly because it's hard to find a dentist that will take my dental plan, I went strictly on recommendations. I was not going to find some random dentist. That was just too scary a prospect. Two of the dentists that were recommended weren't the easiest to go to, so I chose one of the easier ones. Now let's hope it was the right choice. The receptionist seemed a bit intimidating. One of the first sentences out of her mouth after saying they were taking patients was "Are you good at keeping appointments? If you don't show up for an appointment or don't cancel 24 hours in advance, we kick you out." Well, hello, and a warm welcome to you too. I also don't think she truly grasps the idea of blind. That should be fun and a half when she whips out the form and tells me to start writing.

And, I haven't been to a dentist with Trix yet. Yup, it's been that long. Shame, shame, shame! So I don't know how she'll respond either, or if anything stupid will happen. Baaaa.

So, because my brain is cruel as hell, it decided the greatest soundtrack for the day would be Psychostick - The Root Of All Evil


Really? Must you? It's been a long time and I'm not exactly leaping for joy to go. Why would you do that to me, brain? You're evil.

So, hopefully I don't have more to post about after my afternoon appointment.

The Shortest Holiday Wrap-Up Ever!

Well holy crap, it's another year starting. Each year seems to go faster and faster. Before we know what hit us, Christmas will be here again and I'll be repeating the same stuff. I don't think this holiday update will be as huge as they usually are.

I'm happy to report that unlike last Christmas, there were absolutely no trips to the ER in either of our families. Also, although Steve has caught my bastard of a cold, I can't imagine him needing to visit an ER or chamber of fate anytime soon. This is very good. I have also survived my first four Christmas dinner hop. It was definitely busy, and kept us hopping.

Despite my best intentions, I did not whip that cold into submission. I apparently looked like death warmed over at Steve's family's Christmas Eve due, but I made it, and thanks to Buckly's cold and sinus pills, I didn't feel quite as bad as I looked. It was a good time, and the kids made it fun for sure. Damn are they getting big. I feel old.

Then it was Christmas Day, and I think the calmest day of the bunch. It was just the immediate family who hung out, and we spent the day snacking and opened presents when Steve's sister got home from work. I got some cool stuff, including more clothes I can wear to work, which is always appreciated, and lots of candy and fun stuff. Steve got a new office chair, which he has been enjoying quite a lot. For dinner, we had ribs, wings and stuff like that, to break up the monotony of turkey, turkey, turkey!

The next day, I started to wonder if I was a jynx in terms of power outages. Although last year was an exception, the two years before that, the power has gone out for my parents while I was home at Christmas, and this year, even though there were no storms or icy conditions to speak of, the power went out on Boxing Day, right before we were supposed to eat.

Steve's stepdad's family were all there. The turkey was merrily cooking and we were getting ready to put the vegetables on, when bammo! Lights out! We first wondered if we blew a breaker, but oh no, a phone call from Steve's sister who was working told us this was no breaker. She said the whole town had lost power. Hmmm! That puts a new spin on dinner, doesn't it?

Luckily the turkey had finished cooking, so it was turkey on a bun with stuffing for all! It was kind of funny watching people try to navigate in the dark until we got the candles lit.

For the next while, we played games by the fireplace. Thankfully the power came back on five hours later, so we didn't have to use the fireplace for heat through the night.

The next day it was off to Steve's dad's for another Christmas dinner. The poor guy, I think Trix terrorized him for most of the day. I don't know why she was so fascinated with him, but she would not leave him alone! While we were there, I played with the old Apple with that silly Echo voice, and made a recording of it which I'll put up soon. It's not the best, but maybe it's ok. That was really weird to see that old computer. It felt odd just flicking the off switch when we were done with it. I kept thinking "Um, don't we have to shut it down?"

Then, we came back here and tried to find homes for all our new stuff. You should see our little patio table. It is seriously stacked high with chocolates and other junk food. I'm sure we look weird.

So that was Christmas. For a while, since I didn't go home to my own family, I had a hard time believing that it was in fact here, and gone, but it is. Now it's on to the new year.

What a year 2011 was. From the news front, holy upheaval batman! Lots and lots and lots of uprisings and protests and earthquakes and tornados and death and change and...a whole lot of stuff that I'm probably forgetting. I can hope that maybe it felt more overwhelming because I was hearing about it super fast on Twitter, but I really think it was a pretty intense year.

As for me personally, it definitely had its fair share of ups and downs, but it sure ended on a high note with my new job. I look back on last year's wrap-up, and how I wanted to figure out how to do more of this accessibility stuff, and yea, I got my wish! I think this year will be a year of expanding my brain. I have a whole lot to learn. Now I just need to figure out the most efficient way to do it.

Really, is that all I have to say this go round? I think so. Happy New Year, and I hope this year brings us all nothing but good and happy things.

Thought Explosions About #SpikeMobileCCC and other things.

Here comes another monster o thoughts. While I'm doing the laundry, I might as well write a blog post.

This whole being out of town part time thing has taught me that I suck at time-management. I was always able to get by since I had lots of flexibility to get stuff done. I didn't get to that today? Oh well I'll do it tomorrow. Now, I have to think ahead to make sure I get everything done on my off days.

Even laundry has become slightly more of a pain since our building has those inaccessible laundry card-filler-uppers. So, if I'm getting low on laundry money, I have to either a. coordinate like hell to be there when the huppy's mom is doing laundry, or b. pray to the lord above that someone will be down there to help me fill the damn card. I'm seriously thinking about rounding up an apartment-sized washer/dryer set. Seriously I am.

Since I don't have as much time/energy to look at Twitter as I did before, I've started organizing the people I follow into lists. As a result, I'm uber behind on the news, people's retweets and random folks I decided to follow. I really need to fix that giant news Twitter hole I've created though. That's just shameful.

And because I'm behind on people's retweets, I didn't notice in enough time that The guys who did Twittereen were at it again, with another contest, Countdown2Christmas.

I suck, and have missed out on two days of the contest, but I don't care. I'm still going to try. I mean, look at the prizes! They wrote 'em out. Yeah yeah yeah I would like a leak-proof travel mug and a Timmy's card. Sure I would.

So wish me good luck in what's left of this here contest, There aren't any iThings, but the contest is still cool.

Edit: looks like I didn't need the luck, since before I posted this, I won the prize I wanted. Yea! Gimme gimme gimme my Timmy Timmy Timmy's stuff!

Another sign that I obviously don't have this whole time-management thing down: I didn't get a happy birthday Steve post up like I try to do. Failbox! Well I guess I did pay for his dinner at Smokin' Tony's. Maybe that makes up for it.

By the way...Smokin' Tony's? Om nom nom! Check out their menu. They really give you a lot of food, and it's good. Mmm sweet potato casserole! When I first walked in I was afraid you could only take your food and go...but then I remembered. They serve beer, they must intend for people to sit down. And they did, and they were great.

Even though Steve and I are doing Christmas together, we figured for the sake of not lugging each other's gifts on the road, we'd exchange our gifts on Steve's birthday. That's probably a good idea, since I can't keep a secret at all. Out of the 6 things I got Steve, he knew what 3 of them were, and had guessed at a fourth. It kind of kills the surprise element when he knew what half the stuff was already. And he didn't snoop, it's because I can't keep a secret worth a damn...and an email came in which had the name of one of his gifts in the subject line..which just happened to read as he walked in the room. Damn JAWS, ya busted me. can't win for losin'.

But I'm happy to say that I own all the Austin Lounge Lizards CD's to date, and their concert DVD! Oooo that one's gonna be fun! Will have to review those when I get some time...so considering my big pile of comments about my lack of ability to time-manage...could be a while.

It is really hard to believe it's Christmas. I'm happy there's no snow, but it's hard to remember to wish people a merry Christmas and stuff when I'm not trompling through the snow. Christmas is going to be here and gone before I know what hit me.

And I think I've found the song that is as irritating to me as it's the most wonderful time of the year is to Steve. It's Do They Know It's Christmas.
I know it was a song raising money for people in Africa, but the line about "Do they know it's Christmas time" kinda bugs me. Maybe they don't care. What if they celebrate something else? And don't they need the money the rest of the year too? I don't know, there's something about that song that bugs me.

So they're starting a Go Train service out of Guelph. Right now it's designed to shuttle people to Toronto, but I hope some day it will go to Kitchener, giving me more options for travel to my awesome job. But as a preview, they gave everyone a free trip to Kitchener, and because a friend was also going, she asked me if I wanted to. Sure, what the heck!

So we headed for the train. She's a far bigger Go guru (goru?) than I am, so told me all about the accessible car, and how if I'm going to take the train, I'd be best to get on there. For one, there's always a person there watching for folks. For another, it always pulls up in the same spot, and third, it opens at every stop! Yup, sounds like a deal to me.

We got on, and actually got to talk to our MPP Liz Sandals. She was surprised that the bus service from Guelph to KW had deteriorated so badly. We talked for a little while to her about how awesome this whole Go service thing would be, because really it's the only truly accessible public transit service there is for folks in wheelchairs. Greyhound? Yeah right. Via? pfffft! Go Bus? Maybe if the drivers remember to do the fancy dancin' with a strip of seats. But with Go Trains, it's cool. A ramp comes out to close the gap between platform and train, and folks in wheelchairs just wheely wheely wheel onboard, and there's an area that's designated as accessible seating...although women with strollers think that means they're entitled, even though there are seniors with walkers and people with wheelchairs in plain sight. May you develop a disability making that seat necessary for you later in life and encounter a stroller-wheeling woman just like you. That is all. But the point is Go is really the only way to go for folks in wheelchairs, so let's start Go-ing in more directions.

The trip was wicked fast, like 20 minutes. Yup, I could deal with that. It's too bad poor Go got stuck behind a broken down freight train, which delayed their exit by an hour. But the trip itself was pretty cool.

In this rambling winding post of crazy, I have to give two gigantic woo's to a couple of folks in a couple of businesses. Let's start with Portions Canada. I heard about them through Twitter, the way I seem to hear about most things these days, and they were talking about having gluten-free food and prepared meals for folks with diabetes and stuff. I knew the shoe thief was kind of run ragged by a bunch of stuff, so I decided to get him a couple of frozen meals and some cookies. So off I went on a crazy adventure.

Can I say again that Google Transit is the worst thing known to man? Unless I'm an epic fail at using it, it always tells me the exactly wrong bus to get on to get to a given destination. I saw a link to it on the Portions Canada's Google map, so I thought I'd try it. "Take the 1 Woodlawn," it said. So I called Guelph Transit to get more details, and their response? "Um? 1 Woodlawn? To get there? Um, erm, not even close! You have to take the 22!"

But that's beside the point. I just couldn't miss the opportunity to rag on Google Transit. After going on a wild adventure through the city, being dumped on a giant grassy sidewalkless zone and being escorted across a busy parking lot to the store, the people *in* the store were nothing short of awesome. They told me next time, just call before I come and they'll come meet me at the bus stop! Not only that, but they went through things until I found the perfect combo of stuff. And to top it off, they delivered it to the shoe thief for me! Like, um, holy crap?

So if you're in the market for gluten-free goodies, stuff for folks with Diabetes or kidney disease, and I'm sure lots of other things, pop in there and see what you will find. But I have learned that if you're alergic to garlic, you should definitely not pop in there. All their meals and stuff have garlic in 'em. Ah well, how else are you going to flavour it without salt?

I have to also give a gigantic thankya to a very cool employee at Wind Mobile. Long story time. I have a blind friend who has been searching for a phone that he could at least possibly operate a little bit. Every phone he gets, he has been promised it talks, but all it has is voice recognition, i.e. "please say a command." That works to an extent, but you can't enter your own contacts, or operate most of the phone's functions. So, eventually, in frustration, he asked me to go with him to the store to see what we could see.

I first went in hoping they had something that could have the Nokia Screen Reader installed on it. I know it's free and kind of preliminary, but CodeFactory had their hand in it, I thought it would get us by. But they had nothing that would take that screen reader. So the woman from Wind Mobile toiled, talked to Samsung tech support, and twisted that phone into halfway working to the point that he might be able to at least get to voice command on his own.

This was no easy feat, but she did it. Not only that, but she taught me a few things about his phone, so I could continue helping him. Adrien from Wind Mobile in Old Quebec Street Mall in Guelph, you are the most awesome of awesome, and we appreciate all your hard work. Thanks to you, I was able to show him a couple more things. You deserve to get promoted yesterday.

You know, I have been buzzed by several colds and flus, and as each one zooms by, I thank my lucky stars. I did not want to be sick and need time off when I'm just starting work. But now, just before Christmas, I've got this wicked cough. Sometimes, when I cough, I sound like I'm pulling a Carl Barron. I can't find a damn clip of him doing it, but maybe others have heard him do that bit with the loud dry sounding cough. I'm hoping to beat it into submission before Friday when we head for Steve's family.

This got me to thinking. Why is it perfectly ok to come home for Christmas with your own family when you have a cold, but if you're going to someone else's family, that's just wrong? Why is it ok to infect your own family? Yup, we're weird.

I've been told by several people that Trixie has a lot more white around her muzzle. Um, eek? I don't like the physical reminders that she is getting older. I know she's still young, but well, it's just another reminder, like the pile of her city tags in the drawer, that time marches on.

I'm making a little something for Trixie's raisers this Christmas. I still don't know if they read here, so can't say what it is yet, but I hope they enjoy it. It'll have to arrive late this year, because I lost their address in the hard drive crash of doom in May, and I've emailed them but haven't heard back yet.

I got some very sad news yesterday. Don't worry, noone died, but it kind of feels like someone did. I just found out that the Fresh at Home program has suddenly been discontinued. You know what that means? No more easy to get local and awesome food. It's back to the grocery store for us, which is one big boo. It was cool that it was delivered, but the cooler part was how amazing it was. It truly was amazing. I don't know what happened to it, but one day, there was a program and the next it was gondo. It makes Steve and I very sad pandas.

And I think this monster has gone for quite long enough. I should be snoring, 6 a.m. comes early. So...I will post, fall down, and finish the thoughts I had left over in another post. Yes, I have more, and other posts that need a place up here. But I have to stop or I'll be no good to anyone tomorrow.

I Won the Right to Save Some Bills, I Saw Some Bills And Quickly Try To Save My Radio Sanity

Just a couple of small things I forgot to mention/didn't know I'd be mentioning while I was brain dumping away yesterday.

The WWE pay-per-view prediction contest I've mentioned here and there is over. And in an act completely uncharacteristic of me, I won! I managed to keep the 2 point lead I had going into the final month, which I fully expected to blow because that's just how I roll. As a result of my great triumph, a couple hundred dollars stays in my pocket in the form of subscription fees I don't have to pay for a few years! Excuse me as I pause a moment to savour what given my track record could be the last time I ever win anything!

...!!!

...!!!

...!!!

Yay!!!!!!!!!!

...!!!

And with that, we may move on.

These hundreds aren't related to the ones I just wrote about, but I got my hands on one of Canada's new $100 bills yesterday. They're weird and are going to take some getting used to.

I obviously can't describe the look of them, but the feel is not at all like money. The best way to explain them is that they feel a bit like receipts, but more like the shiny junk that company's stuff in with your bills and statements every month. If you're not paying attention, you could easily toss one out while cleaning up paper.

But on the bright side for people who find them useful on our current money, the Braille full cells seem to stand out better on these new ones. I can never remember how many cells are supposed to be on each denomination so this means little to me right now, but hey, there's that. Maybe better cells will help me over time since the proper number will actually stay there instead of being rubbed out within 5 minutes.

If the new design stops fraud I'm all for it, but right now I'm not sure how to feel. I want my money to feel like money, not like garbage. Lots of things feel like garbage, while very few things feel like money. I know me, and I'm sure the day will come when I toss out some cash because I made the mistake of setting it down and forgetting about it. I also know I'm not the only blind person who feels that way. I showed it to Carin and she said the same thing. Yes we have mind beams, but we don't agree on everything, believe it or not. she likes the money cells, for a start.


If you've never seen one of these new bills, Google Images tells me that this is a picture of one. I hope Google Images is correct. I know from the searches that some of you would appreciate photos of goats humping, but if I'm gonna post those I'd like to do it intentionally, you understand.

Before I go, I want to pass on a quick message to CJOY. Guys, there are more than 17 Christmas songs. Can you please start playing a few of them? If I hear All I Want for Christmas Is My 2 Front Teeth one more time... Thanks for your understanding.

Here, Have A Post

This is one of those posts where I start writing without much of an idea of what I'm going to write about and see where it takes me.

It's been a busy last few days. Friday consisted of some running around, a late lunch with my brother and sister and then seeing the Arrogant Worms again with Carin and that same brother. Carin and I have seen the Worms at least four times, and it's always great. And after all this time, we finally got to meet them! It's amazing how much easier it is to meet people when you happen to get into a long conversation with somebody who happens to have one of them as a family friend. Here, have a nice little Christmas song about a fellow you may not have heard of to help get you in the spirit. Christmas is just around the corner, you know. Raaaaaaaaaaaaar! That'll make sense if you were there, like we were. Speaking of which, the being there like we were thing will only truly make sense if you're me, Carin or Brad.



Question: With all the advancements we've made in so many ways in this world, when is somebody getting around to figuring out toilet paper that your finger isn't going through? Just wondering, because that sucks. I like surprises, but not that one.

Ok, so where was I? Saturday was a nice birthday breakfast with Carin and my brother, a visit with my grandparents and then an evening filled with Shoe Thieving Christmas cheer. The major takeaway from the night is that Innis and Gunn is some amazingly good beer, I must say.

Sunday was pretty relaxing, but it would have been much more enjoyable had I been able to sleep more than a couple of hours. I did have a strange dream during my little bits of sleep though. The weather fell over. Carin and I were lying in bed and there was a sound like electric guitars ending a song or playing an open chord, I can't remember which. We both looked at each other and went aww crap! Don't tell me the goddamn weather just fell over. Guess we'd better get out there and pick it up. So there we were, heading outside, trying to pick up the weather as if it were a Christmas tree of sorts. There was just the two of us out there trying to right things for the entire world, but it was like this wasn't out of the ordinary. We expected it would just be us. We first tried to get under the weather, but the sun was too hot so we couldn't touch it. But even if we could have grabbed onto it like we'd hoped, there was so much snow on top of it that we wouldn't have been able to lift it anyway. I'm not sure how it turned out because I woke up right then, but I'll assume things went ok since it's still weathering out there.

I was in a cab the other day and the station on the radio was plugging its commercial free Sundays. The guy said "commercial free Sundays are brought to you by..." and then listed a couple of sponsors. Call me crazy, but isn't that a commercial?

Yesterday was my birthday. Thanks to everybody for all of the good wishes, by the way. I appreciate it. I was surprised how many happy birthdays I got from Twitter. I think I got more tweets than I did emails, which is sort of odd to me. Not complaining at all, just something I noticed. Maybe there really is something to the idea that email is losing some favour. Not with me, but with other people. Either that or the Twitter folks just like me more. Naaah, it can't possibly be that.

I learned something yesterday. If you eat at Casey's and you can prove that it's your actual birthday, your meal is free. Mom made a birthday boy comment while the waitress was around to see if we could score one of those free desserts like most places will give you, and she said that if I had ID to prove that today was my birthday, it was on the house. I gave it to her, she took it away with her and when she came back with the bill, sure enough my stuff wasn't on it. I hope for their sake they take the IDs and put them in a system somewhere so people who aren't as nice as me won't game the system and ruin it for everyone.

I picked up my gift wrapped Amazon package from the post office the other day. the mail is so weird around here. Not only do you never know when something's going to the post office as opposed to coming to the door, but half the time you don't even know which post office it's going to. And helpfully, that bit of information never seems to come out when you run the little cards through the scanner. The gift wrapping is...interesting. It has flat ribbons on it and the gift is covered in what feels kind of like glossy cardboard. Picture a CD digipak. If you know what that is, you know what this stuff feels like. It's not what I was expecting. When I think wrapping, I think paper. But hey, as long as it looks ok, who cares, right? I guess I'll be finding that out soon.

Here's a question for people who use Amazon more than I do. Why would you bother choosing anything higher than the standard shipping? Whenever I buy from Amazon, I choose the regular and I'll get my stuff in a day, perhaps two. Do you really need stuff faster than that, and more importantly, how much faster can it get? Let's say for the sake of argument that my standard shipping always takes two days. If you choose the next level up...let's call it express since I can't remember what it actually is, maybe you get your packages the next day. And the third level, we'll call it priority, what's the point of that? You have the two day shipping and the one day shipping, so what can it possibly do? Do your things land on your doorstep before the thank you for ordering page finishes loading? Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like a bit of a scam to me.

Question: Ever have one of those days where you totally want to tell somebody to F off, but you realize that it would actually make things less annoying and complicated to deal with if you didn't, and then you use your better judgment and do the smart thing and keep your mouth shut even though it's not as fun? I'm sure you all have. Well, that's so me today. But even though I'm not going to do it in real life, I here and now send out a gigantic, heartfelt and hearty go fuck yourself to the bane of my existence on this day from all of us here at Vomit Comet World HQ. You deserve it. Merry Christmas...koont. Ok, I feel a touch better now.

So I'm watching TV the other night and I see a commercial for a low dose, daily use version of Cialus. You take it every day like people take the low dose aspirin. The voiceover said something like, "it may not happen every day, but you can be ready when it does." Naturally, then comes the list of the horrible death that awaits you should you dare ingest the stuff. the first thing mentioned, swear to Christ, was headache. Bit of a mixed message, isn't it? Take this and be ready to go when she is...unless you're not up to it. Instead of performing, you're the one saying "not tonight honey, I have a headache."

I think that went well...ish. I'll talk to you all again soon. Oh, and before I forget, happy Hanukkah too all of our Jewish readers. Jewish people read websites, right? I'm not up on all these weird foreign cultures and customs that the world has now. Seriously, all the best of whatever season it is that you celebrate to all of you. Thanks for reading, especially if you made it through this garbage. We appreciate all of you.

A Few Words On Guelph Transit's Ridiculousness

Excuse me for a second while I rant about Guelph Transit. Yes, again.

Listen, guys. I understand that you have a tough job. Pleasing everybody in a city of 100 some thousand people many of whom have different wishes, wants and needs cannot be an easy task. I'll even be up front and admit that I'm glad that task isn't mine. But a job being tough is no excuse for you being kind of terrible at it.

Routes change. Sometimes circumstances make that a necessary evil. I get that. But when you can't make even the smallest of changes without screwing senior citizens and the disabled out of stops they need, that's bad. Not only is it bad, it's stupid. What's even more stupid is telling the very people you just hosed that these changes will make things better for everybody. Oh really? Try telling that to the old woman in the walker who can barely get around but now has to walk several blocks instead of getting on the bus right outside her door, or the guy fresh off the knee surgery who now has to cross at an unsafe location and be quick about it to get to his therapy when he used to be able to go a few feet across a parking lot. It'll save us lots of time, you say. Sometimes upwards of 5 minutes. First of all, I ride the route near the hospital you messed up. It only took like 30 seconds to go through there. And if that 5 minutes needed saving so badly, why do I sometimes find myself on buses that need to sit on the side of the road doing nothing for almost that long so that they don't get in too early?

Yes, some of those issues have been fixed, but it's going to take me a while to get over it because I don't understand how a logical person could allow that to happen. Even worse, I assume that there's more than one person drawing these things up and approving them. How is it possible to be so out of touch with your audience? Have any of you ever taken a bus? That's a serious question, because I really do wonder. If you ever happen to saunter onto one, take a look around. I'll bet you'll see a few old/disabled people if you wait a few minutes.

And logic. That brings me to my new problem. Like I said, I get that routes sometimes need modification. But do they really need wholesale modification...at the beginning of January? Did nobody see the problem with this? Since I assume from past experience that the answer is no, I'll spell it out for you.

In which country is Guelph located? Did you say Canada? Very good.

January in Canada is usually...? I heard somebody say cold. Well done!

Along with the cold in Canada in January, there is usually a lot of what on the ground? Snow is correct. Gosh, you're good at this. Probably too good. Don't ever apply for a planning job with Transit, you're over qualified.

When the route a person needs to take to reach a destination is suddenly no longer the same, that person can and likely will become...? That's right, lost.

Getting lost in below freezing temperatures when you need to be somewhere on a schedule is...? Frustrating is a good answer. the judges would have also accepted a rather poor customer experience.

Therefore, changing everything there is to change in the middle of winter rather than in the nicer weather when the new terminal is supposed to open and some stuff will have to change anyway is...? I heard pretty goddan retarded. Yes, we'll take that.

Forgive me for being so angry, but frozen lost late blind guy marooned in a snow drift that used to be a sidewalk and some grass in an unfamiliar area is not how I'd like to spend an afternoon or 15. Again I must ask, how do things like this happen? Better yet, how and why are they allowed to happen? If the aim is to grow ridership by getting people out of their cars and onto the bus, shouldn't you be trying to make transit more convenient rather than even less so than it is now?

I don't think I'm over simplifying anything, because this part of things really isn't that complicated...is it? All it takes is a little thought and a few sets of open eyes and ears so you can see and hear what people expect from their bus system. Maybe that's the problem. Rather than taking your time, you'd much rather ram things through and hope nobody will notice. But believe me, we notice. and we're going to have a lot of time to keep noticing while we're busy not getting places on time in the cold. Thanks again for that, by the way.

Complaining, Christmas And Wrestling

You know what sucks? Migraines. You know what sucks more? Migraines that last for a couple of days and then leave you a worn out shell for another day after they're gone. And you know what else sucks? Getting over the migraine, feeling better for a day and then running smack into one of those colds that lays you flat and all you want to do and all you really have the energy to do is sleep. So yeah...that's why the blog's been quiet other than the odd joke and the stuff Carin wrote on the weekend. Hopefully we can stop sucking so much and get this thing going again...just in time to disappear for Christmas.

I think I'm ready for Christmas. I need to buy some more stuff for Carin, pick up the other half of the Shoe Thief's gift and wait for something to come in the mail, but I think aside from that, the shopping is all done. It's funny, because I'm never sure if the shopping is really done or not. This year Carin and I are spending Christmas together for the first time. Not together in our own place, but together. We figured we'd alternate between spending it with my family and her family, and for some reason we're starting with mine. Don't give me that typical selfish man stuff, it was Carin's choice.

Where was I? Right, shopping. Shopping is always interesting around here. For quite a few years, we threw a big New Year's Eve party. A lot of our good friends would come, and since they were close pals, we'd often exchange gifts. So every year we'd have to know who was coming ahead of time and shop accordingly. Then a couple of years ago we quit having the parties. They were fun, but too much damn work. Carin's family lives 6 hours away and while mine is closer, I'd come back and have to get ready to have a few days worth of guests immediately after being away for a week and going to something like 4 Christmas get togethers on consecutive days...sometimes two on the same day. There wouldn't even be time to unpack, and poor Carin would come off of a huge road trip and some years be dropped right into a party in progress. We're still young, but we're too old for this shit. We decided that it'd be a good idea to stop throwing the parties while they were still fun so that maybe we'd want to do them again someday. But one of the consequences of this is that it messes with my head. Do I need to buy something for that guy? NO, we're probably not seeing him until April. What about him, he'll be at the New year...oh yeah, we don't do that anymore. And this year is even worse. Not only am I still doing that with the usual suspects, but now Carin isn't going on her usual trip. That means I don't have to get anything for our friend up there right away, which is odd. And Carin's family can't decide if they're exchanging gifts or not, so I have no idea whether I'm supposed to be buying them things. My brain, which can be a real pain in the ass sometimes, is having a freaking field day with this. It keeps going over and over the list, stopping on all the people I have nothing for, making me feel worried about it and then reminding me that it's all good...only to do it all over again with the added vision of a giftless person handing me a present.

Speaking of presents, I did something this year that I never do. I paid Amazon to gift wrap something. I'm a horrible present wrapper and the timeline this year doesn't allow for getting somebody competent to do it for me, so I dropped a couple of bucks on having a gift done as a test. Has anybody gotten this done and if so, how does it look? The paper doesn't have gigantic Amazon logos all over it or some shit, does it? Please, tell me it doesn't. Ahh well, live and learn, I suppose.

On a totally different note, the WWE pay-per-view prediction contest is almost over. There's one show left, that being TLC this weekend. Guys, I seriously could win this thing. Right now I'm all alone in 1st place with a two point lead, but it's no sure thing. If I screw this up really bad, I could easily be toast. I didn't do super great on my Surviver Series picks, but I did well enough to keep myself ahead. All I have to do is hang on, but I know me and I know my record in online contests, so I'm scared.

I'm not sure how I'm doing in the TNA/ROH contest. There are a couple of shows I haven't seen and I didn't want to spoil them by checking the standings. But what I do know is that as of the last time I looked, I was in a pretty big tie for 9th place. that sounds kind of awful, but all that was separating 9th from 1st was 2 points, so it's not so bad.

One more wrestling thing before I go. I know I've harped on this before, but Jesus Christ the names on these guys in WWE!

I was watching some FCW the other day. There was a six man tag match that saw the team of Conor O'Brian, Tito Colon and Kenneth Cameron take on Colin Cassady, Mike Dalton and Jason Jordan. What I want you to do is look at those two sets of names and tell me without looking it up who the guys getting squashed are supposed to be. Indeed, one team is supposed to be a bunch of scary guys that strike fear into the hearts of their opponents while the other is there to be faceless geeks who's job it is to be beaten up by the scary guys. But if all you have to go by are the names, how would you ever know that? All six of those names sound like guys who would be getting massacred by the Undertaker or Hulk Hogan back in the days when Vince McMahon knew how to name a wrestler or when he was still smart enough to let them keep the ones they came in with. None of these names stand out in a good way. They either don't register at all or in the case of poor Conor O'Brian, they make you feel bad for him and for the people who lack so much creativity that they named him after a fucking talk show host.

I think that's going to be all for now. The cold is starting to bug me again so I'm going to find some soup and maybe watch some guys with awful names wrestle for a while.

Sploosh Splosh Swimmin' In A Thought Pool

It's random thought splatter time. Put on your rubber boots, this thought puddle's a doozer.

Like every year, I have to get my silly Christmas shopping talk in there. When December started, I was flipping out, I'd hardly bought anything, and it was...what was Steve's word? De-fucking-cember? I can't find it, but ya know. Anyway, in one whirlwind trip around the mall, thanks to Steve's mom, I had nearly everything bought. I'm on the hunt for a couple things, but for the most part, I'm all set.

But one crappy side-effect of that is I noticed just how much money I was spending. It was so bad that my brain was envisioning trails of money being left in my wake. But really I'm not that nuts. It just feels that way because I don't usually luck out that huge/do it all at once.

Maybe the reason I was done so fast is I bought a lot of gift cards this year. But I tried to pick ones from stores that I thought the recipients would like. But one particularly hard gift card to get was the Red Lobster one. I'm pretty sure the person who I bought it for doesn't read here, but if they do, well, there goes the element of surprise.

I went to Red Lobster's website, and got all excited. They had gift cards! Then I was stopped dead in my tracks by the fact that the "state/province" box only had states in it. Grrr!

So, I called the closest restaurant, which was in Kitchener, and I was told that the site didn't sell them to Canada, you had to come to the restaurant. Um, not gonna happen.

Luckily for me, I have smart friends on Twitter *coughcough* @MELISSAandRUBY *coughcough*. She linked me to the FAQ that told me where I could call and order a card...which I did. I'm still waiting for it to arrive, but it's been ordered.

We're starting our new traddition of spending Christmas together. This year, we're off to Steve's family. It should be an interesting experience going to 4 or something Christmas thingamabobs so close together. But it'll be so nice to spend Christmas together.

Remember back when I talked about the person I picked to donate to his Movember campaign? Well, who knew I'd end up getting thanked for it? He made a cheesecake, brought it in and said everybody who donated to him would be guaranteed a piece. How awesome is that? Damn it was a good cheesecake, and I needed it that morning since I didn't sleep worth shit the night before.

If anyone's curious, I'm making huuuuge progress getting around our new floor. That whole reference points from upstairs plan kinda got blown straight to hell since it's shaped just differently enough that I don't make the connection. But that's ok, I'm figuring it out. Thanks to my coworkers being extremely patient, and repeatedly pointing out the same landmarks, it started to click. In fact, on Thursday, I zooped around the second floor with very little help.

Trix puts me to shame. She had the damn place mastered in a day. I took about four days before things started to happen. But they're happening, so that's all that matters.

Our new floor is apparently gorgeous. It definitely has some very cool things about it. One thing I have to get used to, though, is that there's no sink nearby for me to dump Trix's water. But I have learned that there's usually a solution to every common problem, and I now own a pretty spill-proof water bowl. This means I can carry it from my desk to the bathroom, probably sloshing all the way, and not spill. Yeah!

But the process of learning a new floor has made me quite fascinated with my own brain. I have noticed that in the beginning stages of learning a place, I am incapable of noticing random details that usually end up being helpful. I'm so focused on listening to where I'm supposed to turn that I notice nothing else.

Then, gradually, I will notice things like the colour of a wall, the way a certain hallway feels, or the smell of coffee. But all these obvious details went completely unnoticed until I reached a certain point in my learning. It's so bizarre.

But I'm really disturbed by the flipside of all this new learning. I am noticing that more and more, I am getting lost in familiar areas. I'm making stupid mistakes, turning too soon, and once, I crossed a street, then turned and crossed the other way when I only intended to cross one way. The scary part about this is I have no conscious memory of making the second crossing. This is my memory of events the other day: walk up to pedestrian pole, push button to cross street, cross, continue to bus stop...bus stop? Hey? Bus stop? Where are you? They don't just tear down a shelter...or do they?

What really happened was after I crossed the first time, I turned and crossed the other way. I did it safely, but I have no memory of doing this and had to deduce what I had done based on playing that old hotter colder game with Trix where she goes faster as we approach familiar areas. This scared me so bad that I nearly stopped, pulled out my phone and scheduled an appointment to see my doctor because I wondered if I may have had some kind of bizarre seizure.

I'm starting to think that no, my brain has just been so busy absorbing so much knowledge that something had to give. I know that as it adapts, I will stop having these brain burps. But if I don't, the doc and I are going to have a long talk. Crossing streets and having no memory of doing so could get me and/or Trix killed, and I don't want to die anytime soon.

And I'm sad to report that my hopes of reviving my GPS didn't pan out so well. I got the new part, it was the right part, but it has the same sloppy connection problem the other one does...so I can only think that maybe something bent in the actual unit. I'm not going to give up until I have to. I might bring it to work and let someone who is the right kind of genius have a boo at it. There are enough different kinds of geniuses around there, someone might have an idea or six.

I watched the dumbest movie ever. If someone comes up to you and says "Let's watch 'The Happening'," tell them you'd rather not waste an hour and a half or so of your life. Believe me, watching that movie is...just dumb.

Ok, the premise is that this weird toxen is circulating through the air that's causing people to find funky ways to kill themselves. Freaky idea, but well, the ending totally suuucks. It couldn't be any more anticlimactic. And along the way, you could put a jeep down some of the plot holes in this movie. Oy. Just...why?

But I have run into a whole pack of people this weekend that have made me wonder if instead of there being a toxen out there turning people suicidal, there's one out there stealing people's ability to think...at all.

Let's back up to a couple of days ago. I went into the liquor store to pick up a gift card there. The woman who served me, after seeing someone show me to the counter, pointed at the gift cards. "We have that one, or that one, or that one." I had to tell her that I couldn't see anything, so she'd have to tell me what she was pointing at. Then, she proceeded to freak out, wondering how to put through a gift card. A manager had to walk her through every step of the process. In a final move of duh, she nearly swiped my gift card, which would have probably used it up before I'd even paid for it. Thankfully the supervisor stopped her.

Ok, whatever, a frazzled worker at a store. No big deal, right? Let's move on to yesterday. Trix needed another bath. For some reason her skin and coat got really oily really fast. I don't know if fish oil will do that or what. Since it was so cold out, I took a cab from the bathing place since I didn't want her to stand out in the cold, and even if I put a coat on her, it was her face I was worried about.

So, I paid debit for the cab. He swiped the card, pushed some buttons and waited. I asked him please give me the pin pad. "No," he says, "It's just waiting to go through." Um, hello? I need to specify the account and, um, enter my PIN. It took me a couple of attempts to get him to look at the screen, realize that I did in fact have to press some buttons, and give me the damn pad.

"Yeah," you say, "Whatever. Maybe he'd had a long day." But the parade continued this morning. I went to that Tim Hortons I talked about a little while ago. I had a craving for apple cider, so decided to get Steve and I some breakfast sandwiches and drinks. I arrived, and started to make my order. Before I finished, the girl started madly calling for a manager. I don't even know why. I think she thought they didn't sell cider or something. When someone could finally convince her that they did, she then said "Is that everything?" I asked her what she had heard, and basically she said nothing. So, how could that be everything if she doesn't remember a damn thing I ordered?

I went to pay with debit, since I can now, put the card in and punched the buttons. She then said she couldn't figure out if it had worked or not. She had to call someone over, and neither of them could figure it out. I had to actually call my bank and check that it had gone through.

Whatever, it's a new Tim's, they're a little frazzled. But while I was in the same store, a woman was very kind and offered to help me with my stuff. I told her what I had ordered and she handed me a bag and said that's everything. I said I had ordered a few sandwiches and a couple of drinks. She said "Yup." I knew the drinks weren't there because I didn't have a tray. Finally someone pointed out that the drinks were still sitting on the counter. She then said "Oh, I thought they were in the bag!" Um, what would have happened if they put the drinks in the bag with other things? They would have fallen over! Gaaaa!

The stupid virus wasn't confined to Guelph. I came home to my email, and found an email saying that a person had left a comment on this post about a USB stick. Just look at my first comment, and then Lilly's. Hello, did you actually think I was being completely serious? For real?

I ventured back out, and the stupid continued. As I was crossing the street, someone shot by and said "Is your dog doing better?" Huh? What is she even talking about? And why not stay around for the answer? Another person asked me what all Trix does for me, and then said "I have to run." Asking me what Trix does is a pretty complicated question. If you don't have the time, don't ask the question.

As I tried to find a place I'd never found before, I ran into a guy and thought I'd ask him. I was standing at the corner of two streets, let's call them Smith and Jones. I was looking for something on Jones. I asked him about the place, and said it was on Jones. His response? "I don't even know where Jones Street is." Uh, chief, take a gander at that there sign. He did, and still didn't know, so walked up to a woman and asked her where the place was. The response she gave him was a shriek that sounded like the woman a. didn't understand English and/or b. thought this man was out to rob or rape her. Instead of realizing this woman was not going to be of any help, he pressed on! I had to persuade him to leave her be, she was confused, and seemed scared.

At last, I was about to get on the bus and get home, hoping I wouldn't breathe in the stupid gas and start doing dumb things. An older fellow walked up to me and this is all he said. "Do you remember my voice? I met you on the bus." Well...that narrows it down in a hurry. He then told me he helped me find some place where an old theatre used to be. I still have no idea to what he was referring, nor do I remember him.

Ack. That is just too much weird in two days. I know if I show up at work tomorrow and people are acting stupid, I have something to fear.

I think that's about it for now. Hope you enjoyed the trip across my river of thoughts.