This will be the last audio of the night. It would have been up sooner but...well...I got distracted.
We started off talking about the whole underline/underscore thing. Ro had said that Voiceover says "underline" still, and then Steve said that JAWS says underline too. More and more weirdness.
We decided that would be the last audio of the night. Poor Steve had been awake since 4:30 because he knew that I had to wake up early, so his body woke him up a couple hours before. Apparently, it likes to do that. I don't know about that sort of thing...as I've slept so heavy that my snore sounded like a broken fridge motor. The thunderworks were in full effect, so Trix was busily shaking away. So we decided to start answering questions people have been sending us. We explained again that we probably aren't going to do all the mailbag stuff in one go...because it just wouldn't work.
Since we thought we'd rambled long enough about that, we decided to answer James's question about whether we miss Echo or Blogger yet...which is kind of funny since this post is getting posted to Blogger too. James, you wanted rage? You got it. Here it is in written form. We got to talk about how much more Wordpress allows us to do compared to Blogger, and how Wordpress search kicks Google Blogsearch's ass from here to China. As soon as we can find a daily email-sending thinggy, it'll be curtains for the Blogger version.
Finally, Ro asked us the condition of the talking beer koozy. In this earlier cast, it was going downhill. Well...the news isn't good. You can hear just how much poor old Joe has to say.
I don't know why, but every cast appears to have a Tugboat reference in it. Hope you don't hate us for that.
For this 42 minutes of goodness, grab it from here. Hopefully we can squeeze out some more audio tomorrow, and at least try and answer more questions.
Well! Aren't we the audio crankin' machines? We decided this one would have a different twist on it. We decided to take you, the loyal vomiteers, on a walk with us. We'd never done this before...and it kinda showed in the audio quality. Most of it is pretty listenable, but there are some parts where...ow ow ow ow ow! Stream+need to raise voice over traffic=clip clip clip clip! So...do not listen on headphones, I don't think so. We'll do better next time...namely, place Stream on left shoulder. By the way, Shane? How did you carry your stream on your routecasts? I need pointers. I tested it before leaving and it sounded fine. I forgot the part where I need to raise my voice to be heard over the traffic din.
We decided to demo an audible pedestrian signal, or the blind guy chirp chirp lights as lots of people know them. We thought we'd clear up some confusion, as well as show the differences between two types of chirp chirp lights. We also thought we'd drop into Tim Hortons just because it's nearby, and pick up a couple things at the store on the way home. We turned the recording off when we were in the store just because really? do you want to hear "I'll have a smoothie. Yes debit. chinga linga loo, thank you!"? That's boring.
We split this bad boy into two smaller parts. There's part 1, the trip to Timmie's, description of the lights and how blind people cross streets, talk about the new Tim Hortons bigger drink sizes, and other babble. You don't hear it, but Trix got called a cute dog by some random passer by. As we arrive at Tim Hortons, Steve asks again what constitutes a yogourtless smoothie? It has been written, but we felt like talking about it. That bit is about 23 minutes long.
In part 2, which lasts about 25 minutes, on our way home, we talked about how poor Steve got hit with a giant allergy attack, how we didn't get to ask what a yogourtless smoothie would look like, and how Steve thinks ice caps are disgusting. I happen to like them, but he thinks they're ick. This made us decide we would do our questions not as one cast, but as the mood struck us to talk...and it was time to talk about the differents between Canadian and American iced tea. And, since we were answering that question, we went in to the whole milk in a bag thing.
I have also learned something. This milk in a bag thing only starts in Ontario and moves east. Westerners get mad if you accuse them of drinking milk in a bag. In describing the different sizes of milk cartons, I start singing Good Luck to the Barleymow. Now you can enjoy a much better version.
As we walk down the street yammering about milk bags, I have a question for folks who live in the UK that came up. I was talking to Torie on Twitter, and somehow crossing streets came up, and she said that over there, they have to wait for an all quiet, cross at a zebra crossing, hit a beep beep light, or wait for assistance. The idea of walking with the parallel traffic is not safe. Is this true across all of Ireland? Can other blind folks explain this? Frankly, the idea of not being able to go with the surge is about as weird to me as Americans find buying milk in a bag.
And we arrived home with our stuff, Trix drank furiously, and we signed off.
So, I hope you can enjoy this clippy cast. I apologize again for that. Hopefully we can learn and do better.
The urge struck us to do some more audio, so here we are. We had a lot of fun doing this one.
It started with me not saying go at the right moment. Woops. Welcome to me not being a good record button-pusher. Then we just rambled about the awesome weather, the Blue Jays winning again, and the coolness that is our balcony.
I don't know if you can hear what happened next, but somebody's car alarm similar to the one I described in this old post started going off, so Steve started imitating it...at which point, Trix brought us back to the reason we decided to do this audio in the first place.
Unfortunately you can't hear it, but Trix started circling us, puffing furiously. We put the mic in her face, but she did not puff hello. I described some new behaviour Trix does when there are fireworks or thunder storms, or our new term, thunderworks! The fear has been with her all along, but it has changed recently. Oh yeah? and I meant 1 a.m. not p.m. woops.
Moving on, we talked some more about the hot weather, and the plants a friend and I are planting in the Enabling Garden. Hey, anybody know where the reference "fuck this cat, and fuck this door!" came from? Go ahead and take a guess. At this point, we came up with our third invented word, Friedo (pronounced "fried o"): dog left in a hot car. We also made up some new lyrics to what would be the Frido song. And you know what? We should have stuck to that song...because I proceeded to ruin the next song we attempted. Even these people did a better job.
This led to an awesome story of how, in his CFRU days, Steve unintentionally insulted electronica. R2D2, a television and a vacuum having a threesome, you say? What a description.
Wow. This thing goes everywhere. We went from how you can't please everybody on the radio and on websites to me apologizing for not realizing that the Jonathan Sory story was more tragic than it seemed on the surface.
...which somehow led in a long and winding way to things taking on a totally different meaning if you're just listening to them, which then led to talking about screen reader users who just go by the way words sound and don't check the spelling, which can lead to some rather creative typos. Man, if you're bored, I understand.
Before we signed off, I made fun of Steve's loud phone text message noises, and Trix reappeared, looking all scared all over again.
And that about does it for another one. I think coining 3 new terms is pretty good. We enjoyed putting it together, hope you enjoy listening. Go get it in all its 1 hour and 7 minute glory.
Well...our first audio is up. We had hoped to have it up last night, but we kind of fell over after we finished recording it. The file got uploaded to the server, but hell if I was going to write the post around it. So I'm writing it this morning.
Poor Steve had to start it alone, because Trix had to take care of business. But I figured I'd make my presence known. If you wondered why Steve suddenly made some yelling noise in the middle of his sentence, no, he hasn't lost his mind. I was down below, making the Tugboat noise at him. I hoped the mic would pick it up, but it didn't. The Tugboat noise? Yes, the Tugboat noise. It's about 6 minutes in, but there it is. Probably if I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't believe it either. If you don't feel like waiting 6 minutes for 16 seconds of Tugboaty goodness, you can download his promo right here. Eeeeeee!
After I distract him with randomly-placed Tugboat noises, Steve manages to get his groove back, and talks about our new website, and how it's awesome to have audio capabilities back. He then moves on to baseball, and how certain Blue Jays are doing really well while others were awesome, but need some help.
When I got back, we talked about wrestling, and I finally sort of mention Tugboat, but we really couldn't do him justice. That moved us on to how much wrestling has changed over the years, and how hard it is to be a new fan today.
Next up, I gave a brief update on me, and how Trix gave me a little bit of a scare. This led us to talking about how awesome it is to move over from Blogger to a place where we actually have some server space, and the awesome that is Skynet Communications. We also got to rag on Blogger importer for screwing up who wrote what, and being just a wee bit bizarre.
Somehow we got from here to talking about the new Guelph Central Station, AKA the land of confusion where our city buses live now. We talked about how eventually we hope it will be easier to navigate, but right now, it's a total zoo, and we're all confused, which is really fun when transfer times are next to 0. We also talked about how it's kind of dumb to have a heap of bus platforms and no real shelter, since the inside of the building won't be functional until 2013. Also, we mentioned that that light at St. George's Square is no longer an all-way stop, so don't die, everybody.
As we talked about the crappy decision that was changing routes in January, we some how wandered into describing our creepy landlord from the old apartment building.
While Steve went to get a beer, I talked about how awesome Shane's podcasts are, and how they brought back memories of training.
Things begin winding down with another plug for Skynet Communications. Somehow that led into a talk about how the "underline" key is now called "underscore" and wondering how that happened.
We wrap things up by reminding people that they can send us questions and we will answer them in an audio mailbag, but we need more questions, so keep sending them in.
And that does it for our first 53 minutes of chaos. If you feel so inclined, go get it. Enjoy, and there will be more to come, I'm sure.
"Yikes," you're thinking to yourself. "Those poor girls! What sort of drunken maniac drives that far off the street and hits a couple of poor, innocent kids?"
The answer, I'm sorry to report, is nobody.
What that headline there fails to mention is that these two nimrods were tanning in the middle of the road, fell asleep and were driven over by a fellow who is reported to be a cousin of one of them.
The video at the link above should play automatically, which is nice since I am currently as bereft of words as these kids are of clue.
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!
Ug. Just...seriously. Say these kids are young all you want, but that's no excuse. Us smart ones had this train shit nailed down at the exact moment mom and dad taught us about looking both ways for cars. The thought process went a little something like this: Oh damn, those things move fast. Ok, I'll be sure not to fuck with them.
The video was taken on a stretch of CN rail line near 16th Avenue Public School in Richmond Hill, north of Toronto.
The CBC viewer captured two pieces of video, taken moments apart. They show two children, who appear to be no older than 12, playing a dangerous game with passing CN freight trains.
In the first video, one youngster "plays chicken" with an approaching train, stepping off the tracks seconds before it passes at high speed.
In the second piece of video, two children — including one from the first video — touch a slow-moving train as it passes in the opposite direction on an adjacent track.
If you click the link not only can you see the videos, but you can read all sorts of other mind boggling stupidity about how yes this shortcut is unsafe but I save 15 minutes by using it and yeah, let's keep hacking open the fence the train people keep fixing. surely there's no reason why they don't want us there.
If it weren't for the knowledge that some poor sap will have to clean your guts off the tracks and that it would slow down the days of innocent people when the trains have to stop, I'd wish death upon you all.
Since I posted last, I've been trying to think of a reason to embed a YouTube video to make sure that Blogger and the steaming inaccessible pile it calls a streamlined interface didn't break that along with everything else to which it has laid waste. Thankfully I didn't have to think too hard, since this new system is well on its way to breaking my brain.
Today is Walter Ostanek's birthday! Canada's Polka King has turned 77, so what better way to celebrate than with his own happy birthday song?
Let's see if this works and if I've fixed my line spacing problem.
According to all sorts of reports, he suffered a massive heart attack this morning and died at the age of 82.
Dick Clark was another one of those broadcasters that you don't see much of anymore. The type who could host pretty well anything and seem to fit right in and feel right at home.
My first childhood memories of him are the guy who cohosted Bloopers and Practical Jokes with Ed McMahon and The $100000 Pyramid. It wasn't until a bit later that I learned about things like American Bandstand and all of his other contributions to music. I never got attached to the New Year's Rockin' Eve the way a lot of people did because we didn't have cable until I was well into my teens and we couldn't always pull in ABC to watch it, but I did tune in for the countdown and ball drop a few times and was sad to see him have to give up that gig after his stroke in 2004.
I wonder if our copy of Dick Clark's Rock 'N' Roll Christmas still lives at my mom's house. If it does, I'm going to make sure we listen to it when we have our party this year. That was the first place I ever heard King Curtis' version of The Christmas Song, which for my money is the best one around.
Exposing me to King Curtis and making me want to learn more about him is the kind of thing Dick Clark spent his life doing, and the kind of thing musicians and fans everywhere owe him a debt of gratitude for. He's one of the last of a dying breed and he'll certainly be missed. there'll never be another like him, without a doubt.
One of the last things I heard as I fell asleep to the sound of Carin looking at Twitter last night was that Gord Paynter, the only professional blind comedian I know of, suffered a stroke and died Monday. He was just 57.
It was sad news not just because 57 is a pretty young age to go or because Gord was really funny, but also for me personally since I had the chance to meet him once or twice many years ago and he was a very nice guy.
The thing I remember most about him was that unlike some famous people you meet, he seemed very willing to take some time and actually talk to you without it seeming like a chore. It was him who put into words for me what good comedians will do to get the most out of a joke, and explained the value of finding smart people in every place you play so you can tweak your material to get a few surprise laughs out of locals who don't expect you to know anything about them and their town. I wish I'd gotten the chance to talk to him more recently. The teenaged kid I was back then understood what he was saying, but you learn a lot between your teens and your 30's (at least that's the rumour), and it would have been nice to pick his brain having had more experience at life and amusing people.
Had I gotten the chance to talk to him again, I certainly would have thanked him for making my life easier a few times. I've met more than one person who learned through him that blind people were in fact regular people, just like them. We're not something to be scared of or treated overly differently in most situations. We can laugh at ourselves and by extension, it's ok for you to laugh at us. Leaving that impression with people is as important a legacy as all the laughs, maybe even more.
This story of a man's happiness at the sight of Cheese Doodles is awesome when you finally watch a video of his glee. I think I might be pretty happy to see those snacks after wandering around the south pole for 86 days, but there's something adorable about his sheer joy. You don't need to understand a word of what he's saying to get it.
I think I just might have to watch the video again.
When I saw that Anonymous was threatening the Judge Rotenberg center, I was conflicted. here's a brief history on what sounds like a horrible place. On one hand, I thought it was kind of cool of them to be standing up for those who probably have no voice. Maybe this video of things will bring more attention to the situation there. But on the other hand, do they really think a school like this fears being hacked? They probably have a website that hasn't been updated in years, is riddled with mistakes, and left to rot in cyberspace. Would they even notice if Anonymous took it down?
And I'm sorry, but the whole "we are Anonymous, we are legion" thing loses something after a while. This may be the last post you ever see because they might just show me how legion they actually are, but I don't know. Every time I hear it, I think of this Rick Mercer video I saw a little while ago, and then all I can think is we are anonymous, we are...Timmie?
So yeah. I hope this whole threat thing brings more attention to the situation, because good could come from that. I just don't know about the whole hacking thing really having any impact in this case.
Really, what the hell can I say about this other than seriously, this is all one guy? Colour me amazed. I have no idea what this song is about because it's sung in I think Croatian, but this dude is awesome.
I post this mainly because I find it amusing and it fits in with what we do here, but also because any excuse to watch this video again is good enough for me.
It's always nice to hear stories of people with disabilities getting into new fields and breaking new ground. Well, maybe not always.
The Chevron clerk told police that 22-year old John Christopher Champion, who was wearing a Gators hat and Gators sweatshirt, had been going in and out of the store for several hours in his motorized wheelchair. Just before 10 p.m., the clerk said Champion piloted his chair behind the counter and demanded cash from the register as he brandished a pocket knife.
The 54-year old clerk said she fought back and in her struggle with Champion she stabbed him three times in the leg before he overpowered her. He then allegedly rolled out of the store with a 12-pack of beer and a roll of electrical tape.
but he didn't get far.
When police arrived, they didn't have to look too hard to find him. They caught up with him behind the store, where his wheelchair had gotten stuck in the sand. He was drinking one of the Bud Light Limes he admitted to taking in the heist. Interestingly, he admitted to stealing from the store, but not robbing it. Not sure how that one's going to hold up in court.
Champion also told police that he had encouraged the clerk to hit the alarm because nobody would arrest a handicapped person. He now has armed robbery and aggravated battery charges plus a stay in the Levy County jail that say different.
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.
