Dear Diary: I'm Going To Have A Lot More Time To Write In You Soon, Even Though You Get Me In Trouble

A couple of quick armed robbery tips for Jonathan Ochola and Rashad Delawala, because they seem to need 'em.

1. Don't drop your balaclava. It probably has your DNA on it.

2. Don't write stupid things in your diary. For instance, "I picked up a few things I needed in town today" is much better than "Go Portsmouth robbery happens."

Both men have been found guilty (surprise surprise) and are scheduled for sentencing later this month. For some reason, both are currently out on bail.

British Burgers

All hatemail resulting from this should be aimed squarely at Brad.

A husband and wife go to a restaurant. The waiter approaches the table to take their order.

"I'll have your biggest, juiciest London Broil," says the husband.

"But sir, what about the mad cow!?" asks the waiter.

"Oh," says the husband, "she'll order for herself."

Us And The Mobile Template Have Been Disconnected

If you liked the mobile template, you're about to not like me.

Because it crashed at least two phones that we know about and because it might possibly be causing some problems that have nothing to do with phones, I've disabled it for now and perhaps permanently.

So if you think you should be getting it and you aren't, there's your answer. And if you think you shouldn't be getting it and you are, I hope this fixes it.

The Ballad Of Stompin' Tom

I missed the All-Star game. I'm sure that makes me a bad baseball fan according to some rule or other, but if put in my position you'd do the same thing...at least you would if you're not one to be eluded by sanity.

I haven't been the best at writing about all of the concerts I've been to, but I'm not letting this one slip bye since along with entertaining everybody else and writing about morons and fools, this place is partly about entertaining me and helping me remember awesome things. And in my world, getting to see Stompin' Tom Connors counts as more than awesome.

Yes, I got to see Stompin' Tom!

Me, Carin, my brother and my mom all headed down to Hamilton Place to check out the show last night, and we weren't disappointed. Tom is 75 now, but other than a couple of times when he admitted he was getting a bit tired, you'd never know it. I can think of two spots where he forgot what verse he was on and sang it twice, but I'm not holding that against him. Christ, I did that when I was in my 20's, and I didn't have to remember nearly as many songs.

Along with favourites like The Hockey Song, Sudbury Saturday Night, Margo's Cargo, Big Joe Mufferaw, Bud The Spud and about a million others, he took some time out to play some stuff by Hank Snow and Wilf Carter, which was a nice, unexpected touch. You haven't lived until you've heard Stompin' Tom yodel. I've heard it on recordings, but live it was almost worth the ticket price by itself. He even played The Green Green Grass of Home, much to the delight of the nice but at times overly talkative ladies sitting next to us who yelled for it after every single song from the beginning of the show until the second half when he finally heard them or decided to listen, I'm not sure which.

And speaking of where we were sitting, Dear Ticketbastard: Selling people seats next to each other is good, but you might want to warn those people about the wall thing between them. We managed to juggle things around since we were up in the roomier seats so that Trixie would have more space, but seriously now.

Ok, back to the show.

He had a pretty good band backing him up, including fiddler Billy MacInnis who did a sweet version of Mockingbird that I wish I could find. Instead, we'll go with this, which isn't bad either.

The main opening attraction was Mark LaForme, who I wasn't familiar with. He was fine, but mostly sounded like every singer in every country bar you've ever been to. That is until he won major cool points by busting out a bluegrass version of The Shape I'm In and then followed it up with a cover of Ma jolie Louise. I can't find his versions or anything he's ever done on YouTube for that matter, so we'll go with live versions of the originals.

Am I getting cheaper as I age, or is the price of concert merch getting much, much steeper? $35 for a T-shirt or 2 for $50? A CD for $25 or 3 for $50? That wasn't normal sounding in our world, but the line in the lobby was huuuuuuuuuuge after the show and during the break, so what do we know?

Possible highway robbery at the souvenir stand aside, I'd gladly go back and see him again if the chance comes up. But if it doesn't, it's another thing I'm happy to be able to say I got to do once.

And before I forget, here's the song I took the post title from.

Also, hey Brad. We were there!

Williams And McDaniel, Wake Up To The Alarm Bell

Goddamn it I'm shaking, and I didn't go through anything super uber scary. I mean, I did, but on the scale, there are far worse things. But it's been a little while, and I'm still sitting here, heart pounding, having trouble getting air.

Here's the scene. I'm taking Trix out to pee. It's 30 degrees C or 90 degrees F outside. Since I live on the sixth floor of an apartment building, I take the elevator. I get in the elevator. I'm slightly worried since intermittently over the last week, one of the elevators has been kinda fritzy. It will lock up and refuse to let you out or open or anything. It will just keep clicking like it's descending into the bowels of somewhere, but you're not going anywhere. I would hit open, but it wouldn't work, so I would hit the alarm bell, which would snap the elevator out of its funk and it would continue to its destination. I had just said to Steve, it's happened a couple of times now, I wonder if I should warn someone.

I got in the elevator, and it did it again. Only this time, the alarm button trick didn't work. I could feel it jamming, catching, trying to continue, jamming.

what makes this extra terrifying is I cannot get any cell phone signal in this elevator. So I cannot call 911. So all I have is this damn alarm.

Some elevators are cool and the alarm actually goes somewhere. Not this one. It just rings a bell. So I held down the button.

Riiiiiing.

Where does this bell go?

Riiiiiiing.

I think it just goes down the shaft.

Riiiiiing.

But what if noone's in the office in the lobby? What if they don't hear it? It's kind of like saying "If a tree falls in the forest and nobody's around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

Riiiiiiing. Riiiiiing riiiiiiiiiiiing!

By this point, Trixie is starting to loop out. I think the bell is just the right pitch to bother her ears. She has started doing circles around me, sniffing, searching for an exit.

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!

I'm now starting to loop out, feeling how hot it is. I wonder how long until this heat will start to affect Trixie? It's like leaving her in a hot car. I've decided this bell isn't working, so I'll try another strategy!

HEEEEEELP! I'm in the elevator and I can't get out! Riiiiing! Heeeelp! Riiiiiing! Heeeeelp!

Some children hear me screaming.

Just open the door, you're in the lobby.

The door won't open.

Do you want us to call the manager?

Yes, yes, please!

I'm thinking I'm saved. I'm saved.

And I am, because the elevator summarily decides to let me out. I come out and find out that the poor kids could not get through to the property manager.

Do you know what that could have meant if the elevator hadn't decided to be nice and release me, or if it had decided that releasing me between floors would be just duck duck duckeroo? I could have been in there for an untold amount of time, or staring at an open shaft! Trixie and I were put at a significant amount of risk I think. And I couldn't call 911 myself because of the lack of a cell phone signal. I couldn't call, couldn't text, couldn't nothing.

I got out and I was on the war path. I called the number, fully expecting to have to leave a seething message. I got a poor fellow where the phone was being forwarded to. I let loose on him, and he understood my frustration. He then said he would call the property manager and have her escort me up to my apartment, since I was afraid to get back in the elevator alone.

I waited.

I called him again, and asked just where this property manager was. It was then that he said she wasn't home.

...

which means, boys and girls, if he couldn't have answered the phone, which he doesn't have to do because he's not the super for this building, who knows when it would have been answered. What in Christ is their plan if an emergency happened?

He was nice enough to come up and take me up in the elevator. then I said to him, what do I do at 10 tonight when I have to relieve Trixie? Nobody is going to hear the alarm bell ringing. I don't plan to spend the night in the elevator. He agreed to escort me down and up. I'm going to ask him if he'll do the same tomorrow morning at 7.

I think this makes clear that Williams and McDaniel, the ones who own this building, need to do better when it comes to emergencies. Why have an alarm in an elevator if it doesn't go somewhere where someone will hear it? It's foolish to think nothing will happen. Stuff happens in elevators, even the best maintained ones. And these elevators are suuuuuper old.

Oh, and why not fix the plumbing too so we don't have a goddamn Noah's flood one day when it finally goes kaboom? The whole infrastructure is failing. I get the sense you keep patching it. One day, patches ain't gonna do it. I love living here, but Jesus Murphy! We lost property managers who were awesome because I think they burned out on patching, patching, patching, patching things. Now we're down to one property manager for two buildings, and we just can't seem to get a manager back. I'm afraid. I really am.

So...please hope I don't get stuck in the elevator again. It's not a happy feeling, especially knowing that I have no way of getting help myself. I called head office, and left a kind of scattered message, we'll see what happens.

An Inside Look At A Call Centre In India

Reading this description of life as a call centre agent in India was really interesting. Interesting, and sad. But it also made me chuckle because of a comedy bit that Steve was recently talking about.

I guess someone, whose name escapes him, was talking about how these Indian-sounding fellers always had very American names like Kevin, and they would never tell you where they are. It went something like this.

Caller: Where are you?
Agent: I am at my desk.

Caller: And where is that?
Agent: In my office.

Caller: Ok, so if I were to come visit you, where would I take a plane to?
Agent: Why would you do that?

And on it went. And all of that is talked about in here. Very interesting stuff.

Tip The Wheelchair Man, Or He'll Tip You Out Of Your Wheelchair!

Wheelchair Abandoned In North Guelph

I read the story, and have so many questions. How did the chair get separated from its user? And why out in that deserted area? Did someone steal the chair? Was there an unidentified man across the street who couldn't get up? Or did someone attend one of those religious healing ceremonies and it worked? I notice it was out by the postal building. Did a person in a wheelchair ask one too many questions about where his mail had gone?

We'll probably never get the answers, but I hope whoever needs that chair can get it back.

To You It's A Keyboard, But To Me It's A Key-bone

You're Olan Yahal Mitchell. The police have stopped you for speeding and they're pretty sure you're drunk. You decide you're not taking any of those goddamn field sobriety tests and have scored yourself a seat in the front of a police cruiser because of it. So, what to do while you're waiting to see what happens next?

Hmmm, that computer keyboard looks mighty scrumptious. Perhaps you should lick it. Yeah, you should. Hey, why not? Other folks have tried to chow down on the entire car, but you've always been more of an electronics man. Metal leaves a weird taste in your mouth.

That officer sure doesn't seem to appreciate you doing that, does he? He mustn't be the type to appreciate great tasting food. Yeah, go ahead, lick it again.

No, I have no idea why he would take the computer away from you. You were enjoying it! If there was ever a time to kick a cop, this must be it!

Sure you're in handcuffs and off to jail now, but don't fret. If you're there for a while and behave well, maybe they'll put you to work somewhere with a nice, juicy cash register.

It's Safe To Say Your Balls Aren't Bigger Anymore

Oh for Christ's sake. Argos pull controversial advertisement.

The Toronto Argonauts have pulled an advertisement from city subway cars and stations after receiving complaints that it promotes domestic violence.

Oh man, this can't be good. They didn't seriously show a giant football player tackling some poor old woman or a dude with a beer gut throwing a beating on a girl with a black eye as they tug of war over the remote during a game, did they? They must have if we've gotten to this point.

The ad – which was meant to drum up support for the CFL team — showed defensive end Ricky Foley with the caption, “Home is where the heart is. It’s also where we hurt people.”

Ok, so where's the problem? Surely there must be a legitimate gripe, given our society's tendency not to complain unless there truly is reason for it. A person would have to be wrong in the head not to realize that home means home football field and that folks do indeed get hurt there from time to time during games, you know, because it's a sport. And a person so wrong in the head would never hold so much power as to convince the majority that he isn't, would he?

Toronto city councilor Mike Layton wrote a letter to the Argos president Bob Nicholson, explaining why he wanted the ad pulled.

“While I understand the intended meaning, my concern is the unintended consequences,” Layton said. “In the context of domestic violence, the ad insinuates that domestic violence in the home is acceptable or normal. The ad may also trigger traumatic responses in the many survivors of domestic violence who are courageously moving forward with their lives.”

I'm torn. I want to applaud the citizens of Toronto for being open minded enough to elect this obviously slower than slow man to public office, but I fear those same citizens may not have thought their well intentioned decision all the way through.

And if he's not slow, then he needs more to do, because he's obviously got far too much free time to play with.

David Bedford, the Argos’ vice-president of marketing and communications, said the team pulled the ad almost immediately, but they never considered the posters would be viewed that way.

Of course they didn't. Not a single person who gave them even a passing moment of thought and wasn't representing the no fun ticket in city government would.

"It's very clear it's a football player in a football uniform talking about promoting the opening game for a football team," Bedford said Tuesday. "I think it's pretty common knowledge that football is a contact sport and a physical game.

Ok then, so why did you pull it? I'm sicker than sick of everybody caving in to this kind of PC garbage. I wish that just once somebody would tell these people to jam it right back up their asses and then wipe his own ass with the letter they sent before setting it on fire.

"We didn't look at it in the context of domestic violence and we probably should have, given that we've had a handful of complaints."

I've got news for you, my friend. If you carefully study and change everything that gets a handful of complaints, football wouldn't exist. It's a violent sport and people could get injured, you know. And don't even get me started on those our balls are bigger ads from years ago. Those would never fly...or swing...or get out of the marketing meeting.

Bedford says the team will replace the posters — which went up on June 20 in Toronto Transit Commission subways cars and stations — with advertisements meant for GO Transit trains. The new posters will read “We’re not looking for passengers.”

First question: What the fuck does that nonsense even mean? It sounds unspeakably lame.

And second question: Are you sure that's a good slogan, what with the battles in most cities over the viability of transit services and how businesses should be run? If you look at this from the corporate point of view, not looking for passengers could be interpreted as your team not wanting customers. Rather standoffish of you, no? It could also mean you don't want people to ride the bus, which is environmentally irresponsible especially in this age of climate change. Perhaps you need to give more consideration to the unintended consequences of the messages you're sending.

Chest Fest 2.0!

Remember top freedom day of pride? Well, it's happening again, only this time, it's a festival! Yes, it really is Lollapabooba!

Now, instead of being in St. George's Square, it's going to be in Riverside Park, and all day! This should be interesting.

Two things of note from the article:

Webb said last year, she was surprised by the number of men who merely stood around to watch topless women.

and what planet has she been on? If anything looks unusual, be it a person in a wheelchair or a blind person or a big dude with a cat on a pink leash or boobs, people stare. And I'm sorry, but there are a lot of men who would love to watch boobs. It's gonna happen, unfortunately.

Webb said last year’s festival held in St. George’s Square downtown was an educational experience and some attendees said they would have participated had the festival been held in a secluded spot, such as a park.

Yeah, because Riverside Park is sooooo secluded. I know what they were going for, but um, fail.

So yeah. Lotsa boobs will be zooming around the park. Still don't know if I would be brave enough to go. Sad, I know.

Because Of Your Policy, All I Can Do With My Hands Is Write Court Documents

Somebody seriously needs to come up with more for inmates to do. More productive hours in the day would probably help cut down on the number of cases jamming up the courts. Cases like that filed recently by 21-year-old Kyle Richards, for instance.

In a handwritten lawsuit, Richards says that Michigan's Macomb County Jail is violating his civil rights and subjecting him to cruel and unusual punishment by denying his requests for porn. Yes, apparently there's a porn shortage in America's prisons, and it can no longer be stood for, so to speak.

Incidentally, the words "in a handwritten lawsuit" are becoming an even bigger sign that there is trouble to come than a story starting off with "a Romanian man" used to be.

But back to this correctional porn shortage. I'm sure there's a simple solution, probably more than one. Maybe Mr. Richards could drop some soap at shower time and not be content to let it go bye bye, or maybe he could try to bum a smoke (there we go again) but not have any money. I'm sure either one of those scenarios would net him all the porn he could handle and then some.

By the way, this guy is also a master criminal. Check out how he wound up confined to a tug free zone.

Richards was charged with bank robbery after police followed a trail of snowy footprints and dropped money to his apartment from a bank robbery scene in January in Fraser, north of Detroit.

Richards pleaded guilty. Sentencing is Aug. 2.

Down With Helmets...And Vital Signs

Maybe it's insensitive of me to laugh at the fate of Philip A. Contos, but oh well, what are ya gonna do? Motorcyclist killed in anti-helmet rally.

He wasn't wearing any head protection, lost control of his bike and pumpkin smashed his melon on the pavement. And naturally, police say he likely would have survived if he'd been wearing a helmet.

I'm not going to get into a big discussion over whether or not we need helmet laws. Instead I'm going to drag this out of 2009 and repost it. It's a fine argument for the side I more or less support. I'll leave it to you all to figure out which side that is.

Some Hate Mail For Hotmail

I discovered something yesterday that has made me decide that I hate Hotmail. It's a good thing I don't use their web interface unless I'm really stuck.

I got a frantic call from a friend who isn't the most computer literate sort in the world. "All I want to do is send a message from my email," she moaned, "And I can't!" She eventually told me that Hotmail is now asking her randomly to solve a CAPTCHA, even after she's logged in! She had finished writing a message, and hit send and she got presented with a message to the effect of "to help stop spam, we sometimes ask you to type the characters you see." This was a link. So not only did she have to fill in this blasted CAPTCHA, after already logging into her account, but she had to leave the message she was writing to go play their stupid game.

Then, after she solved the stupid CAPTCHA, it took her back to her message, but didn't send it automatically! She actually had to hit send. If you're going to make someone jump through hoops, at least make it easy at the end. They already hit send. That's what presented them with this stupid "puzzle" as they put it. Now just send the mail, goddamn it!

It's worth noting that while she was logged in, I was able to log in so I could see what was going on. So two people can log in to the same account simultaneously and that's no problem, but we have to solve CAPTCHAs so we don't send spam? Who is this really protecting?

Hotmail, I hate you. And to any blind folks who use Hotmail's web interface, if you have Firefox and WebVisum, always log into your hotmail using Firefox, because you never know when they're going to spring a stupid captcha on you. Just, blarf. Yes, there's an audio version, but I don't know how many of them actually work anymore.

Stupid Captchas, you suck.

A Small Note To Canada Post

Listen, guys. Nobody beyond you and possibly the media on a slow news day really cares who's fault it is that a few million pre-strike pieces of mail still haven't been delivered. In fact, watching the carriers and management argue back and forth about it does neither side any favours, it only serves to make the ordinary Canadians you're trying to bring to your side hate all of you even more and drive a few more nails into the coffin that technology and your attitude towards customers have been building you for years. Who's to blame or who gets or doesn't get this or that overtime doesn't much concern us, we just want you to bring us our damn letters and shut the hell up about it.

However, if you want to tackle a real issue, track down whoever is responsible for me getting nothing but junkmail on the second day of resumed delivery even though I didn't get everything I was waiting for on day one. If your backlog is as big a problem as you're claiming it is, how does something like that happen? And it's not even like it was a 1 off. It's been a week or so now and there have been days where all I've gotten is garbage liner while a bunch of my bills, statements and cheques are still piled in a sorting room somewhere. To a company that gives a fuck and exists in a place that could be mistaken for reality (I know, what a concept), something like that should be completely unacceptable. So how's about a lot more dealing with that and a lot less holding your pissing contest on TV and in the papers?

Kids From Hell

It's been a while since I've come across a video of kids who are better than me and probably you at music, but if you like those, today is your lucky day.

This is a group of music students from Lexington, Kentucky rocking the bejesus out of Pantera's Cowboys from Hell.

According to the video description, the oldest person to play on this is 16, while the youngest is 12. Yeah, I said 12. They went through a pretty professional sounding process to record this too, which just adds to my jealousy.

Leave Me Alone Or I'll Use My Batoddler!

That would have been quite the day on the subway.

A woman got in a fight with another passenger, and decided to use a rather unorthodox weapon in the fight...that'd be her kid. She picked the poor kidlet out of her stroller and started swinging the poor kid at her victim. She also pulled the hair of another passenger who tried to intervene.

She's now been arrested, and her kidlets are with family members who are better equipped to raise kids I'm sure.

Garage? Toilet? What's The Difference?

This story brings back memories of the old story of Austin Horries Purifoy

A woman heard her garage door slam, and her dog bark. Then she saw a naked man in her garage. So she called police. By the time they got there, they found the drunk, naked man had taken a big ol' crapperoo on her garage floor. But he had a perfectly valid excuse, or so he thought. He thought he was in his own garage. So, the moral of the story is don't walk into Thomas O’Neil's garage. You never know what you might step in.

Sometimes You're The Windshield, Sometimes You're A Bug That Looks An Awful Lot Like A Dude

If you're as oblivious as James John Onak would like the police to believe he is, it's A. amazing that you've never found yourself in this situation before and B. complete horseshit that you ever managed to pass a driving test.

Onak, 49, was arrested last month after killing a pedestrian with his car, then driving around with him a while.

The victim was struck by Onak’s Mazda around 12:30 AM as he sought to cross the roadway.

Onak, police reported, did not stop driving, despite the fact that the victim “went through the front windshield and came to a rest in the front passenger seat of the Mazda.” Onak was later stopped by a cop who noticed that the vehicle “had extensive front-end damage.” And that there was a dead guy riding shotgun.

“The driver advised the deputy that he had hit something on the freeway but was not aware the victim was lying in the passenger seat,” according to a Houston Police Department press release.

Since police believed Onak to be under the influence (I know, I'm surprised too), his blood was drawn. What kind of happy medicine they may or may not have found in his system either hasn't been released or was left out of the stories I've seen, however.

So far, Onak has only been charged with felony accident involving injury, but more may be on the way. I wonder if he'll notice.

Howdy, Neighbour!

Even though we spend a considerable portion of our time here relating stories of folks doing horrible things and many of you seem to like that, it's nice to remind ourselves now and then that good does still exist in the world. Among all of the stupid criminals, horrible parents and people who can't hear trains over their headphones, humanity still manages to blossom and flourish.

Case in point, this lovely fellow from New Jersey. So considerate of his fellow man is he that when he damaged a woman's screen while braking into her home, he offered to fix it once he realized it wasn't her house he had meant to hit.

He was even nice enough to stick around for a while to chat.

The homeowner, Maria Cardona, tells The Press of Atlantic City that the man made her nervous as he told her about his family and kept a hand in his pocket. She says he was "really polite," but she just wanted him to leave.

He eventually did leave, but there is no mention in this tale of happiness of whether or not he later paid the intended friend a visit during his neighbourhood rounds. If he did, I'm sure they had a lovely time catching up on life over some tea and cookies.

Communities coming together for social time is so refreshing, isn't it?

Happy Birthday, Canada!

Before we start, here's your Canada related soundtrack. Perhaps I should have linked some Stompin' Tom again since it looks like I'm going to see him live in a couple weeks, but this was the first song that popped into my brain.

I love how I said before we get started as if I've got a lot to say and we're going to be here a while. We aren't, at least it doesn't seem that way. It's not like I'm Carin over here.

Nope, not much to say at all short of happy Canada Day and happy 4th to all the Americans. Enjoy whatever you're doing to celebrate. I'll be outside, beer in hand, enjoying some good food, an afternoon Blue Jays home game (no, I can't believe it either) as well as some Canadian football and probably some tunes at some point. I've had kind of a crummy week, but I'm feeling well enough to give myself a hangover so by god, I'm going to do it for my country!

And on the subject of July 4th, I've made a decision. Since A: I'm lazy and always looking for even the flimsiest of excuses to lounge about doing next to nothing, B: my mom's birthday falls on the 4th and C: about 58% of our readers are American and will likely have better things to do than read this crap, my vote is that the long weekend trucks right on through Monday. Sound good? Well, it does to me, so I'm going with it. Now that's not to say that there'll be nothing to read around here. You know how long weekends work. Carin could drop several thousand posts on your head because that's what she does. It could rain, bringing me indoors and causing me to find things when I'm drunk. Or maybe some spooj canister will do something stupid that will move me to write...provided I'm not dead, of course. You'll just have to keep checking in to see what happens. You could also give me a follow on Twitter, because then you'll know if anything's happening as soon as I do.

I think that's about all for now. I'm not at a point where I feel witty yet, so I'll wish you all a good long weekend again and be on my way.