You Left Your Dog Where?

I cannot even remotely understand this story. Here's a short summary.

Guy, his wife and his guide dog go camping in a Wal-Mart parking lot (what the hell?).
Guy ties his guide dog to a tree.
guy and wife leave the next morning, each thinking the other had put the dog back in the camper (again, what the hell?).
Neither did.
guy is very lucky, because nice delivery man rescues dog.
Police reunite guy with dog.

How in christ do you forget your guide dog? How does that even work? I can understand losing your dog if the dog somehow runs out of your house when you're answering the door. I can understand something terrible happening to the dog if you somehow lost control of him/her and he went out into the street. But this is just stupid! He'd had this dog for at least four years. After having your furry friend either near you or attached to you in some way, you just don't forget him! It would be like leaving your kid at a gas station. I know it happens too, but in that case, what do we say? Wow, that's stupid!

Hopefully I never end up leaving Trixie somewhere. If that happens by some bizarre chain of events, I'll really have to eat my words. But until then, I'll just shake my head and be glad that it ended ok.

For Stressed out Geeks Everywhere...

Wow. The USB gadgets keep getting weirder. This one reminds me of a toy I had when I was a kid. It was called the revenger, and people would attach it to their car's dash. then when fellow drivers pissed them off, they could press one of 3 buttons and it made noises of a death ray, a machine gun or dropping bombs. So they could feel like they were obliterating the idiot driver who just cut them off in whatever way they saw fit.

Now, you can have a similar experience with
the USB stress panic button!

It looks like some ordinary piece of technology, but if you flip up the lid, there's a giant red button. Slam it, and either watch a simulated bomb explosion or pretend you're punching your boss. And if you're afraid you'll get caught screwing around, it has something to quickly flash up on the screen that looks like a spreadsheet.

And these people want people to pay $17 U.S. for it. Wow.

It's a Small World After All, Even Smaller After This Guy Does Some Target Practice.

Remember Carey McWilliams? Well, um, he's a grad from GDB! Now there's someone I don't want to piss off at an alumni convention. He might shoot me!

That Explains A Lot

A growing number of complete fucking dorks are
paying big money to consultants to help them come up with names for their children.

But as stupid as this is, at least it offers some explanation for how we wind up with dumbshits trying to name innocent infants who have never done a bad thing to anyone things like
4real.

Chris Benoit

Carin told me I should write something about the Chris Benoit situation. She's right and I was planning on it, but even though you're reading what I've come up with, I really have no idea what to say. I don't even know what to think at this point. I'm reading what comes out just like everybody else is, and just like them, the more I hear, the more shocked, the more saddened, the more confused I become. It never crosses your mind that somebody you look up to, somebody you see as special to you in some way, somebody you've almost never heard a bad word spoken about could have done what it's looking more and more like he did. I know it's a strange thing to say, but of all the people in and around the wrestling business, there's almost nobody I have a harder time picturing murdering his family and killing himself than Chris Benoit. It just doesn't seem possible, and there are moments when I think about it and I half expect that any minute now I'm going to wake up and everything will be the way it was before. Unfortunately I know that's not going to happen, and that as today moves on and becomes tomorrow and as tomorrow turns into next week, more details will emerge, and somehow everything will get even harder to comprehend than it already is.

None of us will ever truly know what went on in that house or what was going on in the minds of the people in it, and sadly, the only ones who will ever fully understand what happened this weekend can't tell us now. But I think it's pretty safe to say that even if they could, sense could never be made of it. Sense can never be made of something like this, no matter how much we may wish it could. Right now and likely forever, the only things that I'll ever know for sure are that 3 people are dead, and that even though you can't take his accomplishments away from him, the name Chris Benoit will likely never mean the same thing as it did just a few short hours ago.

Strange Dreams are Made of Trixie.

You can tell I spend a lot of time thinking about Trixie. Why? She's in my dreams! She's in a lot of my dreams in very ordinary ways, but there were two that were especially weird.

I had one dream that it was one of those times that Steve and I were off to visit his family. But in the dream, I decided to leave Trixie behind! I didn't leave her with someone, I just left her in the apartment. Everyone was fine with this, until I got there, realized that we would be gone for days, and began panicking when I finally figured out that noone would be there to feed her, let her out to relieve, all that good stuff. Then, it was too late to go get her, so we were just going to hope for the best. And the dream was over, I woke up with a start, terrified that I had actually done this. Alrighty then. What does that mean? Does part of me think I would actually abandon Trixie? Weird.

Then I had another dream that made even less sense than the other one, although I can sort of see fragments of reality in it. I dreamed that I took Trixie out to play on the flexi-lead, and the lawn was full of dogs! Dogs everywhere! They were playing, romping, having a good time. So I let Trixie loose, and we all watched the fun. Then I brought Trixie back in, and every so often, when I'd call Trixie to me in the house, I'd think I saw another dog! One time, the dog that jumped at me was yellow, and we all know Trixie is black! Somehow, I'd brought Trixie in, but another dog had followed us, and noone had stopped the dog from coming in with us. I was trying to get this mystery dog to sit, and it would not sit at all. Trixie was not a fan of our stray and kept growling at him. This was not a good scene.

I picked up the phone to call our downstairs neighbour. My thought was she knows everyone in the building, she'd know who this dog belonged to and help me get it home. But the phone wasn't working! Every time I'd pickit up, it would either buzz at me strangely or I'd be hearing someone else's conversation.

Finally, I wrestled this big dog without a leash past a growling Trixie and into the elevator. We went down to my neighbour's door, but she wasn't home! I got back into the elevator, and ran straight into my boss! I wondered what the hell he was doing in the elevator, but wondered if he could help me with this dog. He went to look at the tags to figure out where the dog was supposed to go, but just as he was about to read it, the elevator opened, he said he had to get off here, but to go to the lobby and he'd be right there to help me. But he never showed up! So there I was, in the lobby of the building, fighting with this uncontrollable dog that wasn't mine. All I kept thinking in the dream was, "Man I'm glad Trixie's good at her obedience."

Man, my brain is screwed up when I sleep. I wonder what other weird dreams it will cook up with Trixie in them.

No What Allowed?

Wow. It's not very often that, while browsing apartment listings, you stop dead in your tracks and laugh for five minutes at a listing...after staring at it in bewilderment for another 2 minutes.

I'm trying to help a friend find an apartment, so I'm surfing around the newspaper's classifieds section. I found one listing that said "no crocodiles allowed!"

Crocodiles?

Yes, in fact, it said c r o c o d i l e s.

This is the listing.

No Crocodiles Allowed!
Item#:  911076      
Rate:  
$1,150  /  month
(Fixed Price)      
Address:  120 Mansion St    
City, Province  Kitchener, ON       
National        
Bedrooms:  1    
Bathrooms:  1    
Square Feet:   615       
Quantity Available:  1    
Condition:  Unknown      
Date Available:  09 Jun 2007    
Posting Date:  09 Jun 2007    
Posting Expires:  09 Jul 2007      
Posting Last Modified:  09 Jun 2007 11:23:55 PST    
 
Seller: 
greatspace

    Description

Air Conditioning: Yes    
Building Age: 1 years 
Floor Size: 615 Square Feet    
Stories: 6 
Parking: 1  
You'll love this beautiful upscale, almost new 1 bedroom condo. Quiet residential area, new building. Stainless appliances. Electricity extra. No smoking.
Shared roof terrace. Lots of light in this unit. 

Everything else looks normal, except the part about the crocs, which leads me to say, huh? What...who...why?! In the middle of a city, there is a one-bedroom apartment listed, and they actually had to tell people that crocodiles were not welcome. No dogs? Got it. No pets? Totally understand. But are these landlords saying that they're finding it a common occurrence that tenants are keeping crocodiles in their apartments?

I'm so tempted to email these people and ask why they felt it necessary to tell prospective tenants that crocodiles were not allowed to live there. Perhaps a better question is, where are crocodiles allowed to live? I want to know, so I can avoid those buildings.

Speaking Of Running Gags

Here's one from the You Named That Kid What? Files.

Pat and Sheena Wheaton said they decided to name their new baby "4real" shortly after having an ultrasound and being struck by the reality of his impending arrival.

"For most of us, when we try to figure out what our names mean, we have to look it up in a babies book and ... there's no direct link between the meaning and the name," Pat Wheaton told TV One on Wednesday. "With this name, everyone knows what it means."

But when the parents filed the name with New Zealand's Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, they were told names beginning with a number were against the rules.

The government office has opened negotiations with the parents about the name under a policy that says all unusual names must be given case-by-case consideration.

"The name has not at this stage been rejected," Registrar-General Brian Clarke said in a statement Thursday. "We are currently in discussions with the parents ... to clarify the situation."

Clarke said the rules are designed to prevent names that are "likely to cause offense to a reasonable person." Satan and Adolf Hitler were proposed names that have been declined, he said.

If no compromise has been reached by July 9, the baby will be registered as "real," officials say.

The full article is
here,
4Real.

A New Trend To Follow

I don't know if anybody else has picked up on this or not, but I've been noticing something odd about the news lately. Over the last few weeks, there has been an unusually high number of stories dealing with people who's names somehow relate to the situation that caused them to make headlines in the first place.

First there was
Christopher Woods,
the guy who is suing the Boost Plus energy drink people for damages over a case of endless, well, uh, wood.

A few days later there was the story of Iowa woman
Suzanne Marie Butts,
who is facing charges and possible prison time for stealing toilet paper from a local courthouse.

And just yesterday I came across the story of an imprisoned murderer who was caught with an entire cell phone charger stuffed up his ass. His name?
Tony Pile.

I know that things like this happen from time to time, but 3 cases in as many weeks is pretty weird so I thought I'd better mention it before somebody else scooped my observation. It would suck to spend so much time *coughcough*researching*coughcough* such an important topic and have it all be worth nothing in the end. And don't worry, I'll be sure to report on more of these as I find them or as people point them out to me, because this is so totally a ready made VC running gag.

DVS Is Great, But This Is a Bit Much

Are you a blind person? Do you like pornography, but feel that today's porn product is neglecting you by not paying attention to your accessibility needs? If so, then boy oh boy do I have a treat for you. Yes indeed, your life changes today. For today is the day that
PornForTheBlind.org
enters your world.

Thanks to this new free service, never again will you have to ask yourself or even worse a friend questions such as "just what is he doing to that woman exactly?" Or "did he really get it all on her face like he said he wanted to?" Porn for the Blind's helpful narrators will solve those mysteries and so many more for you, and they'll do it with just slightly more vocal inflection than
Steven Wright.

But wait, there's more!

If the ever so cheerful sounding men using the technical terms for sex acts aren't enough for you, you will no doubt be thrilled to learn that none of them appear to have grasped the concept of holding a microphone away from their mouthes while speaking into one. The inclusion of the original site's URL's and the exact lengths of the clips being described are also features that will surely set your loins to blazing.

So visit
Porn for the Blind
today.

Porn for the Blind: If this doesn't turn you on, you're probably normal.

Jehova's stalkers

I got something in the mail yesterday that frightened me. It was a piece of mail from some Jehova's Witnesses, or Jehova's Witlesses as Steve called them. But I didn't even have to open it to be frightened by it. You could tell it was not professionally put together. Someone was doing this from their home. Even scarier, it was addressed to us, as our names appear on the buzzer downstairs.

Think about that for a while. That means that someone had to stand down there, write down everybody's apartment number and names as they appeared on the buzzers, and then go out and carefully hand-mail all the junk-mail they wanted to send us. Doesn't that seem like a scary amount of effort? Why do they want to convert the people in this building so badly? And why not use that energy for something, ya know, productive?

Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Make Shitty Movie

When people ask me why I never go to the movies and why I don't care when stuff comes out on DVD, I always have a million ways to answer their questions. And as of this very moment, I now have
one more.
Yes, "Monopoly: The Movie" could soon be coming to a theatre near you.

FILM director Ridley Scott is preparing the most unlikely movie of his career: a feature-length version of the venerable board game Monopoly.

The 69-year-old British film-maker, whose hits include Gladiator and Black Hawk Down, has been offered the pick of young actors to help turn the property game into a comedy thriller.

William Morris, the oldest theatrical agency in Hollywood, has promised Hasbro, which owns Parker Brothers, the manufacturer of Monopoly in the US, that the cream of its stable of 2000 actors will help create a blockbuster movie.

Scarlett Johansson and Kirsten Dunst are being considered for roles. Hasbro, which claims that Monopoly has been played by 750 million people since the 1930s, wants the film to feature "sexy young people" in an attempt to attract teenagers to board games.

Comedy thriller? Ok then.

I'll admit I'm somewhat curious about this movie, mostly because I can't figure out how they intend to shoehorn the hours upon hours of madcap excitement that is an actual game of Monopoly into 90 short minutes. I'm not sure if that's the plan, but I hope that's what they've got in mind. If they try to go all true to life on us with this one we're going to end up with something slightly longer than watching Ben-Hur 3 times, and I don't think anybody wants that.

Tone Death

If the urge strikes you to go to the Philippines, and while you're there, you feel the need to go to a karaoke bar and sing, make sure you *can* sing. If not, you may die. That's what happened to a poor unfortunate soul named Romy Baligula. He was halfway through a song, I don't know what song it was, and 43-year-old security guard Robilito Ortega yelled to him that he was out of tune. He kept on singing, and our security guard just couldn't take any more of his caterwauling, pulled his service revolver, and silenced him with a bullet to the chest! Our singer will never sing again, he died instantly.

If you think that's too weird, the article says deaths and fights often happen in the Philippines because of people singing out of tune, and songs like Frank Sinatra's My Way had to be removed from the list because apparently, a lot of us can't do the song justice and violence breaks out too often because of people's warblings.

Ooo! I have an idea! I know how we can get rid of that warbling whore! Let's send her to the Philippines!

follow my nose to what?

Last night, we were watching Cops. I don't know what it is exactly, but something always draws us to watching crime shows, and I think the most amusing ones are Cops and To Serve and Protect, just because the people getting arrested come up with some pretty weird excuses for why they have drugs on them or why they're down in the alley where they got nailed.

Anyway, last night, they had to bring in a dog to chase someone down, which is always fun. But it got me thinking. Police dogs are supposed to sniff, right? That's how they find their man. But I know dogs love to sniff everything, and any scent is interesting to them. So how do the police know if the dog is really on the trail? How do they know it hasn't caught the smell of another dog, a nice plant, or who knows what? I know they're trained, yada yada yada, but they can still get distracted. It was just a question that crossed my mind last night.

You Have A Collect Call From...Your Cheap Offspring.

Isn't this a sad statement? According to snopes, Father's Day is the busiest day of the year for collect calls. Next in line is Mother's Day, followed by Valentine's day. Aren't we a classy bunch? We can't even pay a few bucks to say we love our parents and significant others. Tomorrow's Father's day, and I wouldn't think of calling dad up and then making him pay the bill. That's evil!

Every day, I am convinced more and more that we're doomed. Screwed, broken beyond repair, up the creak without a paddle. This is just another sign.

Beating A Who With A What Now?

Steve told me about this story, and he's right. The next passage contains the best words to be written down since a police officer said someone was punching vegetation.

Durango, CO
11:08 a.m. A man on Westwood Place said his girlfriend was beating a miniature Chihuahua with a spatula.

And that's the whole story. That leaves me with so many questions, and so many images. Steve said he saw this little gem somewhere, and my curiosity got the best of me. I through the words "beat chihuahua with spatula" into google, and voila!

So now, the questions, the images, and the fun! My biggest question is...why? Why would you beat a chihuahua with a spatula? Did it just eat part of your lunch off the spatula and you got mad? Why?

And...it was a miniature chihuahua. Is there any other kind? Have I been living under a rock and there are giant chihuahuas running around? I guess there are chihuahuas and teeny chihuahuas. And if that's the case, the spatula was probably bigger than the poor little creature.

And...how scary is this woman that her boyfriend didn't just stop her from beating the chihuahua? Why did he have to call the police? I can understand calling the cops if you saw your neighbours wallupping their little yappy mutt, but your girlfriend? Come on! Maybe he was afraid he'd get the spatula next.

And last but not least...how did it end? Did they take the chihuahua away? What happened to the girl? Don't leave me hanging like that!

All I know is that whole scene would have been odd to witness. Maybe the images in my head are funnier than it could have possibly been.

We Had the Hot Seat, Now You Can Have A Cool Seat.

First we had the USB missile launcher. Then came the USB nuclear missile launcher. Then we got less warlike in our USB gadgets with the creation of the secret base emergency button, and finally, our laziness was shown with the invention of the USB ash tray.

But now, we have something for the What the Fuck department to analyze. It's the USB...drum-roll please...bum-cooling cushion?

Yipper, that's what it does. Don't believe me? Then I quote.

How does it work? A built-in fan pulls in cool air from down near the base of your chair and pumps it up and out through holes in the seat of the cushion to cool your posterior down to a more comfortable temperature.

Have you ever sat in your chair and thought "Gee, my ass is hot. No other part of me is hot, though. If only I could cool my ass..." I never have, but maybe I'm in the minority. Or maybe these people are just weird. Either way, there it is.

Homeboy Got a New Cellphone!

I know, I know, that was only funny for Steve, the lady at Rogers who I talked to when I got this thing, and me, but that's never stopped me before, hahah.

Remember when I jumped up and down about Rogers's new phone that you could buy with the Talks software already installed? Well, guess who went and bought one? Yipper, that would be me, and I'm pretty damn impressed with it. I've already set my own ringtone, set the clock, put some contacts in the contacts directory, learned a whole bunch of the Talks functions, can check the battery level and signal strength...and I have much, much more to learn.

First off, to anyone who wants to buy one of these, if you choose to call rogers and buy it through there, be very very sure that the rep knows you want the Nokia 6682RVI, which is Rogers's cute name for the bundle with Talks. They will say they don't see such a thing, and try to just sell you the Nokia 6682, but you don't want that. So make sure they find it.

The box came with some pretty cool stuff in it. There was a Talks Manual in mp3 and word format, a little braille sheet that explained that the phone had Talks preinstalled and said the formats the user's manual was in, and a whole bunch of cool accessories. There was a headset, a USB cable, another cable that I haven't the foggiest clue what it does, a 64-mb memory card, a funky wrist strap, some cool Nokia software, and of course the battery and charger and such.

It is so nice to be able to monkey with my own phone settings. I was able to set the clock, the ringtone, see how much battery power I had left, turn on training mode so I could mess with stuff without it doing anything, and all in the first night of having it. Now I just have to figure out who I can send a thank you letter to for going ahead with this. God I'm going to be known as the thank you blink before too long, hahahaha.

Oh, My, God!

This is a truly amazing video.
A guy walks around asking people simple questions like when and where did the 9/11 attacks take place. if you've ever seen those Talking To Americans bits on the CBC, you probably know what happens next. Seriously, watch this thing and wonder along with me how it is that some of these people manage to function on a daily basis.

I Think Somebody's A Little Squirrely

Are squirrels super valuable in Israel? If not, do any of you have another way to explain
this?
I hope so, because I've got nothin', at least nothin' better than mental illness.

The victim, whose name was not released, said he was carrying his pet squirrel in his fanny pack when Surami grabbed it and tried to take it with him. The man stopped Surami and took his pet back.

Later the same day, the victim allegedly received a phone call from Surami in which he threatened to burn down his house if he didn't turn over the squirrel.

Afraid of losing his home, the man complied and met Surami, who allegedly proceeded to shove and slap the complainant, as well as attempt to attack him with a kitchen knife.

The man managed to escape, but two hours later, Surami allegedly torched his bike.