Way Cool!

I never thought I’d make a blog post about food, but here we go. Last night I thought I’d try the Eastside Mario’s delivery thing. I felt like Mario’s, but couldn’t make it to the restaurant, so I thought what the hell I’ll give them a try. I was expecting your run of the mill delivery package, probably less than what you’d get if you went in the restaurant! But no! It was absolutely awesome. Steve and I tried it, and each of us got a cute little loaf of their bread with our dinners. They even sent parmesan cheese for the pasta and the salad! The croutons were even fresh!

So, if you ever feel like Eastside Mario’s but can’t get to the restaurant for some reason, try their delivery! it’s awesome! But if you’re blind, know what you want when you call because I can’t for the life of me read their menus on the website. Ok I’ll stop sounding like a gluttonous pig and leave you alone.

Note To Self…

Never argue with a girlfriend and then let her tie you up as part of a sexual act.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A woman upset about an impending breakup with her boyfriend cut off his penis and flushed it down a toilet, police said. Utility workers recovered the severed organ, and surgeons reattached it.

Kim Tran, 35, was arraigned on charges of assault, domestic violence and tampering with evidence. She remained jailed in Anchorage, with no bail set.

Police spokeswoman Anita Shell said the injury to the 44-year-old man was “brutal, brutal.”

The couple was arguing Saturday because the man, whose name was not released, wanted to end the year-old relationship, Shell said. The pair decided to have sex, and the man agreed to have his arms tied to a window handle above their bed. The woman pulled out a kitchen knife and severed his penis, police said.

After flushing the organ down the toilet, she drove the man to the hospital and helped him to a nurses’ station, Shell said. Police, summoned by a hospital worker, found Tran at the couple’s home cleaning up the blood, Shell said.

Water utility workers retrieved the penis, and police said surgery to reattach it was successful.

Well hey, at least she was nice enough to drive him to the hospital.

Random Bitchfest

I don’t know. I just have a bunch of thoughts, and none of them feel long enough to make posts of their own, so I figured I’d throw them all together to make a bitch stew. So eat up.

Ok, some of these were provoked by Steve’s post about the bank machine Braille and the Braille in a glass case. It made me think about that pseudo Braille on the bills. Yes, you heard me right, pseudo Braille. That Braille on the bills doesn’t actually say anything. No, you cannot think you’ve learned what 5, 10 and 20 are in Braille by looking at those bills. Those are just blobs of dots. They put one blob on for 5, 2 on for 10, and 3 on for 20. At this rate they will run out of places to put blobs. I actually asked someone from the CNIB why in the blue bloody hell they did that, and they said it was supposed to make the bills readable to anyone with a vision problem even if they didn’t know Braille. Ok sparky, here’s something to ponder. If a person isn’t reading Braille, that means their fingers probably aren’t sensitive enough to pick up the stupid blobs of dots. Hell I read Braille and I find them hard to find. And with use, they fade! away! and unevenly, so suddenly a bill that had 3 blobs can one day look like it has 2. Great system there folks.

I do appreciate the sentiment. I just wished they’d consulted with a few more people. Oh yeah, and this pisses me off. People think they’ve consulted with “The blind” if they’ve consulted with one blind person. Would you even think that’s remotely close to fair if someone consulted with one man in Toronto and then said they got the Canadian male perspective? I don’t think so. You’d say, “Talk to a few more and then maybe say you have the Canadian male perspective. One’s not good enough.” So how is one blind person good enough? I know we’re a bit more rare, but come on, you can find a few. Hell, after you’ve talked to one, you can ask that person who else you should talk to. Chances are we know a few more.

And why aren’t they more willing to have a few more talking bank machines? They exist, why not put them in a few more bank branches? Royal has them, and so does CIBC. It’s possible, let’s get some more of them out there. I love having a conversation about this with a teller. It usually goes something like this:

Me: Why don’t we have a talking bank machine yet?
Teller: It’s a privacy concern.
Me: Why?
Teller: because it would speak your info.
Me: Have you not seen these things? They require a set of headphones, which I would bring in myself.
Teller: Oh…ok.
Me: And which is less private? Me typing in stuff myself and the random chance of someone overhearing the sound from the headset or me having to ask people for help using a bank machine that doesn’t talk and them seeing my PIN number?
Teller: Uh…that’s a good point…um…You should talk to someone about this.
Me: Yep, that’s right. How about you?
Teller: um…

And that’s usually where it sadly ends. I just don’t get why these things are so slow to implement, and when you talk about it, how easily tellers like to try and fill you with bullshit. You can tell they have no idea what they’re talking about when you can pretty much shoot down every one of their claims in one shot.

I don’t even know how to segway to this, but I was thinking more about words, and realized I missed one. People say “no offense” for no reason. There’s one person I know who, half the time when they say “no offense”, the next thing they say wouldn’t even come close to offending me. They’ll say something like, “No offense, but this episode of the Simpsons sucks.” And that would offend me because…? Come on, think about what you’re saying.

And last night I heard another piece of George W. Bush stupidity. He actually said as a response in a press conference about Iraq’s new government, “It is a democracy based on values.” And that’s where his sentence ended. Based on values? That sentence might as well have not even been uttered because it’s meaningless. Everything is based on values. The question is which values are those? Liberal values? Conservative values? Values believed by the utterly insane? Whose values? But of course, no one will notice. They’ll cheer merrily and say that Bush is right and smile and watch the next news story like a pack of zombified robots.

And here’s another thought on not thinking. Have you ever noticed that the ones who call themselves religious always say, “Since I’ve found god, I have no worries. I hand everything over to god and faith.” Ok, translation. “Since I think I’ve found a divinity, I no longer have to think for myself.” Isn’t that a scary thought? On an individual level, that’s digestible. But imagine if a whole group of people found a higher power? Stopped thinking? Do we really want that? Thanks, I’ll keep my worries, because I like my brain.

On a completely different thought, I was shipped something yesterday, which was way cool, but as packing, they used those bastard Styrofoam beads to cushion the box. Those things are possessed. For one, they defy gravity. You go to lift the contents of the box out, and they seem to float out with your hands, then cling to them. My god, they would not come off my hands! I’m still picking little Styrofoam bits off my floor. they are every bloody where in my house! The only thing worse for getting all over the house are wood shavings if you’ve ever had a pet hamster or other rodent.

And…holy crap I’m out of ideas. Scary thought eh? Or maybe you were all just hoping I’d shut up soon. Next time I’m sure I’ll have something more coherent to say.

That better?

So I decided to break the site again. A while ago, our good friend -666 said the google ads frame was kind of obscured by the blogger stuff at the top of the page. I decided to be brave and move it to a place that makes sense to me, but I’m blind so what do I know? Eyeball opinions please. Hope its new home is a good one. I want the ads to be seen, but I don’t want people to find them obnoxious.

Bank Machines In Braille

Not sure if this is true, but somebody emailed it to me and it’s funny.

Anxious to ‘include’ as many minorities, religions and disabilities as possible, the human resources department of the University of Alberta has put up a Braille poster outside its main office. The poster has been placed inside a display case with a glass front.

[This is brought to you by the same geniuses who put braille instructions on the drive up window at the bank.]

I’ve never seen instructions on those things, but I have seen Braille on them. It’s essentially useless though, drive through or not, because the Braille tells you nothing more than that you are in fact standing near a bank machine. And even then you pretty much have to molest the thing to find it, and by that time you’re probably well aware of where you are. Seriously, I’d hate to meet the person who walks up to one of these things and tries to call somebody on the big speaker pay phone.

And while we’re on the subject of Braille bank machines, unless the machine is going to talk to me, don’t even bother with the Braille. You might think that putting A B C D E F on the buttons down the sides is helpful, but it’s not. All of the stuff I need to know to make those letters mean something is on the screen, which isn’t in Braille, ever. You’re wasting your time, and you’re wasting mine too by making me stand there while you try to convince me that this is the coolest thing ever. It isn’t.

I’m not trying to say that I don’t appreciate the sentiment, because I do. All I’m saying is consult a blind person, and I don’t mean one of those crazy advocate types who work for the big organizations or the winey bitch unreasonable everything should be handed to me because my eyes don’t work types either. I’m talking about people like me, or people like Carin. We’ll help you, and we won’t even make you feel sorry for us in the process or ask you for consulting fees. But hell, if you want to give us consulting fees, I’m sure we could work something out.

I feel old!

Lately I’m being slapped in the face with how old I’m getting. I know it’s not seriously that old, but it’s scary. It’s the beginning. Other people who aren’t that much younger than me don’t remember certain things that I remember clearly. Like, remember those old books that came with the tapes and when you listened to the tapes, you knew when it was time to flip the page in the book when you heard the chimes ring? You don’t either? Well…I met someone who had no idea what I was talking about! I also remember a time when the dial tone on the phone sounded different than it does now. Hell I remember the day it changed sound. It scared the crap out of me cause I thought I broke the phone. Hell I had a dial phone for years! Nobody else remembers the dial tone sounding different either! I remember clearly commercials for the Commodore 64. Enough said. I remember listening to records! When I mention things like that to other people, and they go, “No, I don’t remember that,” I can only pray it’s because they have a bad memory.

But if only it were those things. Other things scare me too. Hardly anyone in my classes were born in the same decade as me! If they are, it’s the refreshing moment when they’re much older and dooing the mature student thing. I’ve passed the quarter century mark! aaa! I hear songs on an oldies station that I don’t think are that old! The signs are beginning to accumulate. Somebody save me. Make me feel younger than somebody, or at least not quite so much like I’m getting old!

I’ll Let Somebody Else Make The Cork And Screw Jokes

It seems that Queer Beer isn’t alone in the gay alcohol market. In Australia, they now have something called
Pansy Wine.

Before now I’ve never really considered homo booze as a marketing concept, but the more I think about it, the more the advertising executive side of me keeps cranking out the good ideas.

For instance, what gay person wouldn’t want to run out and buy a big bottle of Rambuca? Or perhaps some Rodka? Maybe some Crack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey? And for that special lesbian in your life, how about a nice shot of Snatch Schnapps? I might have to change the name of that one since it’s kind of hard to say, especially when you’re smashed. But the possibilities are seemingly endless here.

Queer Beer

Some Swiss businessmen have launched a company called Lemonhead to market a new product known as
Queer Beer
which they hope will help them corner the homosexual market.

Ok, is it really a good idea to make a gay beer when your company has the word head in it’s name? And how are they going to sell it? I know that a lot of beer comes in bottles, but I’m sure that if you asked, a good portion of the gay community would tell you that they’d rather have it in the can.

A Hug? Or a Strangle Hold?

I just got another one of these stupid emails. They’re all the same. “This is a hug certificate. Here’s a nice sappy poem that I didn’t write and isn’t really that great. Send this to your friends and send it back to me. If I don’t get it back, I know how you feel.” Why are these things still circulating? Please please please tell me?

When will people realize that these sickly sweet meaningless poems that come a dime a dozen aren’t nice and cute? They’re fucking annoying. And why would you want the same poem sent back to you? You’ve already received the piece of trash, read it, and sent it on, which makes me question your intelligence. Why on earth would you want it back in your inbox like the cat that just keeps coming back? And why does receiving this back tell you more about friends X, Y, and Z than what they say in emails that they, ya know, actually take the time to write themselves? And here’s a hint to all you forwarding freaks. Don’t you think telling people to send this back or you know how they feel about you is taking all the sincerity out of it? Wouldn’t you rather they do it of their own free will? As soon as I see that line, I know what happens to that waste of so many bits of data. Pow! Straight to the trash! Please! Everybody! Stop sending these hug messages! Years ago, they were perhaps cute, and I’m saying perhaps. But now, they are nothing but stale wastes of space. If you want to send me a message to let me know you’re there, a simple “How’s it going?” message will do nicely. And here’s a really cool idea. If you send me one of those, chances are I’ll respond without you having to twist my arm!