Update on the TD Bank Machines

I’m awake, and trying to burn out so I can go back to sleep. So here I am.

Last week, I talked about the new talking feature on the TD bank machines. Well, my number of beefs with them has gone down from 3 to 1. I figured out how to adjust the volume, and you don’t have to enter the decimal point. My only beef now is it doesn’t seem to speak the select a language prompt. But that’s the only prompt it doesn’t speak. So maybe when I send a thank you letter to whoever’s responsible for these machines, I can recommend some braille be fastened to each machine that says which button to push for each language, if they don’t want to tweak the speaking features. I found more cool features, though, so I have more things to rave about than rage about. The machine will even give you an audio orientation to the machine, tell you where your card goes, your money comes out, and where the receipt is printed. It even says please remove your cash when it comes out. You can change where the navigational keys are positioned. They’ve pretty much thought of everything, so I’m damn happy. After all my, and likely some other blinks’ pissing and moaning to tellers, TD now has a machine that’s pretty damn close to perfect!

People Are Strange…When You’re a Stranger.

I dunno, I just thought that title seemed appropriate.

What is with this tendency for blinks on email lists to randomly add people they don’t really know at all to their msn messenger lists? Are they that loneley that they want to get to know new people, and this is the only way they know how?

I’m a little freaked this morning. Wanna know why? I’m on an email list with my email account that is not my messenger address. Still, one of the list members found my messenger address, I don’t know how, and added it to his list. Um, why? I don’t know him from a hole in the ground.

There’s a reason I join email lists with an account that isn’t my messenger address. At one time, that was the account I used for lists. Sometimes, several people who I don’t know at all, aside from answering some question about screen-readers or Microsoft Word, would all add me. Some of them would repeatedly demand voice chats. Some of them had nothing to say, but had to say it often. Some of them just turned into weirdos and pervs. All of them got hoofed!

I’m no longer as freaked as I was. I figured out that he’s one of the guys who added me when I was using my msn address on that old list, and I guess he’s changed accounts. But he’s one of the ones that had nothing to say and said it often. So at least he wasn’t a creep. But I still never understood why he added me in the first place!

Man people are weird.

I don’t know Why I’m Telling This Story, but…

It feels like it has to be told, because every time I tell this story to someone, they laugh their ass off. So, since I’ve been writing all day, I figure what the hell.

In another post, I mentioned some of the weirdos I went to school with. Well one of them gets a starring role in this story.

It’s not really fair to call this guy a weirdo, since what made him weird wasn’t something he could help. He was deafblind, and something a lot of deafblind people do is make noises all the time. I guess it must feel good, and if you don’t realize that no one else is making those noises, why would you stop? Every deafblind person who makes those noises seems to find his or her own unique type of noise. Our starring actor’s sort of sounded like, “o-aa, o-aa, o-aa, o-aa-o-aa-o-aa, o-aa, o-aa.” If I could leave a clip of me making the noise, I would, people tell me that I do a good impression of this guy.

Anyway, one morning, I was sitting in French class. We had a small French class of five, and once a week, one of the students would go into the back room with the teacher and have to talk to him for a few minutes. This was one of those mornings. There were 3 guys, two of whom were twins, and two girls in the French class, the other girl went in the back, so it was the guys and me out there.

As we sat working on various assignments, we heard our deafblind buddy going by. We didn’t think much of it, because they always pass through on their way to somewhere. But this one seemed to be alone, and was taking his sweet time about it. His noise changed from “o-aa, o-aa o-aa o-aa o-aa, o-aa, o-aa,” to something that sounded like an evil genius laugh, and we all sort of giggled. One of the dudes started imitating him, and did a damn good job! This kept me and one of the guys laughing, while the guy doing the imitating got scolded by his brother and told to stop it. He didn’t, which was fine by us, because it was damn funny.

After each utterance our deafblind friend made, the dude in the class would match it. Then, oh then! Something changed. I thought maybe he’d gotten up and moved around the classroom, because now there was an “o-aa, o-aa, o-aa o-aa, o-aa” right behind my head! Then the creator of that noise shook his head violently from side to side. I said, “Um, dude? That was too real.” That’s when I heard my classmate across the room, and realized the one shaking his head behind me was the real thing!
Then we all froze, not really because we were afraid, but because we were kind of in shock. Had we called him? Could he hear us or hear that and follow the sound? Where was the staff that was usually with him?

Then, our teacher came out of the back room. He seemed just as confused as we were. Not really knowing what to do, he just sort of gave our noisy visitor a little shove out towards the hall and said, “There ya go.” I remember the guy closest to me saying, “And that’s going to do what?”

Luckily, a staff that knew him showed up and said to him, “How did you end up here? You’re on the wrong floor!” and promptly whistled him back to where he was supposed to be. I wonder how long he’d been missing?

The weirdest part of this whole thing, if it could get any weirder, was what happened after. Without speaking a word to each other, the guy sitting closest to me, the guy who had been imitating him, and I, started having a competition of who could imitate which deafblind. One of us would go, “aaaaa!”, someone else would go, “pffft pfft pfffttt clap slap clap slap,” and someone else went, “wee-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-eegguuuuuoouuuu!” And we’d all laugh. What the hell? What made us understand that we all wanted to play a game of name that deafblind dude? And what had the school done to us?

I hope that the story didn’t lose something in the writing. Maybe I can come up with more later. I think people will really think I’m weird now.

This is Scary.

I read about this story, and it freaked me out, and continues to freak me out. This woman went in for a colonoscopy. She was put in a twilight state, that is she was partially sedated. She woke up with semen on her face. The doctor, Aniruddha Chitale, was found guilty. His sentence is disgustingly light, considering he did this to four different women, 180 days in jail and 10 years’ probation? Give me a fucking break.

Anyway, this whole thing freaks me out for a lot of reasons. First, there was a nurse present while this was going on. Why couldn’t she have done something to stop it? I don’t expect her to become wonderwoman and beat this guy down, but I’m sure she could get security or call for some more help. That’s, among other things, her job. That’s the reason they have extra people in the room. To make sure the patient is ok from medical complications, and for extra security for the patient. He did this to four different women. Were these four different nurses? Or does he have a buddy who just happens to turn a blind eye at the right time? I can’t find out that little detail.

Second, I had to have a colonoscopy, and believe me, you don’t remember anything from the time they start sedating you until…well…way afterwards. Here we go into long story ville. A couple of years ago, I was really really really sick, and nobody could figure out why. Since part of the being sick involved a lot of nausea and diarrhea, they decided to test me for everything. In that battery of tests was a scope into my stomach and my colon. Well, they told me they’re definitely doing the stomach, and they may do the other. Isn’t that fun? You don’t even know what’s going to happen.

I’d say the worst part was the stuff they make you drink the night before to clean you out. They call it “go lightly”. I want the inventor of Go Lightly to have a good chug-a-lug of his creation and tell me if that is an apt name. I’ll tell you it’s not. Ug. When they deliver you a 4-litre jug of this stuff and say “drink it all by midnight,” it tastes absolutely horrid, and you’re fighting over the bathroom you share with 2 other women because they have to go just as bad for different reasons, you’re going. Oh you’re going. But I would never call it lightly. I still remember the nurse saying, “Do you want a commode? You’re going to have to go fast and furious.” That’s one thing that’ll make me cry.

Then the time came for the big test. I was scared shitless, and afraid to do anything. I wanted to have a shower, but I didn’t quite know when they were coming for me, so was afraid to go ahead and do it. Plus I didn’t really know where the shower was. I knew where the john was, but had no idea about the shower. Then I didn’t know what they’d let me wear for this test. I had a pretty good idea they were doing both tests when they told me all I could wear was the gown. I had to take off everything metal. And then they wheeled me in. That was creepy. I was perfectly able to walk, but I had to be wheeled on a weird bed thing. The guy in the elevator really freaked me out. He said to me, “I’ve met you before.” I said “oh?” He said, “Yeah, last week, when you were in the ER…you had had your fill of emerge.” I just stared at him, dumbfounded. I couldn’t remember what I could have possibly said. I’m sure I would have been angry about the whole process of what happened the two times I went to the ER because of this crazy illness, I waited a few hours and was told to go home. But did I say it to this complete stranger? Hopefully not! Maybe I was on the cell phone home, saying I was coming home and nothing happened. Anyway, enough babble.

So I get there, and they’re hooking me up to all these machines, and sticking something weird on my nose for oxygen. I’m glad they were all women, because before I knew it, woosh, they were opening my gown and sticking things to my boobs, I guess to monitor my heart. To relax myself, I started playing games with my breathing to make the beeps change. I’m weird. Then they were trying to find a vein. They couldn’t find one, story of my life. I was starting to freak, starting to think I was going to have to do this without any drugs. Then an anesthesiologist came to help. He eventually got it in with a kids’ needle or something. As the sedative hit, I looked up at him, grinned, and said, “You rock!” There was a pause, and a British voice said, “Thank you!” I was told that he was beaming, and is very seldom told that he rocks. Then something was sprayed down my throat to numb it. I was told it will taste terrible. I think I said to her, “That’s terrible? Try Go Lightly!”

…and…there is a large chunk of time that is absent. Actually, it’s more like a camera flashes and someone tells me it’s hours later. But there is no lag. There is no sense that I have slept for a while. Even when I was in a car accident that gave me a concussion, I had the sense that time was passing. I just don’t have any recollection of a few days except for confused snatches of sounds and smells. But anyway. I was told before the test that I would be kept partially awake through this whole thing so they could ask me questions about pain and so on. I never expected complete amnesia of the time period. I thought I’d just feel stoned or something. Apparently, it’s written on my report that I was very talkative. Um what did they give me? Sedative, or truth serum? What exactly did I say to them? Was I a whiny baby? I’ll never know.

The next time I knew what time it was, it was about 2 in the afternoon and I had a slightly sore throat, a hoarse voice, and a need to repeat all my thoughts to the nurses and poor Steve, who got a very annoying phone call home. . Apparently, I told him in about six different ways that I was fine, the scope went ok, I don’t remember a thing, they made me take my favourite necklace off, I told the anesthesiologist he rocked after he was able to find a vein, I think mom and dad are coming home, or did they come home. But these thoughts all just kept coming in random order and it didn’t matter how many times he told me I’d said that before, I’d say it again! I remember asking the nurses, “Is it over? What time is it? Where’s mom? They’re going home…but how will they get in? They have my keys? What time is it? Is it over? Where’s mom and dad? what time is it? …” you get the idea. Then, mom and dad came back with my mail and my medicine, and this is where memory just becomes foggy. I remember trying to read a braille wedding invitation. I was reading the braille sideways. it made no sense, but I kept on reading it. I’d miss whole lines and just let my hand land on some braille and try and read it. I’m sure that was pretty funny to watch, because they knew what it said! They had the print, and what I was reading, well, wow it didn’t make sense.

But the point of this whole rambling mess is the period from the time they sprayed my throat to several hours later when I started repeating myself is non-existent for me. If someone told me what happened during that time, I would have to believe them because it’s gone for me. As much as I’m grateful for the lack of memory I have of the scope, as I’m sure it wasn’t pleasant, it was still a freaky experience to have a drug have the power to make me forget what happened to me for a time. Now I read the story of a sexual assault, and the freakiness of the whole thing amplifies to horror. A doctor could so easily get away with this. The patient wouldn’t remember, and if she didn’t wake up with semen on her face and get it swabbed, she wouldn’t have had a hope of proving it! I’d seen things like that happening to people on shows like Law and Order, but at the time I went in, I wasn’t worried, because there were a couple nurses in there, so I was sure no funny business was going to happen. But now that it has, all I can think is, what a thought! And, that could have been me! I’m so glad it wasn’t! But it could have easily been me.

Smart Dog? Dumb Master? Dumb Dog and Master?

A Doberman Pinscher named Victoria figured out that she could turn on a stove, and after one showing of this new trick causing a minor fire, her master didn’t fix it so Victoria couldn’t get to repeat it. Victoria repeated it while her master was gone. Now her apartment is gutted.

Here’s a tip for ya. If you know woofy can turn on the stove, when you leave home, make sure woofy can’t get to the stove to turn it on! It’s as simple as that. I can’t figure out who’s dumber here. Is it Victoria for causing a fire once and not figuring out, “oo maybe I shouldn’t do that again.” or is it her owner, Caroline Wheeler, who was home for the first incident, so knew the dog did it, probably had to pay for the cleanup of the first fire damage, and never made sure that when she was gone, her dog was unable to get near the stove. I think Victoria was smarter, because I can’t expect her to make the connection between her flicking a switch and the fire because it probably took a while for the fire to happen. But she figured out how to turn on the stove! That’s pretty impressive. She survived the ordeal, and it seems her master has finally thought to prevent it. Now hopefully she doesn’t figure out how to turn on the iron!

Tis the Season to…huh?

Am I going deaf, or does anyone else, while not really paying attention to the TV hear, clear as a bell, “Tis the season to wallow?” Then you realise it’s “Tis the season to wow them,” because a commercial for Best Buy starts. But every single time I hear that commercial, I think it’s saying wallow! All I can think is “Now that doesn’t sound very festive.”

Why?

Tell me why some geniuses created the Micro Grill. Just try. It’s a grill in your microwave. It does everything a grill does, just as fast, but it’s in your microwave! So…just buy a grill! The only difference, besides it being in your microwave is you can put it in the dishwasher. Yee ha~! So your dishwasher can try and get it clean, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing, like it does the rest of your dishes…if you have a dishwasher.

They even make you buy it for 90 bucks. 3 easy payments of $29.95 my ass! It’s 90 bucks! And that’s before the bastards known as shipping and taxes come along for the ride. Come on, I think I could get a single person grill, at least, for cheaper than that. And it’s self-contained, so, quelle surprise, when your microwave breaks, you don’t fuck yourself out of two appliances.

And here comes the ridiculous part. It claims to block microwaves. How do we know this? Why not just grill your food, and then you’ll know there are no microwaves in it.

If this came before the invention of the grill, I could see calling its inventors geniuses for real, not sarcastically. But now it just looks stupid. Or can anyone see a sensible reason why you would grill in your microwave instead of just buying a grill?

Decisions, Decisions!

Which is more disturbing? Someone who cannot possibly see that they are inconsiderate, selfish, obnoxious and demanding, or someone who suddenly asks you if they are selfish, inconsiderate, obnoxious or demanding, and you say, well, sometimes a little, but it’s no big deal, and then they try to force their personality to fit into what you may want like some kind of shapeshifter?

I had an, well, acquaintance, who has already tried to make himself a boyfriend, even though he will never admit it, acted like a semi-stalker, and then wonders why I won’t tell him my deepest, darkest secrets. The other day, he said he was having some trouble connecting with people and wondered if he was doing something wrong. He said to me, “I always feel like I’m unloading on you. Am I?”

I thought. and thought. and thought. I’m a terrible liar, and I like to be honest with people wherever I can. I admit sometimes I stay silent, not saying what I think, but if someone asks me a question point blank, well…I have a hard time squirming away from the truth. I thought some more. Sometimes it does feel like he’s unloading on me and not leaving me any time to talk. He’ll message me late at night and scream that he has a computer question and he needs help right now. Sometimes he’ll call and talk for long times and talk about nothing, or ask vague questions where you know there’s more to it.

But then again, he’s not exactly someone I feel comfortable unloading on. You know how you have certain friends who just make you laugh, but you wouldn’t tell them anything serious? Maybe you have some friends who you can always lean on, and they lean on you too, and then there are the friends who seem to lean on you more than you lean on them, and part of the reason is you’re pretty sure they can’t handle it, or would say something that would hurt. He’s one of the third type, and I keep him at an extra distance because of the creepy factor that he’s shown me before.

But he does ask me how I am, which is more than I can say for some of my friends who just talk and talk and talk and they might as well be talking to a machine.

So I thought some more. I decided to tell him, “Well, sometimes, when you call late at night and need computer help right now, without asking if I can do it, it feels like you’re demanding. But part of it is me just giving in and helping you without standing up for myself. Sometimes, you just call and rant and you don’t even ask if I have time or whatever. But at least sometimes, you ask how I am, which is good. So don’t really worry about it. It just might be nice to be asked at 10 at night if I’m up for helping with the computer before dumping the problem on me. Other than that, no biggy, don’t worry.”

Next, I get this creepy email that says something like, “Do you want me to change, or just stay the same?” Um, what do you want to do? It’s not about what I want, it’s what you want. I don’t want to order you to change your personality, and I don’t want you to put on an act for me. I told him to just be himself, I didn’t want any kind of forced change. I said if change was going to happen, it was going to be an evolution.

Then I get this call. It was so fake. It was like he was holding himself back, thinking about every single sentence as if it was a move in chess. It was mercifully short, interrupted by a call waiting beep, but even as short as it was, It was creepy. It was, just, ug. And part of me wonders if it was ug on its own merits, or if it was ug because of who he is, who he has been.

What is it with people who think a friendship is like a scientific or mathematical formula, and if they just add x and subtract y, it will all work out? It makes me sad, because they must have 0 ability to read social queues, so of course they must be confused. But how does someone learn something like that? How does a person grow a gut instinct? Are they doomed to wander around lost, unable to really take direction and apply it without it looking fake? And then I wonder if I’ve created a monster by being honest, when I probably should have known that he couldn’t possibly take what I said the way it was intended and said “oh no, not at all. Don’t worry.”

ThenI wonder if I’m doing what I always couldn’t stand about dad. No matter what you did, it was wrong. If you were silent when he was yelling at you, you were just being stubborn. But if you said something back, you were being argumentative and lippy. If you helped out, but not precisely the way he wanted you to, you weren’t doing it right. But if you tried to stay out of the way, you were being lazy. If you played outside on a Saturday, you weren’t doing enough schoolwork. But if you did homework for too long, you weren’t getting enough fresh air! Arg! So here I go. I can’t count the number of times I’ve said, “I wish the people who are so inconsiderate would realize how they’re driving their friends away and stop to think of others for a second!” Now this person has, and I just want him to go back to being himself, because this new way of acting just seems forced, and fake, and…well…manipulative! I wonder what he’s up to! I can’t trust that this is genuine! So what do I really want?

Then I think, maybe he’s trying, in his own misguided way, to be a better friend, but he’s clueless about how to do it, so I shouldn’t be so hard on him.

Finally I wonder if I’m making this way too complicated and I should just follow my gut. So am I nuts? Is one worse than the other? Or maybe the key is to meet in the middle somewhere.

A Funky Christmas Quiz

I saw this on another blog, and then Jen emailed it to me, so I think something’s telling me I’m meant to fill it out. So off we go into the land of Christmas.

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Oh, it’s gotta be hot chocolate, baby! Especially if it’s damn cold and you just froze your ass off in the snow.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Hmm. Whose Santa? When I was a kid, Santa wrapped presents. But now they’re usually in gift bags since Santa sucks heartily at wrapping gifts.

3. Coloured lights on tree/house or white?
I don’t care. I think mom’s tree has white lights. I don’t think she likes the coloured lights. I don’t have a tree, since well, where would you put a big tree in an apartment?

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
I would if I had any. I just never ended up getting it. Mom hung it once, and dad used to make a big joke about the mistletoe. That was fun.

5. When do you put up your decorations?
I suck. I don’t have a lot of decorations, for the same reason I don’t have a tree. No room to store them all year. I sometimes feel like a grinch because all we have is a Homer Simpson’s Santa Claus and an itty bitty Christmas tree.

6. What is your favourite Holiday (Christmas or Thanksgiving) meal include?
It’s gotta have turkey, and stuffing, and mashed potatos! Mmm. *drool drool*.

7. Favourite Holiday memory as a child?
Hmmm. I think it has to be the Lion’s Club parties that happened every year. My dad was a lion, and I was always so mystified by the Lions’ club Santa Claus. He was so smart! Every other Santa gave me activity books and little generic bags of candy, which were cool, well the activity books weren’t much fun, but it was the thought that counted, right? But this Santa always got me a toy that I always wanted! I would get so excited over dinner while they built the suspense for Santa’s arrival, talking about where he was flying over, how long it would be…and then singing “Here Comes Santa Claus” when he arrived. Oh how come it took me until 11 years of age to figure out that each kid’s parents bought the gift that Santa gave them? That’s why they were so good! Even when I knew Santa didn’t exist, I just figured there was a committee that decided who was getting what. But the whole night was so much fun, and then the cool gift to top it all off made it perfect.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
*bristle bristle* Why did you have to ask that question? Ug here we go, story time. I had a teacher who was assigned to me to teach me braille and help me understand complex visual concepts. She spent a lot of time with me, so I guess she felt like she was my second mom, and should take over some of those maternal duties. So one day, when I was around 8, I guess she got sick of hearing, “Santa this, santa that.” So she told me, “Look, Santa doesn’t exist.” Ker Smash! There it goes! Just like that! I stil wonder how long it would have taken me to figure it out, but I don’t think it would have been much longer. I mean, I was already accidentally identifying some of the Santa Claus’s at Christmas parties, I still remember saying to one of them. “Gee, Santa, you sounda lot like Kirk Anderson!” Oh that got a big ho! ho! ho! Because, surprise, he *was* Kirk Anderson. Woops! Mom was pissed, oh mom was pissed about that little bubble-bursting. Anyway, enough pissing and moaning.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
Well, because we zoom six hours down to Grandma’s for Christmas Day, we open all our gifts on Christmas Eve. But as little kids, we used to open one on Christmas Eve and then take the rest down to Grandma’s. I remember crying as we left on Christmas Eve saying, “Santa won’t find us! Santa won’t find us!” So mom had to stick a note to the tree to keep us happy.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
Um all that our itty bitty tree has on it is a paper star. *sheepishly looks down*

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
Ug snow sucks. I used to like it when all I had to do was play in it, but now it’s just a giant pain in the ass.

12. Can you ice skate?
Oh god no. I can iceskate if I’m pushing a chair. Otherwise, my ass and the ice have frequent meetings.

13. Do you remember your favourite gift as a child?
Hmmm I remember the gift I obsessed over the most. For some reason, I just *had* to have an ALF doll. I would cry when I saw them in stores because I wanted one now now now! Now I look back and go, what in hell was the big deal? It was a stuffed animal, and apparently an ugly one. But when I got it at Christmas, I ran off with it and they had to call me back to open the rest of the gifts!

14. What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
Seeing everybody, especially now that my cousins have little ones. They grow so fast!

15. What is your favourite Holiday Dessert?
Mmmm…sandies. They’re this sugary cookie with chocolate drizzled over top! Mmm. *drool drool drool!*

16. What is your favourite holiday tradition?
Hmmm I think when I was a kid, putting on Christmas music while we decorated the tree was the coolest.

17. What tops your tree?
Remember that paper star?

18. What is your favourite Christmas Song /hymn?
That’s a tough one. Stupid as it sounds, Jingle Bells because it’s so simple, hahah.

And there we go. Quiz over. Hope you had fun.

People Amuse Me.

I thought this was funny, I don’t know if anyone else will even find this slightly amusing. I know Steve will, but that’s about it. Oh well.

The other day, I decided to go on an adventure. Guelph just put in a Walmart, and I thought it might have a few things I needed. So I took the bus to where people told me would be good to get off. I went to get off the bus, and the driver told meI had to cross a street that turned into a major highway! As I wondered what I was going to do, he asked a couple who were passing if they were going to Walmart. Luckily, they said yes. So we started walking, and we arrived at the corner of Woolwich and Woodlawn. So I asked them which street we were crossing. “Woodwich,” the lady said. Um, Woodwich? Somehow I don’t think so.

I don’t know why I found that so funny, but I did. I eventually figured out it was Woolwich we were crossing. Woodwich. Ok then.