Well that looks like a boring title. But that’s all I could think to call this post. Today, I have to take this stupid computer back to the shop for more repairs. So far, I’ve had to replace a regulator that blew after having it for only a few months, a sound card because the original sound chip was the horror of horrors, and now, who knows what I’ll have to replace. Let’s see. Now, my computer squeaks at random, one of the speaker jacks in my sound card stopped working, and it randomly turns itself off, I assume because it’s overheating. So who knows..the whole inside might be shot? Let’s hope not, but I’m going to find out today. So if I’m low on blog posts, it’s because Steve and I are sharing one computer again, for who knows how long.
Efficiency Expert
A man entered a restaurant and sat at the only open table. As he sat down, he accidentally knocked the spoon off the table with his elbow. A nearby waiter reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a clean spoon and set it on the table.
The diner was impressed. “Do all the waiters carry spoons in their pockets?”
The waiter replied, “Yes sir. Ever since we had an efficiency expert out, he determined that 17.8% of our diners knock the spoon off the table. By carrying clean spoons with us, we save trips to the kitchen.”
The diner ate his meal. As he was paying the waiter, he commented, “Forgive the intrusion, but do you know that you have a string hanging from your fly?”
The waiter replied, “Yes, we all do. Seems that the same efficiency expert determined that we spend too much time washing our hands after using the men’s room. So, the other end of that string is tied to my penis. When I need to go, I simply pull the string to get my penis out, go, and return to work. Since I don’t actually touch myself, there’s no need to wash my hands. Saves a lot of time.”
“Wait a minute,” said the diner. “How do you get your penis back in your pants???”
“Well, I don’t know about the other guys, but I use the spoon!!”
Famous Just For Being Famous
It never stops amazing me how infatuated our society is with the famous. Never at any time in history of their been so many magazines, radio shows, and ET style tv shows all dedicated to just celebrity gossip. It boggles the mind. And we’re all guilty, some more than others, but in our own way. I can’t say I’ve ever bought one of these magazines, but I have in the past while caught myself asking my sisters “both regular gossip readers” whether or not I heard correctly that Nelly Furtado is dating Steve Nash. I mean, who cares? It affects me …. in no way. But it’s just interesting.
Aside: If anyone knows the answer to that question though – it’d be great. I thought I heard it somewhere and then she mentions him in her single which could have just been a shout out to another Canadian making it huge, but I’m curious. Now back to your regularly scheduled uninteresting blog.
Anyway, the people that bug me the most are the ones that are famous, just for being famous. The best example is of course Paris Hilton. Who the hell is she that we should give a shit about? I mean I know she’s the daughter of and heir to the Hilton fortune – but so what. She’d never done any big movies or albums or anything. she was given that retarded show “The Simple Life” just because she was famous for being who she is – and it made her more famous. Well that and a certain tape that you may have heard about.
Irregardless, the point of this entry is not to hate on Hilton or the celebs’ but actually to give credit. (whoa, curveball).
I’m sure most of you have heard Hilton’s new single, or at least that she is releasing an album. I’m actually going to post here, believe it or not, that it’s not terrible.
I’ll give you a moment to recover.
Is it something I would spend money on? No. Of course not. Does it demonstrate a huge talent for music that will see her reach the heights of past divas for their musical contributions? No. I mean she may reach their heights, but it won’t be due to accusations that she can hang with Whitney, Celine and Mariah in terms of great talent. But the song, in and of itself, is not terrible.
It’s certainly no worse than the rest of the pop shit that’s been pumped out over the last 15 years. It has a neat little tune to it that can get stuck in your head, the lyrics are relatively harmless and radio friendly and it’s just in general a kind of happy go lucky sound.
As for Paris’ singing. Well no it’s not great. But it’s not offensively bad either. Now I”m sure our friends in the studio with their awesome computers did quite a bit to help her out in that regard – but again – that’s no different than half of the untalented hacks being shoved down your throat right now anyway.
Paris has been slammed by every media outlet and music reviewer for putting her nose where it doesn’t belong (in music) and I just think that it’s more because she’s an easy target than because the song is overtly terrible. There are much bigger pieces of crap by much more annoying assholes being played across the airwaves right now – and anyone of them would be a better target in my opinion. K-Fed, anyone?
For the record, though. Don’t PAY to get the album. It’s not that good.
Wish me luck!
Well, today could be a very interesting day. I’m trying again to get a guide dog, and I’m going through another interview, and I’m nervous as hell. I’m nervous because this is an important part of their deciding to accept me. But more importantly, I’m nervous because this will be the second time I’m seeing this same interviewer guy, and the last time he saw me, well, I didn’t do too well.
Long story time. Right after I lost Babs because she got sick and had to be retired, I, your resident bull-headed moron, decided I was ready for another assessment from another school, even though I was still grieving Babs, Babs’s retirement wasn’t completely settled, and I’d just started to get into the swing of life after a month away.
I remember the day. It was drizzly and rainy. I was nervous. The brochure said the walk I was supposed to take this guy on so he could see that I was a competent traveller was to be four-eight blocks one way. But I lived downtown and everything I needed to find was less than four blocks away. He showed up, and couldn’t find my entrance. I came out to get him, but left my cane inside. Of course, he didn’t recognize me. So I had to go back inside and get my cane before he realized, oh that’s her.
After talking a while about the program, and him getting mad that Babs’s situation wasn’t completely resolved, we left for the walk. Of course, when I reached my destination, it was too short a walk! So, he had me turn down another street, and cross another street. After a few loopdy-loops and crossings of streets I’d never crossed before, in downtown where the traffic lights are weird, I was lost, confused, and frazzled! Then, it started to thunder and lightning! We had to duck in and out of buildings, which made me even more confused…so needless to say, I bombed the interview!
A year later, here I am, moved to a new part of town. I’m starting to get to know my area, and purely by accident, I end up learning about a perfect route for the interview. I’m just starting to learn it, and bang! He calls and offers to come up and assess me, and if I don’t take it, he won’t be able to come back to this area for another two months! This wouldn’t be a bad thing, except it would push my trip down to train until January, which would have me and fido come back to the land of the great white north…when it’s very white, as in covered in snow, which might be a bad time for Fido to be learning about his new home, especially since he’s from California.
So I take a gulp, take a gamble, and say, sure come up here. I start madly practicing the walk I’m taking him on, and most of it is all cool, but there is one scary street that I need to go practice because it’s psycho and hard to figure out and I want to have it down. And I see on the weather network that it’s supposed to rain today! So wish me luck, hope it doesn’t thunder and lightning, hope I can get this street straight in my head this morning, and hope I don’t bomb all over again! Better yet, I hope I have good news in about a week to post up here!
I’m Sure She’s Very Proud
>Neato
Crosses are What Now?
Matt’s post the other day talking about the poster showing a cross o corpses got the wheels turning. I agree that that poster would be a horrible thing to hang in the living-room, but then I got thinking about the cross itself, and I can’t figure out how people can look at it and think good, happy thoughts.
Think about it. Sure it’s a symbol of religion. But it’s also a symbol of death! They nailed a dude to it, broke his legs and waited for him to die! But people have no problem wearing cross necklaces and decorating their houses with cross-related things. To me, that seems wrong. That would be like the guillotine being a symbol of freedom in France because of its role in the French revolution, and people having replicas of it in their houses and yards. Or, wouldn’t it be considered morbid if relatives of people who died in a plane crash wore pendants of mangled planes around their necks to mark the sacrifice their relatives made? Isn’t that just a tad sick? So how is that any different than having crosses on display? Maybe it’s just hard for me to get my head around since I’m not religious, but the whole thing seems a little twisted.
Sex With Old People
Well not really. But it got your attention.
Am I the only person tired of hearing and old hag tell young people who to get off? Anyone in Canada knows what I’m talking about. That fucked up Sex with Sue Johanson show that’s on all the time. It’s not even just the show anymore – she tours and does speechs and Q&A’s at college and university’s and stuff. It’s just disturbing to see someone that old talk about this kinda stuff.
Besides – how can someone that old still know what’s relevant in sex today? Last week I happened to be flipping by and caught her giving advice on giving head. But I mean is the advice “slowly get down on your knees, favour your bad hip and encourage him to play with your one remaining breast” really relevant to people watching? I mean telling young people “just remove your teeth to give a real smooth blowjob” just isn’t helpful.
And no one really wants to hear about how President Taft’s mustache used to tickle your thighs back in the day. But I suppose the advice of no matter how in to it you get, don’t give away the allies strategy as they storm the beaches of Normandy is useful. I mean you never know when you’re shipping out.
And who can’t use some advice on sex talk? “to get her really riled up, be sure and whisper something dirty in her ear like ’23 skadoo'”.
Time to get this antique off the air, though.
Thanks, Boss, You’re So Kind.
Wow. You know management is a bunch of insensitive pricks if you work at Northwest Airlines. Why? Because after they decided to lay off workers, they gave these victims of the axe a book of helpful tips on how to save money, which included telling them to go dumpster-diving. Wow, talk about taking away someone’s dignity. Then they were surprised that people took issue with a few of the tips. Now they agree they were a bit insensitive. A bit? Amazingly, that booklet can no longer be found anywhere. Gee, I wonder why. Hopefully the guy who wrote it will be its final recipient.
You Did What?!
Here’s something that I’m sure will shock the hell out of pretty much anybody who knows anything about me, and maybe even disappoint a few people, likely the ones with poor taste in entertainment.
After doing quite a bit of thinking, I’ve decided to give up my radio show. I hadn’t been completely happy with the way things were going at the station for quite a while, and after taking some time away over the summer to take care of the move, visit friends and family and to try to cure the radio burnout I was having, I’ve realized that things being the way they are, I’ve accomplished everything I can possibly accomplish there.
I’m sure that doesn’t make sense to some of you, but I’ll do my best to explain it.
Recording interviews in advance. Producing commercials or public service announcements for the station. Reporting on live events. Creating pre-taped bits to use on shows. Picking music for shows without hours, sometimes days of extra effort. Keeping logs of everything because by law we have to or we’ll lose our broadcasting license. Taking requests. These are all things that I am currently unable to do without help. there might be more, but those are the ones that spring immediately to mind. Since the first day I walked through the door there, I’ve been asking for and offering to do whatever I could to help with getting systems put in place so that I could do some, if not all of those things. and in the 4 years that I’ve been there, absolutely 0 progress has been made on any of those fronts. So essentially I’ve been stuck doing the same thing since day 1 and even though it’s been fun for the most part, there’s only so much you can do with 1 thing before you run out of creative things to do with it. My job is to entertain people, give them a laugh, do my best to make sure that while they’re listening to the radio that they’re having fun. and I think for the most part I did that. but I’ve gotten to the point where I’m no longer having a good time, and if I stayed on, I know that it would only be a matter of time before that started to show through in my work, and now that I think about it, I think it had already started to do that to some extent.
As for why I don’t just get help with all of this stuff and quit my bitching, I can explain that too. I’ve gotten as much help as I can reasonably expect to get, and I thank each and every person who ever took the time to give me a hand. But with such a high turnover around there, good help is hard to keep. Just when I’d start settling into a groove with somebody, life would get in the way and that person would be gone, leaving me to start all over again with somebody else. there’s only so many times you can rebuild everything from the ground up before it starts to wear on you, and I think I’ve reached my limit. Besides, a lot of the things I mentioned above are one person jobs, and there’s only so much I can do to make it look like the other guy isn’t doing all the work while I stand around like an idiot.
So all of that being said, as hard as it is, I know in my heart that it’s time for me to move on and find other ways to use the skills and talents that I know I have, the ones that aren’t being taken full advantage of the way that I’d hoped they would be. It wouldn’t surprise me if some day I found myself back there, whether it’s doing something steady again or even just popping in now and then if they need an extra body, but for the time being, the station and I need to see other people.
I don’t want to leave you all thinking that I didn’t enjoy doing what I did for the last 4 years, because that’s far from the case. It was nowhere near being all bad. I got to work and interact with some fantastic people, I have a lot of great memories to keep with me, and most of all, I got to live out my life’s biggest dream. Not everybody gets to say they’ve done that, so in that sense I consider myself lucky. Lucky and extremely greatful for being given the chance.
