Something Tells Me They Had the Brain Damage Part Covered Long Before This Happened

Two students found dead inside large helium balloon

LUTZ, FLA. (Jun 5, 2006)

Two university students were found dead inside a large, deflated helium balloon after apparently pulling it down and crawling inside it.

The deaths of Jason Ackerman and Sara Rydman, both 21, appear to be accidental, Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Major Bob Schrader said.

Their bodies were found Saturday inside a deflated helium balloon at a condo complex a few kilometres north of Tampa. The 2.4-metre-diameter balloon was used to advertise the complex.

“It was more a fun thing they thought they were doing,” said Sara Rydman’s mother Linda. “You know how you blow up the balloon and suck the helium.”

The county medical examiner said yesterday the cause of death will not be released for weeks, until test results come back. Inhaling helium can quickly lead to brain damage and death from lack of oxygen.

Goodbye Old House, I’ll Miss You….A Little

Well, I’ve pissed and moaned about my house a lot lately. But now that it’s almost time to say goodbye to it, it makes me think of all the little things I’ll miss about living there.

I’ll miss the guys at the little store down the street, who, at first, could barely understand me, but now remember everything I ever get from there, and make jokes about how often I come buy for little things, especially the older guy who seemed really rude because he greeted us the first time with, “What! ” But now wonders how I’ll ever get the milk home and tells me not to fall in the winter.

I’ll miss the guy who lives in the main part of the building who appears randomly and asks me how I am. He always told me he was there if I needed him for things, and worried about me when the creeps started moving in next door.

I’ll miss the lady who brings the mail. Whenever I’d run into her, she’d stop and talk to me, and she was so excited for me when I went away for Babs. She was also excited when I said I was leaving my house of chaos. She genuinely cared about me, and said I deserved better than that. How cool is that?

I’ll miss the landlord. He was always good to me. I know the new one will probably be good to me, but I feel bad for this one, because when I leave, who knows what he’ll get? He’s such a good guy, I hate to see him abused like this. I know you’re saying, he’s the landlord, he can say no…but in this case, I don’t think he can very easily since he’s not the head hauncho. They pick the people, he cleans up their shit, and has to do it with a smile. Poor guy.

I’ll miss the short walks to all the bars and restaurants nearby. It made parties much easier. I know it won’t be a long walk from this place, but these places were essentially right outside my door.

And most of all, I’ll miss the place itself. It was a cute bachelor pad that didn’t make you feel like you were living in a closet. Hey, I managed to have me and five other people in it for a new years party. Who can do that in most little places like that? It fit everything I had and there was still room to move. It served its purpose, it was the place where I learned I could make it on my own, and it was cool. So I’ll always look back on it with nostalgia…as I do a dance of joy and move into our new home. Onward and upward!

That’s What Happens When You’re Too Small.

Ok, I hate doing whiny posts like this, but I’m frustrated.

Today, on my way home, I got to a street that I had to cross. I cross it all the time. So I’m standing there. When it seemed like the light had turned and it was time to go, I was about to step out. I even heard someone say something like, “that’s right”, but just then, a car drove out in front of me. So I didn’t go. Then the guy decided to go across with me. He felt he had to tell me where everything was, as if I had no idea I was crossing a street. When I got to the other side, I said to him, “What was up with that car?” What he said pissed me off supremely. He proceeded to explain to me, even after I repeatedly told him I knew these things and just wanted to know if the light was red or green when I tried to cross, the entire mechanism of crossing a goddamn street, that there was a time for the cars and a time for people to go. He even felt like he had to tell me we were at an intersection. No shit, skippy. I do have some concept of the world around me.

If it were this one guy alone, I’d just say the poor guy probably thought I didn’t know what I was doing. I mean, I almost stepped out in front of a car in his eyes, so he probably thought I was completely unaware of what was going on. After all, lots of people think that if somebody’s blind, it’s amazing that they can make it out of the house, and some people think we should all be warehoused together in little houses for blind people and cared for by workers. But this felt like more than that. I have noticed I get a few different kinds of help, sometimes when I ask for it, and sometimes because people just decide I need it. I get the nice people who are cool. I get the ones that like to make themselves feel good by doing their good deed. And then I get the ones who make me feel small because, well, they think I am small.

Sadly, the fact is, I’m too damned short. I’m about 4 foot 7, so I guess I look like a kid. I’ve been told I look 12, like I’m in high school, or like I’m 18. That’s the best estimate I’ve had. I even won a toy at one of those guess my age booths at a fair because somebody guessed I was 12 when I was about 17. Once, I went to get on a greyhound bus, and the driver stopped me and said, “Do you have an unaccompanied child form?” I was 21, so she got pretty embarrassed. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been given kids menus and crayons in restaurants. Need I say more?

So when people see me on the street, I guess some of them freak out. They talk all babyish to me, they ask me where my mother is, they ask me why I’m walking around at night, and it’s maybe 8:00. Some of them feel the need to take me by the hand and lead me places and make me feel like the neglected child someone let out of the group home. They won’t leave me until I get where I say I’m going, even though I tell them I’m fine. I appreciate their concern, it just frustrates the shit out of me, especially when they descend upon me when I’m doing fine. Sometimes it feels like I could single-handedly save a bus-load of people, and I’d still be thought of as a helpless little kid. What do I have to do to show these people I’m a competent adult? It makes me start to wonder if there is something else I’m doing to send this kid message, and if I’ll ever be taken seriously. I mean, not only have I got the blink factor working against me sometimes, I’ve got the shrimp factor that makes people feel like I have to be scooped up and taken back home. . But then I think I should stop whining. Apparently, I would have been a lot shorter, so I should consider myself lucky. If doctors hadn’t given me stuff to convince my body to grow, who knows, maybe I’d be the height of Bilbo Baggins.

Ok now I just sound like a whiny baby. I probably wouldn’t even be writing this post at all if it didn’t seem like lately, I’ve been made to feel inferior and incapable almost everywhere I go. I appreciate everyone’s concern, but gees. Do I really need rescuing that often?

Another Reason Not to Live in the UK.

Read this, and tell me one good purpose it serves. Apparently, in the UK, there is such a backlog of court cases that the penalty for several serious offenses ranging from burglary to sex with children has been reduced to sending these assholes home with a caution. This means they have a criminal record, but don’t have to worry about, oh, say, the consequences of committing those crimes, like a fine, community service or jail. So what’s the fucking point of saying, “Don’t do that again!”? I can just hear it now. “Or what? You’ll tell me to not do it again again? (ooo! I’m shaking in my boots!” Can the UK go to hell in a handbasket any faster?

Things Get Naked. Tale Of Toronto Cont’d

So after finishing up at Murphy’s Law and leaving noticeable vacancies on the wall, we decided it was time to move on. Aaron’s eye was beginning to swell shut but the trooper swore he was still good to go. You gotta love guys with heart.

We headed out to the limo and told the driver he could starting making his way back towards Oshawa but we would make a stop or two more along the way. We weren’t sure where yet. Leave it to Melissa to come up with the best idea. “STRIP CLUB!” were her exact words out of nowhere. No one argued and we went to some place that I was too piss tanked to remember the name of. It was fairly seedy to say the least.

So we went in and the place was basically empty save for a couple guys playing pool and 2 other guys at a table on the far side of the bar. We sat down for a bit with another beer to take in the entertainment. While one girl was dancing, another one of the girls came over to talk to us. She sat there for a quite a while clapping for the other dancers and making general conversation. Then she asks an interesting question that we all pondered for a bit.

“Do you think it’s weird for a guy to want to come and watch his fiance do this for a living?” We all thought that was pretty weird and all agreed that none of us would wanna see our loved ones dancing for someone else. Perhaps shallow on our part, but seemed to be the consensus. She then caught us off gaurd by saying “See, I think so too – but yet there’s my fiance, just like every other night.” and pointed to a guy at another table. He looked…. creepy. but different strokes for different folks I guess.

Eventually 2 of my friends went outside with her to have a smoke and her boyfriend of coarse followed. They said afterwards that he seemed like a nice guy – just kinda protective. But they smoked and chatted and my friends congratulated them (I guess) on their engagement.

Meanwhile inside Aaron narrowly avoided another fight after looking at a pool player dude’s girl the wrong way I guess. But things were quickly calmed down when one of the other guys with us quickly said “this guy’s already gotten his ass kicked once tonight, he doesn’t need it again” and the guys just kinda laughed and all was forgotten.

After chatting with the odd stripper couple and the menacing pool players a bit longer we piled back in the limo and headed back to Oshawa. We all ended up at Aaron’s parents place first, being what drunk people think is “quiet” and doing shots of very dirty whiskey. 2 people ended up throwing up outside. Not bad out of 8. A few headed back to my parents place with me and the rest crashed at Aaron’s, not before 3 tried to get high in Chris’ car in my parents driveway and having that end with one throwing up right in the middle of the driveway out his car door.

the next morning we all went back to Aaron’s parents place where his mom made breakfast that not many people felt up for eating. Aaron, in his drunken stooper had forgotten to hide the pictures that we stole so his mother asked him where they came from. He quickly and swiftly answered “We won them at this cool pub.”. He seemed quite proud of himself and we were all impressed with the quick wit. But it didn’t last long as his mom followed up with “Oh ya? That’s cool. You usually don’t see bars giving away pictures with nails still stick in them and drywall all over the back.”. We all just laughed. No sense in trying to climb out of it. But she didn’t care.

The following night was embarassing. As I forgot to mention earlier that 2 people who came on the trip are in the television program at our college and have nice video cameras and we had forgotten that from time to time they were powered up and some of the stupider moments were caught on tape. No one likes watching themself drunk. But we all did. We sat in shock and awe silently through the whole tape, no one wanting to comment on anyone elses supidity cuz no one knew when their own stupid comment was coming up next. When it was all over, instead of trying to never speak of it again, Chris broke the tention with something we all agreed on. “Fuck, guys. We’re doin’ this every year!”

One More Mountain to Climb? Or Maybe Not.

I heard this on the news and it sorta pissed me off. I can’t believe this is causing an ethical debate.

The story goes like this. People train to climb Mount Everest every year. They know that if they don’t do it just right, there’s a high probability they won’t make it down. Some people can’t make it to the top because the oxygen is too thin and if they did, they would die. There is a specific area on the mountain near the top that is called the death zone. This is because, duh, a lot of people die and are found here. They have reached the top, and die on their way back down. This becomes important later.

This season, among the climbers who reached the top and came back down was the first amputee to reach the top. On his way back down, as he passed through the death zone, he saw a man dying. He was not the only one to see this. But he didn’t stop to help. This is not really horrible. Remember that this is the death zone. If you were low on oxygen, you knew that this was the death zone, and you saw a man dying, would you risk your own life to save him? Honestly? Would you? I don’t think so. You can say you would, but I think you would know that when it came down to it, you would have to face the reality that in the end, if you tried to save him, there would be two climbers dead in the death zone where there once was one.

Now that this guy has come back alive, there’s a whole bunch of climbers bagging on him and the other climbers who saw the dying guy for not saving him. Ok, first of all, how dare they bag on the amputee for not saving someone else? It’s a miracle he got *himself* up the mountain. What do these people want?

Even Sir Edmund Hillary, who sounds like he’s heading for a death zone of his own, was standing up there bellowing, “He’s a human being! How could you leave him up there?” Ok, I don’t know my Sir Edmund Hillary facts well. If he made a point of saving other climbers when he “conquered” Mount Everest, then I’ll eat my words. But I don’t know if, when he was standing up at the top of the mountain, knowing that he only had so long to get down or he would run out of oxygen, he would have saved a dying human being. He may be a human being, but so are the rest of the climbers. They can only do what they can do.

Have you ever heard a firefighter or someone else who’s trained in rescuing people say that if you’re going in there to save someone who’s dying and you don’t know what you’re doing, you could potentially kill yourself too, and then we’re worse off than when there was one guy in danger? That’s common sense. I can’t understand why people even want to make this into an issue. But I guess everyone can philosophize and criticize when they have lots of oxygen to breathe and they’re not in the death zone.

Tough Call

I just read a story about a bill that was recently introduced in Parliament that would make it a separate crime to do harm to an unborn child in cases where a pregnant woman is either assaulted or murdered.

The idea obviously has its critics among pro-choice advocates who see it as something that, if passed, could have a lot of implications on the abortion rights debate in Canada. But Leon Benoit, the Alberta Conservative responsible for the proposed legislation, says that it’s not intended as an abortion bill and that it would only apply in cases where a woman who has chosen to keep her baby is harmed.

That’s all fine and good, but I’m still curious about something. What happens if a woman is murdered on her way to an abortion clinic? Can they still tack a few more years on to the end of somebody’s prison sentence for taking the life of a baby that was about to have its life taken legally anyway?

Just a little something to think about.

My Thursday 13

Before I start, a couple quick things.

We had a complaint on the boards earlier about our choice of topic for the week, so I want to quickly address that. Will the topics always be negative? I have no idea. Planning ahead has never been one of those things that we’re overly good at. But it’s worth pointing out that none of us are forcing you to read anything we write. If you don’t like a post, feel free to stop reading it and skip ahead to the next one. And if ever there comes a time when you find yourself skipping more stuff than you actually read, by all means, feel free to stop coming here. If you went to a restaurant 3 times and got shitty service and bad food during every visit, I’m sure you probably wouldn’t be in any sort of huge hurry to go back. So why should this, or any other website, be any different? People have stopped reading us before, but we’re still here. It happens. People change, and their ideas about what’s funny or interesting or worthwhile change right along with them. Sometimes that means that we just don’t fit into their plans anymore, and that’s ok with us. We don’t spend a whole lot of time getting broken up over it. Bottom line: If you find yourself disagreeing with something that one of us has said and you’ve got a good reason for it, please, let us know. Constructive debate is fun, and it’s lead to a lot of interesting discussions and posts here over the years. But if you outright hate something that we’re probably not going to change any time soon and don’t have any sort of reasoning for your feelings beyond “eeewww, I don’t like it, you guys smell,” use some of that free will stuff and move along to something that’s more your style.

I’d also like to take a second to thank Matt for all the love. And by the way dude, I’m still waiting for you to show your face at one of these infights. If you had any sack, we would have settled this by now.

And speaking of sack…

13 PEOPLE WHO NEED A GOOD KICK IN THE NUTS

Just like when Matt and Carin did it, these are in no particular order.

1. Drivers who decide that even though the right of way is mine and I’ve started walking that they’re just gonna head on through anyway and I guess hope for the best.
2. Chatty assholes who feel the need to distract me while I’m trying to work. I
covered this a long time ago,
go read it, it’s fun.
3. People in broadcasting who can’t read or talk. Anybody who’s ever listened to any of my shows knows that sometimes I have trouble with both, but who doesn’t? I’m not talking about me though, I’m talking about serious chronic repeat offenders here. People like the woman who anchors my local news on the weekends a lot of the time. She sucks. I remember a time when she was reading a story on the dangers of certain types of insulation and she came out with this gem. “To ensure that there is no danger in your home, be sure to check your addict for ass-pest-tose.” Ok, so for the sake of my safety, I need to be on the lookout for a guy sucking on a crack pipe who’s got a needle in his arm and insulation falling out his ass. got it…I think, at least I do if ever I learn what ass-pest-tose is. It probably wouldn’t have pissed me off nearly so much if I hadn’t have sat there listening to her over-annunciate and mispronounce everything for a good 20 minutes before that, but then again maybe it would have, who’s to say? Well ok, I am, because it probably would have. These words aren’t all that hard. At least when I trip up, it’s usually on somebody’s long ass foreign name that there’s no way anybody other than him has any chance of getting even half way right. We’re talking about attic and asbestos here. They’re common words, and it’s not unthinkable to expect somebody who talks for a living to know them and get them right.
4. News reporters who stand next to somebody who’s home has just been destroyed by a fire or something and feel it necessary to ask a question along the lines of “so, your house and everything in it has been taken away from you and your lives are obviously in turmoil. How are you folks feeling right about now?” That’s just cruel. It’s kind of like asking a homeless guy out on a date and saying “so, your place or…oh yeah, never mind.”
5. TV evangelists, for no other reason than that they are TV evangelists. Come on, what more reason do you need?
6. Some of those religious people who try to hand you books and talk to you about Christ while you’re trying to get somewhere. I remember years ago when I lived in Brantford, I actually had one of these guys step in my way on the street after I said I didn’t want to talk and tried to keep walking. That by itself is bad enough, but then he looked me dead in the face and said “you know, if you and your parents had accepted the lord and saviour Jesus Christ into your lives, maybe you wouldn’t be where you are right now,” obviously a shot at the fact that I was blind. The best response I could manage short of knocking him the fuck out or maybe kicking him in the nuts was simply “fuck off,” after which I stepped around him and kept walking. But I never forgot about that guy, and he’s one of the reasons why I have such a low opinion of organized religion.
7. Music fans who suddenly start to hate their favourite band as soon as that band gets even a tiny bit famous. If they get famous by changing their style to something totally different and completely crappy, then go ahead, hate them until you run out of hate, you’ll hear no complaints from me. But if they’ve managed to get famous through hard work while staying true to what they are, why hate them unless you’re not really a music fan at all, but more a fan of looking like you know something that a lot of people don’t? Newsflash: it doesn’t make you cool, and nobody cares. Lighten up, and be sure to enjoy the music.
8. Simon Cowell. He’s not constructive, he’s not intimidating, he’s not even funny. All he is is a gimmick, and not even a good one. whenever I see an Idol commercial or happen upon a conversation during which somebody says “what will Simon think?” it’s more than enough to make me not only want to kick the man in the nuts, but then proceed to stomp them into scrotum jello.
9. PC douche nozels who get offended on behalf of other people. Seriously, cut that shit out. Everybody has their own set of standards, and all of us are more than capable of figuring out when we should be upset. We don’t need you to help us out, so feel free to go do something useful with your time, like maybe run in front of a bus.
10. Those flaming ass magnets who have it in their heads that I have nothing better to do than take their phone calls at 2 in the morning on a week night, or even on a weekend for that matter. I have trouble sleeping sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need to or never try.
11. People who ask a question and then pay no attention to the answer. I can’t count the number of times that somebody has sent me an email in the morning that includes something like “so, what have you got going on today,” to which I’ll reply and list a half million different things I need or want to do. I send it off, and not 5 minutes later, the phone will ring, and 9 times out of 10 it’ll be the same person I just sent the email to, calling for no better reason than because they just wanna chat. Then to top it all off, these stupid imbeciles have the nerve to act hurt when I say I don’t have time to talk right now because I’m busy. I should mention that every time this happens, and I’m talking without fucking fail here, when I ask, every single one of them says that yes, they got my message a minute ago. Sorry partner, but if you don’t respect me enough to listen to what it is I’m actually saying, then I give less than a fuck that I made you feel bad. It wasn’t even me who made you feel bad, you did it, and it’s not my problem. Now get off my phone, I’ve got shit to do. If you don’t’ believe me, go check your goddamn email. And here’s an idea, maybe try actually reading the shit for once. Ok, that one kinda got away from me there, let’s move on.
12. Everyone who thinks that if they call me as many times as they can in as short a timeframe as possible, that I’ll suddenly materialize and pick up the phone. Or as I like to call them, many of the people I know.
We’ve been down this road before, but I think it’s worth going down again.
13. People who buy things from spam. Stop that! You’re ruining the internet for all of us, you pricks.
13 and a half. Lou Dobbs. He kinda bugs me and
Thordora
says she hates him, so he’s in.

That was fun, and I’m much happier than I was when I woke up this morning.

I’ll be back later, but I’m not sure if it’ll be with something positive or negative. So stay tuned unless uncertainty frightens you.