Barby, Look what You’ve Done!

You may not have noticed this, but we’ve added a new link to the People who make us laugh section of the links area, leading to the website of Paul and Storm. Barby, as you would say, I blame you. Because of you talking about them, I’ve started downloading a bunch of their stuff from their website, and I now have their album, Opening Band.

Man they’re a goofy bunch. Who’d ever think of singing the Miranda rights in a song? Who’d make a bunch of theme songs for movies and then sing them like Randy Newman would? Who’d think of the sickest collection of jingles possible? Who’d write a balad of the death of a urinal cake? Who’d make a very sweet-sounding love song…and then fuck it all up? They would, that’s who. And they do a bunch more. There’s a couple songs on there that are just sorta there, but most of them had me on the floor. So in the words of their Randy Newman theme songs, “Go, Paul and Storm, Go! You’re my friend! … You’ve got a reason to live…”

Boobytrapped!

Ha ha ha. I’m so corny. But I had to write about this, because I find it slightly amusing and extremely disturbing all at once.

Did you know that information that we’re led to believe should be common knowledge is locked up behind password protection by its own publishers? Let me explain. I was on the Canadian Cancer Society’s Website a while ago, I can’t even remember why. Anyway, I was zooming around, and I ended up on the breast cancer page. I found their little booklet on breast self-examinations. I thought, well gee, they say we should all know how to do this, maybe I should learn how. After all, my cousin died of breast cancer.

So I tried to read the thing. First of all, clicking on it caused adobe reader to load up. This is usually ok for most people, but sometimes, PDF’s, for one reason or another, are unreadable for blinks with our happy fun software that makes our computers talk. “Oh well, no big deal,” I thought, “I’ll just feed it through some other happy fun software that knows how to recognize images and turn them into text.” So I downloaded the thing, and opened said happy fun software package. When it tried to open the pdf, I was greeted with this message: “Enter password for breast self-exam en.pdf.” Password? Why in christ does the Canadian Cancer Society, who gives out free pamphlets, feel the need to password-protect their electronic documents? Are they afraid of tampering? If so, why? I would have to not only tamper with the file, but find a way to implant it back up on their website, which I’d think would be quite a feat. It would be easier to tamper with their print documents, I’d think. Why all the protectiveness on information that is supposed to flow freely?

It appears that the happy fun software package had other plans for their trusty password, since it just found another way to the info by taking a picture of the document and pumping it through another way. But oh somebody, if there is a somebody, has a cruel sense of humour, because after all that password-cracking and yelling, I couldn’t even understand the damn thing. Sentences like “move your hands in motions like this.” are really helpful to us blinks. I know they don’t take us into account, since we’re so few, but it just added insult to injury.

I’m going to email the Cancer Society about the password protection of this stuff, because that just baffles me. Hopefully I get an answer worth posting here. I might mention the second point while I’m at it. It probably won’t get anything changed, but if they don’t know, it is guaranteed not to change.

Interview With A Dumbass

Somebody interviewed me. NO seriously, somebody did. It’s for Salty Ham and it’s all about wrestling, and you can click here to check it out.

And before you ask, I have no idea why it looks like a continuous block of text with no paragraph or line breaks. It didn’t look that way when I sent it in, so I’m not the one you should be emailing about it.

Thanks, Pal!

Truth be told, this is Steve’s post to write. It happened to him, I was just watching. But, he’s too mad to write it, plus he’s making me lunch. So I figured the least I could do was scream on his behalf.

Everybody probably knows about PayPal, right? It’s this service where you punch in your credit card number, a bank account if ya want, and your address and stuff and then associate it with a login and from then on, you can buy stuff just by logging in, specifying how much money you want to send to another person with an account and hitting the pay button. People who use EBay love this thing, so much that EBay bought it. So what do you think PayPal’s main objectives are? From their cute little buttons that appear everywhere, they say it’s fast, free and secure. Well, I won’t question them on the secure part, that’s for sure. Here’s why.

As we’ve been saying a lot lately, well me anyway, we just moved. So, you know what happens when you move. You have to remember to tell every frickin body who sends you mail about your new address. So, among the other six zillion places we had to call and visit, we both happily went to PayPal and merrily changed our address. When we finished telling it all the new stuff, it said, “Thank you.” We assumed that meant everything went off without a hitch. Apparently, “Thank you” in PayPal speak means, “You bastards better check your account again because you’re about to get screwd.”

Skip ahead a month, to today. Steve went to buy a couple things. After he put the purchases through, he got a message that did not make him happy at all. It said, “Your sending limit is…” Actually, these few words made him practically jump through the roof. Having a sending limit meant, for some unknown reason, he had gone from being a verified user back to being an unverified user. This was especially angering since he’d had to essentially crawl through broken glass, adding a bank account he never wanted to add to his PayPal account to become a verified user just so they’d piss off about the sending limits. And now the limits were back? Why! Why! Why!

After picking apart an email, we found the problem. PayPal, in its infinite wisdom, had decided that since he had changed his address, they could not believe that this was his actual address until he confirmed it over the phone. In its even greater infinite wisdom, which is a trick, because how can you have greater infinite wisdom than infinite wisdom, but whatever, PayPal had decided to neglect to tell him this little nugget of fun info. Luckily, after we figured this out and satisfied PayPal by entering a happy fun code into their happy fun automated phone calling thing, the account was switched back to verified and all returned to being well.

Ok, I appreciate PayPal’s being super anal about security. This is money, and millions of people around the world are having their financial info and addresses kept in PayPal’s care just so they can buy stuff. For a long time, I resisted the urge to get a PayPal account just for this reason. I didn’t want some entity holding onto that sort of info. But I eventually gave in when everybody and their brother was using PayPal and there weren’t giant reports of PayPal’s members being victims of hacking and all manner of theft. What pisses me off, though, is that when he changed his address, nothing popped up or came in an email and said, “Hey! Asshole! You’re going to have to confirm this!” When a person is moving, they already have enough on their mind. You’d think the least PayPal could do is save them one frustration.

So, if you have a PayPal account that you just opened a couple of years ago, and you decide to move, remember to confirm your address. Otherwise, you’re in for a nasty surprise.

And People Wonder Why I’m Not So High On The Whole Career In Broadcasting Thing Anymore

If you haven’t heard by now,
Bell Globemedia is buying CHUM Ltd.
This news may not mean much to a lot of you, but if you in any way care about having options when it comes to what you watch on TV, what you listen to on the radio or what you read in the newspaper or online every day, it definitely should.

Read the story at the link above and think about how many things these 2 companies own, and then consider that when, not if, this deal is approved, 1 group of people will own every single bit of it. One voice will dominate all of those airwaves. The creative vision of a select few people will dictate the kind of shows you have to watch and the types of music that make it to air on mainstream radio. And most frightening to me, one editorial voice will have even more control than it does now over the already slanted news coverage we rely on to stay informed about what’s going on around us. If you don’t think that the news is slanted, first of all where have you been, and secondly, consider that in order to find out that more than 200 people would be losing their jobs as a direct result of this sale, I had to rely on the CBC. Funny how the CTV news didn’t mention that little chestnut when they covered it, I wonder how something like that happened.

On a personal note, I want to take a moment to address anybody who has ever asked me why I haven’t gone ahead and snagged that big time radio job I’ve always dreamed of. Does it make sense yet? It’s things just like this that have soured me on the whole idea. The job security just isn’t there anymore, and the pool of available *decent* jobs is getting smaller and smaller as technology takes over and as the number of companies offering the positions that remain gets lower and lower. Knowing that, I’d be an idiot to willingly get myself into such a situation for the sake of fulfilling a dream that in no way resembles the one I grew up with. Sure I might have a good voice for radio, but I know damn well that there are better uses out there for it than standing outside repeatedly yelling “will work for food.”

In closing, let me state the obvious. the only people that media consolidation benefits in any way are media executives. Everyone else, from the people who do all of the actual work for these companys right on down to the lowly consumer [that’s us by the way] just ends up getting the shaft. And you know what the really sad part is? We’re getting to the point where we can’t even choose who gives it to us anymore.

Calling All Eyes! Again!

This one’s got nothing to do with site tweakage, or breakage depending on your point of view. This has just got to do with this song and animation. I dare you. Let the song get into your head and slowly drive you mad, because it will! Watch and see. It will follow you everywhere, even when you’re off the net. When you are walking somewhere, it will fit the rhythm of your step. It will make you go back and record a five-minute loop of the song. What? It didn’t? Then I guess I’m just loopy. Ha, ha, ha! I kill me. But what in christ is on the screen? I would love to know.

Calling All Eyes!

Hey everybody. We’re experimenting with the ads again, cause we can’t seem to leave them alone. But doing this is kind of like painting your house blindfolded. So…does it look ugly? Did I just drip on the other nicely painted wall? Did I just mix the paint and it came out hot pink? Tell me if you can still see the links bar down there. Does the ad frame look too small? too big? Although if it’s too big..uh-oh, we’re screwed since I can’t find a smaller size. But tell me anyway. Would it fit better on another spot on the page? Are the colours ok? If you know better colours and you know those annoying bits of code to make them happen, could you let us know? And hey, if anyone out there is an ad sense guru and wouldn’t mind giving us a hand from time to time when it’s time to paint the house blindfolded again, feel free to shoot me an email. You know where the address is. Thanks everybody.