What? Listening? On a Phone?

Here’s something that always puzzles me. Tell me something. If you’re looking for Nick Smith, you call what’s supposed to be Nick Smith’s number and you get an answering machine that says, “Hello. Thank you for calling Bob Jones. Leave a message.” What would you do? Would you just continue leaving a big message for Nick about how you’re wondering when he’s planning on returning your pink underwear that you left at his place and whatever happened to Stan? Or would you realize that, oops, I have the wrong number? Unless Nick’s machine routinely says that you’ve reached Bob Jones, I hope you’d do the second.

For some reason, I see a lot of the first. These are the exact words on my machine. “Hi. You’ve reached Carin. I’m not here right now, so leave a message.” I got the following message this morning at 6: “Hello, I’m looking for Casey, wondering if he’s coming to work. It’s the foreman, and it’s 6:15.” And the strange part was he didn’t even say something like, “Hmm, I don’t know if this is Casey’s number. This is the one I have for him. So if he’s here…” He seemed completely unshakable in his belief that Casey was there, and just not picking up the phone, that bastard. When the blue bloody hell did Carin start to sound like Casy? And, he’s looking for a male named Casey. Last time I checked, I didn’t sound overly manly.

The funny part is this isn’t the first time it’s happened. I’ve had people call and say they’d like to tell Becky they made it to town, I’ve had people leave messages for the Holiday Inn or Frederic Travel, and leave everything but their visa number on my machine. Hey, chief. Usually businesses don’t answer to Carin. Or, I’ll pick up the phone, and this older woman will just start talking to me. She’ll say something like, “Hey, Shellie?” Then she’ll ramble on until I manage to stop her and say, “I’m not Shellie!” Judging by her age and the friendliness she has with this Shellie person, I can pretty much guarantee I don’t sound like Shellie.

I can understand confusion on an answering machine where no name is given, or the recording is silly, or it’s just the phone number. But if there’s a name there that doesn’t match the one you’re looking for, wouldn’t that be your first clue that ya might wanna try again?

Back One Day – And Already Asking For Favours

Alright, Kids. Here’s your mission.
A group of us are walking in the Canadian Cancer Society’s Relay For Life. It’s a great event. The idea, basically, is that you enter a team of 10, each of you fundraises $100 and then show up to the event and walk all night. 7pm – 7am. You, personally. do not have to be on the track the whole time as long as someone from your team is. Each team gets a little area and some people bring tents and take turns sleeping and stuff. It’s a great concept and if your town is having one, and most towns do, you should consider putting in a team. Anyway…

Each team needs a theme and a name. Since our team is largely members of my extended family and my extended family revolves around a construction company we all own, it only made sense to havethat be our theme. We’re all going to wear the yellow and orange vests and our little area will have traffic pilons and caution tape and stuff. Should be fun.

But we have no name. We don’t want to just use our family name. (i.e. The Rectumsnatch Family) as some teams are doing but can’t come up with anything good – or appropriate for the crowd.

So go to it. If you can come up with a neat name, throw it up on the board. Even if you come up with a bad one we’re getting desperate. Also, if you’d like to sponsor our team I’d be MORE than thrilled to throw up the link for people to do that by credit card. It’s a great cause.

Let’s see those creative juices flowing.

Where Are They Gonna Hide That?

Thieves steal rollercoaster

German police officers are asking for help in tracking down thieves who stole an entire rollercoaster.

The 20 ton big dipper, worth more than £13,000, was stolen from a truck that had stopped at a car park in Bischofsheim on its way to a nearby funfair.

First of all, for anyone who cares, £13,000 converts to exactly $27,251.68 Canadian as of right now.

But more importantly, can anybody tell me how it is that we keep hearing stories about people managing to steal stuff like this, but none of them ever involve anyone getting caught?

A Personal Challenge

Happy Hump Day,
So I’m back… again… after a… I dunno probably 3 month break since the last post. I’m back home for the summer and returning to somewhat of a farmiliar routine and am going to make it a personal challenge to myself to try and post on here regularly. Who knows whether it will work ornot. I hate challenges and ones given to you by yourself are the easiest ones to shed… so this may not work.

What to start with – well for any of you who were here when I used to post here regularly, if any of you are still even alive, you’ll know that the only thing I can even pretend to know a thing about is sports… so let’s start there.

The Jays look great this year. Especially if Burnett ever gets healthy. And he will. We’re hanging with the Sox and Yankess right now so if we can get him going and maybe get one more pitcher out of somewhere (since Josh Towers needs to be burned alive) we’ll be in good shape for at least a playoff race. Go see the team. They’re unbelievably entertaining. They have power and hitters throughout the line up which means they’re never out of a game. The numver of 5 run 8th innings and the like that this team has had makes every game a can’t miss. Me and a group of friends went to the Home Opener this year, complete with drunken brawl in the stands, and it was a blast. That’s a story for another post though that I will definately tell.

Anti-Flag has come out with another album a month or so ago called “For Blood & Empire” which is great. Not as heavy as some of their stuff but similar message and great tunes. Even if you won’t pick up the album, download the tune “One Trillion Dollars” and I guaruntee you’ll hum it for the rest of the day. Has happened to everyone who I’ve had listen to it.

That’s it for now I think. Also just wanted to say Great Job to Steve and Carin who have done a great job with this thing and have turned it in to something all their own with some great posts. Thumbs Up!

Back Soon…. hopefully

Happy Mother’s Day! Where’s dinner?

I love my dad a ton. He’s very good at building things, he’s resourceful, and he was the king of the red pen, probably the reason why I got better English marks in the grammar department than I deserved. But he can sometimes be a supreme dick. Here’s an example.

I phoned home on Mother’s day to say hi and all that. I then found out that, for Mother’s Day, mom ended up cooking for my grandma, but this is not my mom’s mom, this is my dad’s mom! On top of that, my dad’s sister thought she’d enjoy a nice mother’s day dinner…courtesy of my mom!

What really kills me about this is dad *can* cook. I can’t count the number of stir-fries, pastas, and other things dad made when we were kids and mom wasn’t home to cook, and they were good! Why couldn’t he get off his ass on mother’s day and cook this one?

After I recovered from that complete display of dad being an asshole, he got to amaze me one more time by saying to me on the phone, while mom was also on the phone, “She worked hard for her mother’s day!” He’s lucky he’s 300 miles away, otherwise he would at the very least see a very angry daughter. But then again, if he wasn’t 300 miles away, maybe mom would have at least let me help. I doubt it, but one can dream.

So, what’s my point? Here’s a note to other guys out there who seem to be drawn to doing selfish and dickish things. At least a couple days of the year, don’t be a dick!

This Guy Is Teaching Your Kids

When I read this story I can’t help but think that if it was a student that came up with this idea on his own, he’d be hustled into countless meetings and psychiatric assessments with no thought given to what kind of person he is, and there’s definitely no way he’d be able to avoid some sort of suspension.

Teacher Apologizes For Asking Students To Write About Who They Would Kill

ST. JOSEPH, Miss. (AP) – A high-school teacher has apologized for asking students to write about who they would kill and how they would do it, and officials said he will likely keep his job.

Michael Maxwell, who teaches industrial technology at Central High School, said his request that students in his beginning drafting class describe how they would carry out a murder was merely a writing prompt. It was not clear why he asked the drafting class to write fiction.

“I made a horrible mistake that I regret,” Maxwell said. “I want to apologize to my students, my colleagues and to the community.”

The April 21 writing request, which Maxwell said was not a formal assignment, came to the attention of administrators when a parent of one of the students filed a complaint with principal Barton Albright.

Albright expressed regret and apologized for Maxwell’s “lapse of judgment.”

“He’s an exemplary person … this is very out of character,” the principal said.

St. Joseph School District spokesman Steve Huff declined to discuss possible disciplinary measures because the matter is considered a personnel issue. But he said the incident probably isn’t serious enough to cost Maxwell his job.

About 25 to 30 students from ninth through 12th grades were in the class, Albright said.

This Guy Is Kidding, Right?

Perhaps I should have titled this “Why People Hate Lawyers: Part 17326”.

This is part of an article I just read about the sentencing of Min Chen, the man responsible for the killing of Cecilia Zhang.

Chen’s lawyer, prominent Toronto defence attorney John Rosen, said he was dismayed that [judge] Durno rejected his argument that his client deserved leniency because Zhang’s death was never supposed to happen.

“What I was disappointed with was that it was clearly a spontaneous act in the sense that it wasn’t planned, wasn’t considered, wasn’t foreseen,” Rosen said outside the courthouse.

“The judge rejected that submission, and I’m disappointed with that.”

Let that rattle around in your head for a minute.

Ok, you should probably be wanting to kick prominent Toronto defence attorney John Rosen square in the nutsack right about…now!

An accident? An oversight? A spontaneous act that requires leniency? Is this guy fucking serious? Min Chen kidnapped this family’s little girl in an attempt to extort money from them, and in the process, ended up killing her. And this, somehow, some way, in the world of John Rosen, qualifies as an unfortunate and unplanned circumstance that should cause a Superior Court Justice to view things with a “wow, that’s some shitty luck there my friend” attitude during sentencing? Give me a break! Maybe I’m wrong, but I was always under the impression that in order for something to be accidental, it had to be, oh I dunno, maybe an accident.

Let’s say that in the process of fighting off an attacker, you throw him to the ground in an attempt to subdue him, but he ends up hitting his head and eventually dying. That would be an accident. Breaking into somebody’s home with every intention of walking off with their child and then smuthering her to death when, wonder of wonders, she decides she’s not really down with that most certainly doesn’t qualify as making an oopsy, and I can’t come up with a single word strong enough to describe anyone who thinks it does.

If any lawyers happen to be reading this, I have just one thing to say to you. I know you’re not all bad. I understand that some of you do in fact have souls and consciences and that you absolutely do have people’s best interests at heart every time you walk into a courtroom. But if ever you find yourself wondering why your profession has the kind of reputation it does or why people make those nasty jokes about you, I hope you come back here and read this again, and see the words of one of your own. And when you see those words, I hope that 2 things go through your mind. Firstly that there is a big difference between providing good defence and spouting outright stupidity for the sake of making a buck. But even more than that, I hope that when you see those words, you can honestly say to yourself that while John Rosen may be one of your own by trade, he most definitely doesn’t speak for you, and if you can help it, anyone on whom you may ever have influence. That’s the only way that things are ever going to positively change for you and yours.

When it comes down to it, I think there’s a good lesson in this for all of us. None of us, no matter what it is we do to pay the bills, should ever forget that sometimes there are more important things in the world than money. All of the money in the universe can only get you so far. What truly matters is the kind of person you are, that’s what will ultimately end up paving your road in life more than cash ever will.

Carin and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Afternoon.

I hate afternoons like the one I had yesterday, the ones where all kinds of annoying little things happen that, on their own are pretty minor. But when you add them together and put a real doozer on the top, the masterpiece is not pleasant.

I wouldn’t have cared too much that I had to take a cab somewhere that was a bit expensive. It wouldn’t have been too bad that the cab was insanely late and on the wrong side of the street. It also wouldn’t have been horrible that the bus driver screwed up and didn’t let me off at the bus stop I asked for and I had to take a bus around. It was kind of annoying that I was going to spend the afternoon working with someone who makes me feel like six different kinds of crap. It was also a bitch that I almost lost my purse because the strap came undone. But there was one thing, one solitary thing, that was the kicker. The funny thing is it could have been a good thing. But oh no. It was all a trick.

As I was catching the bus that was going to screw up, a guy I knew came up to me and was talking to me and said he’d run and get me a brownie. I thought, “mmm. A brownie! Sounds good!” He gave me one, and just as I bit into it, I heard him say, “Yeah, a Vegan brownie!”

I cannot even begin to describe the unpleasantness that waits to greet anyone who tries a vegan brownie. On top of the fact that you have no earthly idea what you’re eating, I think the killer is it’s not uniform. I don’t know what it is about vegan goop, whatever goes in it, *gag*, but it doesn’t seem to mix well. One bite tastes like peanut buttery goodness. The next tastes like a wad of paper towel. What’s up with that? So every bite is a gamble. It doesn’t take long before I’m dreading the next bite. And I love, and can finish, most little dessert squares. But half of this went in the bus garbage can. I thought if I didn’t do that, more would be in there because I’d lose my lunch…and the rest of the brownie. Not a good scene at all.

So that was my afternoon. Probably people have had far worse than that. But as I said, there’s not much worse to eat than a vegan brownie.