God I feel boring

I feel bad about not coming up with anything to say for the last few days, but they’ve been pretty mundane and I didn’t see anything that screamed at me, so I didn’t just want to drivel on about nothing. But having to do what I’ve just finished doing made me realize how boring I really am.

Now that I’ve graduated, I’m trying to build up my resume. So I figured I’d start with volunteering and then hopefully find something that pays. I mean, I’ve got a part-time job that pays a little bit, and that’s cool. But it would be nice to find more. So I just phoned up a bunch of places who had volunteer stuff and started asking questions. And every one of them wants you to fill out an application, of course. All the applications ask you to say what all you’ve done in the past. And it’s at this point that I realize, it may have seemed like I’ve done a lot, but god I’ve done next to nothing. I feel like an even bigger loser when they ask me what my hobbies are and I have to think hard before coming up with something that doesn’t sound geeky or lame. Man, I need to get out more! Please tell me someone else has had this experience. Or maybe I’ve said too much.

Twisted Appreciation

I had something weird happen to me the other day, because weird things always happen to me. I was out with a bunch of people, and we were just talking. And one of them asked me if I had been blind all my life, the usual questions. I said yes. Then the person whips out this gem. “Wow, I really need to appreciate my eyes more.”

And it’s weird, because I wasn’t really offended. I’ve heard that before, it doesn’t really phase me. But it got me thinking. Why is it acceptable for people to say that about certain disabilities, but not others. Like, would anyone in their right mind walk up to a guy with no arms and say, “boy, I really need to appreciate my limbs more!” Or would people actually say to a cancer patient, “Gee I’m so lucky to be not going through chemo!” Or better yet, to a homeless bum fishing a sandwich out of a dumpster, “Man I’m lucky to eat 3 square meals a day!” It just seems too insensitive and weird. Please people, if you’re going to appreciate what you have and the person right in front of you doesn’t, maybe it would be a good idea to not say it to their face. For your own good. Hey it didn’t offend me, but that armless man might get offended and give you a new healthy respect for his legs.

Graduation Day

Well, graduation day came and went, and I can’t believe how weird this one was. Leading up to it, I thought, “Well I’ve had graduations before, and they were sort of special. At the very most, this one will be just as special.” But I was expecting it to be very insignificant because first, there’s less time for everybody, and second, I didn’t really know a lot of my fellow graduates. But boy was I wrong.

First off, there was the gooing and gushing of my parents. They were cute. They came down early, took me out for drinks at this little restaurant next door, reserved a place for lunch the next day after graduation, were all gooing over what I would wear, all that good fun.

Then there was the ceremony itself. Weirdness! First, you are directed into a room where “the gowning” would happen. I figured that meant they hand you a gown and you put it on. Nope. They tell you to lift your arms, and they physically put the gown on you! Then they fuss over whether it’s the right length, etc. Then they hand you this thing called a hood that you’re to carry on your left arm in a certain way so the point is pointing in a special direction, for what reason I don’t know. You are then informed that when you get on stage, a woman will take the hood from you and put it on your head. And this woman has a title, all-be-it not a very flattering one. They call her, get ready for it, queue the drum-roll please, the beetle! How would you like that name? You have been reduced to an insect whose sole purpose is to throw pieces of cloth on hundreds of people’s heads.

Then there’s the procession. With so much fanfare that it’s crazy. And of course there’s your five seconds of fame. When it is finally your turn to go up on the stage, you climb the steps, the beetle does her thing, and then you are supposed to kneal in front of…drum-roll again, the chancelor. That great figurehead whose purpose I cannot figure out except to shake our hands and say a few flowery words at graduation. There’s even something weird about him. To me, he sounded like he should be this giant black dude. Well, I got the black part right, but apparently it looks like if you squeezed his hand too hard, you’d break him because he’s so frail and old. At this point you turn your head and someone’s there snapping your picture. And down you come. It’s all over. You’ve stressed about tripping over the knealing bench, looking the right way, etc. and now it’s all behind you. They want their gown and hood back pronto because they’re going to put them on the next sweaty person’s body and head that afternoon. Wonderful thought. You wonder if the person who wore them before you had anything contageous. Then you shake your head and laugh at yourself. And then you remember that you paid for that ceremony…in a small way. And you’re glad you actually decided to go, so at the very least, you have memories of this weirdness.

So that was graduation. Probably you’re all bored. But hell, I thought it was pretty weird. Maybe I’ll come up with something better later.

Ipods

I just read this article over on Inside pulse and thought I’d link it here because it does a really great job of touching on a couple of things that I think about a lot. One of them is the idea that everybody’s life has its own musical soundtrack whether we realize it or not, and the other is the concept of constantly walking around with headphones on and what it does to the way you interact with the outside world. I’ve never understood the need that some people seem to have to always be attached to something that blasts music into their heads while drowning out the rest of the world.

Don’t get me wrong, I love music. But I also love to observe the little things that go on around me. Things that every one of us seem to take for granted. Things like the sound of birds singing when the weather doesn’t suck. Things like the sounds of kids laughing and having fun. The sound of the wind, or cars wizzing past. Things like the sound of 2 idiots fighting in public and making fools of themselves. Things like a person saying something extremely stupid that I can then tell all my friends about and maybe even post here so that people I don’t even know can laugh about it too. But most of all, things like people. I love getting the chance to talk to people I’ve never met while I’m on a bus or a train or in a bar or even just walking down the street. As dumb as people can be sometimes, a lot of them can be pretty interesting, and there’s no way to experience that when you spend your life isolating yourself from the rest of the world because you’d rather get lost in your own universe by way of a headset. I know there’s a time and a place for that, but does it really need to be all the time? The whole concept of spending my every waking moment hooked up to an Ipod seems so selfish to me, and at the same time, it seems so damaging to the social skills. It takes away any reason to deal with anything or anyone else other than when it’s absolutely necessary. Where’s the fun in that, and how can anybody consider that living? You’re not experiencing anything beyond your own self-contained and self-absorbed existence. How can that be good on any level? Quite simply, it can’t.

And on a related note, memo to all of you headphone people: When I can tell what song you’re listening to and what verse you’re at before you’ve even gotten on the bus, the volume is too high.

A Sad Day

Well, I’ve babbled about my neighbour a fair bit on here, so I figure I should probably say this. Yesterday I found out that my neighbour, after fighting cancer on and off for a few years, passed away on Thursday. It was a shock to me, because when I came back from guide dog school, he seemed really up and said he felt awesome. I really thought, “boy you are one tough dude, you’re going to beat it down again.” But unfortunately complications because of chemo came suddenly, and it all happened so fast. I only wish I had been able to say goodbye.

He was the best neighbour I could ever ask for. If I mentioned that I needed something, by the end of the day, I think he would have had four of those somethings in my hands if he could. Because he knew the snow made it hard to come home, he got a shovel and salt and would shovel the walk to our door, sometimes several times a day. He always wanted to have a chat, was always giving me stuff, would walk places with me if I wanted, and was generally a very friendly neighbour.

He had the most positive attitude I’ve ever seen. It didn’t matter what was going on in his life, he said that things would look up soon, and there was no need to be sad. He’s the only person I’ve met who said he loved the winter because he found the cold invigorating and it made him feel alive. He had a very simple philosophy, and what mattered to him were the people he loved, not money or material things. I don’t think I’ve met a kinder, more generous man.

When he heard someone died, he used to always say, “I don’t think we should be sad for them, I believe in the hereafter.” I hope that wherever he is now is wonderful and he is at peace. Goodbye Cameron, you’ll be missed.

Somebody Needs To Be Fired

Remember last month when I posted about all of the
hilarious production mistakes
on the NWA Virginia Action Zone? Well, apparently Rick OBrien and company don’t, because I’ve got a few more for you. I’ll probably keep doing this as I see them because to be honest, it’s fun to laugh at other people’s shortcomings, especially when those people should know better.

*In the middle of a match, OBrien suddenly stops calling the action and decides to try his hand at directing, yelling at the camera man to go to the other side of the ring so he can catch the action over there. The camera man of course completely misses it, which prompts OBrien to give up, say “too late,” and then continue the play by play as if nothing went wrong.

*At the end of another match, OBrien decides to interview the winner. He asks the guy if he’s going to join the Elements of Destruction, one of the big heel groups in the company. Instead of answering the question, buddy hesitates for a minute, then whispers to OBrien who doubles as the booker and promoter for the company, presumably asking him what the correct answer is. You can hear OBrien saying something in response before the guy stumbles through the rest of his promo, completely screwing it up by saying something that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever before the show ends.

And now we come to the one that’s taken the place of the “that match sucked” incident as my new personal favourite Action Zone moment.

*During the first match on the June 4th episode, OBrien is doing commentary as usual when somebody decides now would be a good time to ask him a question. That’s happened before, but this one is different. I’m not sure who the person doing the asking is, but it’s apparent that it’s somebody who needs to know how a match is going to end because he or she is somehow involved in it. Not everything that OBrien says off mike can be heard, but I did manage to pick out the name of the company’s champion and the words “heels over, heels over!” For those of you who don’t know what that means, it’s wrestling speak for the bad guys are going to win.

Then, because he apparently senses the need to make a bad situation even worse, OBrien gets back on the microphone and asks somebody named either Craig or Greg to “edit out all of my talking there and let the crowd noise carry that last series,” which is wrestling speak for a sequence of holds during a match. Finally, just to make sure that CraigGreg knows exactly what to do, OBrien gives him a big “ready, go!” Before launching right back into the action, acting like nothing had happened.

But now that I’ve been a complete asshole, I feel like I owe them a plug. After all, I do like the show for more reasons than Rick OBrien. Some of the wrestling isn’t bad considering that a lot of the tallent are unknown guys just trying to make a few bucks and get some experience in the business. I’ve really enjoyed some of the matches and if it weren’t for all of the horrible production blunders, the show would probably be a lot better than it is. And beyond that, I’m glad that shows like the Action Zone exist because quite simply, it’s something different. It gives fans a chance to see something different from WWE’s increasingly Triple H dominated product, and it gives the wrestlers exposure to a much wider audience than the few hundred that come out to see the shows they’re booked on.

If you want to watch the show for yourself, you can go to
www.WrestlingNetwork.net.
New shows are posted every Saturday.

That’s all for now, but I’m sure I’ll be doing this again sooner or later.

Duh!

Wow, I can’t believe the level of stupididy we appear to have reached. I happened to flip over to Dateline last night, well I got a heads up that there might be something funny to watch. And sure enough, there was.

It seems someone was dumb enough to be taken for a ride by one of these Nigerian scams. You know the ones. “Hello, my name is Maria el googoogoo. I need your help. My husband/father/son/brother/whoever was killed in a land dispute, or was assassinated. I have all this money, but I need your help to get it out of the country. I contacted you because I’ve heard that you are discrete and can be trusted in such matters. If you’d be so kind as to help me get away from these horrible corrupt people, I’ll give you a percentage. Please reply if you want to help me, and give me your bank account number so I can transfer the money.”

Come on now, doesn’t that scream “scam” or at least “something’s wrong with this picture”? Unless you actually do this sort of thing, how would you have a reputation that this person would have heard of? And even if you do, why are they contacting you at your personal email account?

If the email doesn’t set off alarm bells on its own merits, unless you have lived under a rock, you would have heard of these things. They’ve been flying around the internet for years now. So to fall for them now flings you across the bridge from victim to idiot so far that you can’t even see the arrows back home.

But the scariest thing is that Dateline decided that there are enough of these morons out there that are being scammed that they should do a show on this stuff and hunt down some of these scammers. They didn’t just laugh when they heard this story and go, “Stupid moron should have known better.” No no no. Years ago, I could half understand them doing a show on it. It would have been a new scam idea. But now? Come on.

The best was the woman they showed who was stupid enough to not only reply to this email, but she sent the widow El Googoogoo a bunch of money! The first thing she said was, ” I’m very much a giver.” No, you’re very much a moron. Best of all, she was the treasurer of some organization. If I was in that organization, I’d be voting in a new treasurer. This woman shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near money.

Although shocked they took the time to even consider this story worth focusing on, I thought it was damn funny what the dateline people did. They set up fake email addresses and called them things like Gill T. Azell. Just sound that out. Or, Hugh Dunnit. They did manage to set one bunch of scammers up to meet them, but didn’t really accomplish much.

But the point is that enough people are getting scammed that they made a show out of it and made these people look like poor hapless victims. Nope. they’re numbnutses! Come on people, use your brains if you have any to speak of. Think of these emails like viruses. If you weren’t expecting them, they’re probably bad news. If more people thought like that, this scam bullshit would go away!

Tough Questions

People have been sending me some good stuff lately, so here’s more of it.

The 5 toughest questions for men are:

1. What are you thinking about?
2. Do you love me?
3. Do I look fat?
4. Do you think she is prettier than me?
5. What would you do if I died?

What makes these questions so difficult is that each one is guaranteed to explode into a major argument if the man answers incorrectly ( i.e. tells the truth). Therefore, as a public service, each question is analyzed below, along with possible responses.

Question # 1: What are you thinking about?

The proper answer to this, of course, is: “I’m sorry if I’ve been pensive, dear. I was just reflecting on what a warm, wonderful, thoughtful, caring, intelligent woman you are, and how lucky I am to have met you.”

This response obviously bears no resemblance to the true answer, which most likely is one of the following:

a. Baseball.
b. Football.
c. How fat you are.
d. How much prettier she is than you.
e. How I would spend the insurance money if you died.

(Perhaps the best response to this question was offered by Al Bundy, who once told Peg, “If I wanted you to know what I was thinking, I would be talking to you!”)

Question # 2: Do you love me?

The proper response is: “YES!” or, if you feel a more detailed answer is in order, “Yes, dear.”

Inappropriate responses include:

a. Oh Yeah, loads.
b. Would it make you feel better if I said yes?
c. That depends on what you mean by love.
d. Does it matter?
e. Who, me?

Question # 3: Do I look fat?

The correct answer is an emphatic: “Of course not!”

Among the incorrect answers are:

a. Compared to what?
b. I wouldn’t call you fat, but you’re not exactly thin.
c. A little extra weight looks good on you.
d. I’ve seen fatter.
e. Could you repeat the question? I was just thinking about how I would spend the insurance money if you died.

Question # 4: Do you think she’s prettier than me?

Once again, the proper response is always: “Of course not!”

Incorrect responses include:

a. Yes, but you have a better personality.
b. Not prettier, but definitely thinner.
c. Not as pretty as you when you were her age.
d. Define pretty..
e. Could you repeat the question? I was just thinking about how I would spend the insurance money if you died.

Question# 5: What would you do if I died?

A definite no-win question.

(The real answer, of course, is “Buy a Corvette!”)

Things The Internet Can Teach Us All

1. When the cops pull you over and ask you to get out of your car,
telling them off and then badmouthing them to the person on the other end of your phone probably isn’t the wisest choice you could make.

2. If you start a website that
allows people to translate phrases into multiple languages and then translate those same phrases back into English automatically,
you can keep losers entertained for hours. This also teaches us that computerized translations still really really suck.

3. Just because somebody happens to work at a methane power plant for a living, it doesn’t mean that he or she is always going to understand that
lighting a cigarette while sitting on a public portable toilet might not be such a good idea.

4. If you leave a voicemail that might humiliate you,
there is a good chance that it will end up on the internet, at which point thousands of people will hear it and laugh at you
especially after a bunch of jerks link to it from their own websites.

5.
There is nothing in the world that somebody won’t try to beat off with.
Warning: Funny and painful stories ahoy.

Ok, that’s enough for now, class dismissed.

These Are So Accurate

Since these made me laugh and because there’s nothing wrong with a little hostility every now and then, enjoy these horoscopes that landed in my email today.

Aquarius (Jan 23 – Feb 22)
You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive. You lie a great deal. You make the same mistakes repeatedly because you are stupid. Everyone thinks you are a fucking jerk.

Pisces (Feb 23 – Mar 22)
You are a pioneer type and think most people are dickheads. You are quick to reprimand, impatient and full of advice. You do nothing but piss-off everyone you come in contact with. You are a prick.

Aries (Mar 23 – April 22)
You have a wild imagination and often think you are being followed by the FBI or CIA. You have minor influence on your friends and people resent you for flaunting your power. You lack confidence and are a general dipshit.

Taurus (April 23 – May 22)
You are practical and persistent. You have a dogged determination and work like hell. Most people think you are stubborn and bullheaded. You are nothing but a goddamned communist.

Gemini (May 23 – June 22)
You are a quick and intelligent thinker. People like you because you are bisexual. You are inclined to expect too much for too little. This means you are a cheap bastard. Geminis are notorious for thriving on incest.

Cancer (June 23 – July 22)
You are sympathetic and understanding to other people’s problems, which makes you a sucker. You are always putting things off. That is why you will always be on welfare and won’t be worth a shit. Everyone in prison is a Cancer.

Leo (July 23 – Aug 22)
You consider yourself a born leader. Others think you are an idiot. Most Leos are bullies. You are vain and cannot tolerate criticism. Your arrogance is disgusting. Leo people are thieving motherfuckers and enjoy masturbation more than sex.

Virgo (Aug 23 – Sept 22)
You are the logical type and hate disorder. Your shit-picking attitude is sickening to your friends and co-workers. You are cold and unemotional and often fall asleep while fucking. Virgos make good bus drivers and pimps.

Libra (Sept 23 – Oct 22)
You are the artistic type and have a difficult time dealing with reality. If you are a male you are probably queer. Chances for employment and monetary gain are nil. Most Libra women are whores. All Libras die of venereal disease

Scorpio (Oct 23 – Nov 22)
You are the worst of the lot. You are shrewd in business and cannot be trusted. You shall achieve the pinnacle of success because of your total lack of ethics. You are the perfect son-of-a-bitch. Most Scorpios are murdered.

Sagittarius (Nov 23 – Dec 22)
You are optimistic and enthusiastic. You have a reckless tendency to rely on your luck since you have no talent. The majority of Sagittarians are drunks. You are a worthless piece of shit.

Capricorn (Dec 23 – Jan 22)
You are conservative and afraid of taking risks. You are basically chickenshit. There has never been a Capricorn of any importance. You should kill yourself.