Leave It to My Brother

My brother is a big linux geek among other things. I went to his blog, and found something that made me laugh so hard that I had to post a link to it here. Leave it to him to find something like this.

Apparently, in Microsoft’s knowledge base where you can read about why windows crashes, you can also find A Guide to leet speak or that horrible disfigurement of the English language popping up on forums, message boards, MSN conversations and emails everywhere. I just love the way the author is trying to be tactful about the “new creations” in this “language”.

Whose Bright Idea Was That?

I was listening to the radio yesterday, and the song Weightless by See Spot Run came on. I thought to myself, “Cool song.” Then it went a little further, and I realized it wasn’t the real song, it was this horrible version they put out. Honestly it’s not much different than the other one. All they did was add this annoying syntho-crap that cycles through the whole song. It doesn’t really add anything to the song, except the irritation factor!

Whenever I see a perfectly good song disfigured by that crap or something similar, I think, “What possessed someone to think that was a good idea?” We have a perfectly good song, why louse it up with crap that just doesn’t sound like it belongs? Honestly, musical taste is going straight down the drain. And there’s no talent required to add a few beeps and boops to a song. Once someone’s dumb enough to come up with the idea, I don’t think it takes too much effort to add the effect. I would hope that if you decide to change the song, at least make the change somewhat interesting or original!

And here’s another thing that drives me nuts about music. Everybody’s covering old stuff. I mean everybody. Country, rock, every fucking body! And then the DJ actually says, “Here’s a new one. It’s insert song here by insert band here.” The song is not new! Some band has regurgitated someone else’s stuff. It’s not so bad when a band takes a song and adds their own twist to it. But usually those ones have the decency to say what song they’re covering. AS for the rest of the covers out there, people who’ve never heard the original will think that band is so incredibly brilliant. It really pissed me off when I heard 3 covers in a row and the DJ acted like the songs were brand new. Come on bands, do you really need to mooch off some old song? Don’t you have an original thought left? I know there are some, but it seems like they’re a dying breed.

Maybe I shouldn’t criticize because I couldn’t write a song to save my life. But at least I know that, and the idea doesn’t strike me to go leach off someone else’s talent. I wish others would do the same.

Ok, Knock it Off!

So I’m sleeping, and I left the TV on. I wake up, and this is the first thing I hear.

“More news on the Pope. We take you now to a press conference at the hospital.”

A translator is feverishly spitting out the English equivalent to what some Italian guy is saying. What he’s apparently saying is that the Pope is breathing on his own and had a good night’s sleep, and the tracheotomy was an elective surgery, why anyone would elect to do that I don’t understand, but anyway that’s not the point. He said that he was breathing easier and for more information, see the statement going to be released at noon. Then people started asking questions. “What is the condition of the Pope’s lungs?” “Will he be at the blessing on Sunday?” And this one fucking drove me over the edge. “What did the Pope eat for breakfast this morning?”

I’m serious, this is what the translator translated. “He had a latte, that’s a coffee with milk, um, uh, a yogurt, and 10 biscuits, they were small biscuits. And he ate it all.”

Woe papa. I care so far as he’s sick. But he does not need a god damn fucking press conference, hourly updates and people asking what the hell he had for breakfast. That’s insane. He’s 84. Do you think maybe it’s his time? If he gets better, cool. If not, he’s eighty-fucking-four. Maybe God has a better place for him. Move on! I’ve seen enough Pope shit to last me a lifetime. It is not the end of the world if the Pope crokes, or judging by what he sounds like, stops croking. Commence flaming.

Way Cool!

I never thought I’d make a blog post about food, but here we go. Last night I thought I’d try the Eastside Mario’s delivery thing. I felt like Mario’s, but couldn’t make it to the restaurant, so I thought what the hell I’ll give them a try. I was expecting your run of the mill delivery package, probably less than what you’d get if you went in the restaurant! But no! It was absolutely awesome. Steve and I tried it, and each of us got a cute little loaf of their bread with our dinners. They even sent parmesan cheese for the pasta and the salad! The croutons were even fresh!

So, if you ever feel like Eastside Mario’s but can’t get to the restaurant for some reason, try their delivery! it’s awesome! But if you’re blind, know what you want when you call because I can’t for the life of me read their menus on the website. Ok I’ll stop sounding like a gluttonous pig and leave you alone.

Note To Self…

Never argue with a girlfriend and then let her tie you up as part of a sexual act.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A woman upset about an impending breakup with her boyfriend cut off his penis and flushed it down a toilet, police said. Utility workers recovered the severed organ, and surgeons reattached it.

Kim Tran, 35, was arraigned on charges of assault, domestic violence and tampering with evidence. She remained jailed in Anchorage, with no bail set.

Police spokeswoman Anita Shell said the injury to the 44-year-old man was “brutal, brutal.”

The couple was arguing Saturday because the man, whose name was not released, wanted to end the year-old relationship, Shell said. The pair decided to have sex, and the man agreed to have his arms tied to a window handle above their bed. The woman pulled out a kitchen knife and severed his penis, police said.

After flushing the organ down the toilet, she drove the man to the hospital and helped him to a nurses’ station, Shell said. Police, summoned by a hospital worker, found Tran at the couple’s home cleaning up the blood, Shell said.

Water utility workers retrieved the penis, and police said surgery to reattach it was successful.

Well hey, at least she was nice enough to drive him to the hospital.

Random Bitchfest

I don’t know. I just have a bunch of thoughts, and none of them feel long enough to make posts of their own, so I figured I’d throw them all together to make a bitch stew. So eat up.

Ok, some of these were provoked by Steve’s post about the bank machine Braille and the Braille in a glass case. It made me think about that pseudo Braille on the bills. Yes, you heard me right, pseudo Braille. That Braille on the bills doesn’t actually say anything. No, you cannot think you’ve learned what 5, 10 and 20 are in Braille by looking at those bills. Those are just blobs of dots. They put one blob on for 5, 2 on for 10, and 3 on for 20. At this rate they will run out of places to put blobs. I actually asked someone from the CNIB why in the blue bloody hell they did that, and they said it was supposed to make the bills readable to anyone with a vision problem even if they didn’t know Braille. Ok sparky, here’s something to ponder. If a person isn’t reading Braille, that means their fingers probably aren’t sensitive enough to pick up the stupid blobs of dots. Hell I read Braille and I find them hard to find. And with use, they fade! away! and unevenly, so suddenly a bill that had 3 blobs can one day look like it has 2. Great system there folks.

I do appreciate the sentiment. I just wished they’d consulted with a few more people. Oh yeah, and this pisses me off. People think they’ve consulted with “The blind” if they’ve consulted with one blind person. Would you even think that’s remotely close to fair if someone consulted with one man in Toronto and then said they got the Canadian male perspective? I don’t think so. You’d say, “Talk to a few more and then maybe say you have the Canadian male perspective. One’s not good enough.” So how is one blind person good enough? I know we’re a bit more rare, but come on, you can find a few. Hell, after you’ve talked to one, you can ask that person who else you should talk to. Chances are we know a few more.

And why aren’t they more willing to have a few more talking bank machines? They exist, why not put them in a few more bank branches? Royal has them, and so does CIBC. It’s possible, let’s get some more of them out there. I love having a conversation about this with a teller. It usually goes something like this:

Me: Why don’t we have a talking bank machine yet?
Teller: It’s a privacy concern.
Me: Why?
Teller: because it would speak your info.
Me: Have you not seen these things? They require a set of headphones, which I would bring in myself.
Teller: Oh…ok.
Me: And which is less private? Me typing in stuff myself and the random chance of someone overhearing the sound from the headset or me having to ask people for help using a bank machine that doesn’t talk and them seeing my PIN number?
Teller: Uh…that’s a good point…um…You should talk to someone about this.
Me: Yep, that’s right. How about you?
Teller: um…

And that’s usually where it sadly ends. I just don’t get why these things are so slow to implement, and when you talk about it, how easily tellers like to try and fill you with bullshit. You can tell they have no idea what they’re talking about when you can pretty much shoot down every one of their claims in one shot.

I don’t even know how to segway to this, but I was thinking more about words, and realized I missed one. People say “no offense” for no reason. There’s one person I know who, half the time when they say “no offense”, the next thing they say wouldn’t even come close to offending me. They’ll say something like, “No offense, but this episode of the Simpsons sucks.” And that would offend me because…? Come on, think about what you’re saying.

And last night I heard another piece of George W. Bush stupidity. He actually said as a response in a press conference about Iraq’s new government, “It is a democracy based on values.” And that’s where his sentence ended. Based on values? That sentence might as well have not even been uttered because it’s meaningless. Everything is based on values. The question is which values are those? Liberal values? Conservative values? Values believed by the utterly insane? Whose values? But of course, no one will notice. They’ll cheer merrily and say that Bush is right and smile and watch the next news story like a pack of zombified robots.

And here’s another thought on not thinking. Have you ever noticed that the ones who call themselves religious always say, “Since I’ve found god, I have no worries. I hand everything over to god and faith.” Ok, translation. “Since I think I’ve found a divinity, I no longer have to think for myself.” Isn’t that a scary thought? On an individual level, that’s digestible. But imagine if a whole group of people found a higher power? Stopped thinking? Do we really want that? Thanks, I’ll keep my worries, because I like my brain.

On a completely different thought, I was shipped something yesterday, which was way cool, but as packing, they used those bastard Styrofoam beads to cushion the box. Those things are possessed. For one, they defy gravity. You go to lift the contents of the box out, and they seem to float out with your hands, then cling to them. My god, they would not come off my hands! I’m still picking little Styrofoam bits off my floor. they are every bloody where in my house! The only thing worse for getting all over the house are wood shavings if you’ve ever had a pet hamster or other rodent.

And…holy crap I’m out of ideas. Scary thought eh? Or maybe you were all just hoping I’d shut up soon. Next time I’m sure I’ll have something more coherent to say.

That better?

So I decided to break the site again. A while ago, our good friend -666 said the google ads frame was kind of obscured by the blogger stuff at the top of the page. I decided to be brave and move it to a place that makes sense to me, but I’m blind so what do I know? Eyeball opinions please. Hope its new home is a good one. I want the ads to be seen, but I don’t want people to find them obnoxious.

Bank Machines In Braille

Not sure if this is true, but somebody emailed it to me and it’s funny.

Anxious to ‘include’ as many minorities, religions and disabilities as possible, the human resources department of the University of Alberta has put up a Braille poster outside its main office. The poster has been placed inside a display case with a glass front.

[This is brought to you by the same geniuses who put braille instructions on the drive up window at the bank.]

I’ve never seen instructions on those things, but I have seen Braille on them. It’s essentially useless though, drive through or not, because the Braille tells you nothing more than that you are in fact standing near a bank machine. And even then you pretty much have to molest the thing to find it, and by that time you’re probably well aware of where you are. Seriously, I’d hate to meet the person who walks up to one of these things and tries to call somebody on the big speaker pay phone.

And while we’re on the subject of Braille bank machines, unless the machine is going to talk to me, don’t even bother with the Braille. You might think that putting A B C D E F on the buttons down the sides is helpful, but it’s not. All of the stuff I need to know to make those letters mean something is on the screen, which isn’t in Braille, ever. You’re wasting your time, and you’re wasting mine too by making me stand there while you try to convince me that this is the coolest thing ever. It isn’t.

I’m not trying to say that I don’t appreciate the sentiment, because I do. All I’m saying is consult a blind person, and I don’t mean one of those crazy advocate types who work for the big organizations or the winey bitch unreasonable everything should be handed to me because my eyes don’t work types either. I’m talking about people like me, or people like Carin. We’ll help you, and we won’t even make you feel sorry for us in the process or ask you for consulting fees. But hell, if you want to give us consulting fees, I’m sure we could work something out.