I happened to have the space channel on for a while, and I noticed a disturbing trend. I saw comercials in the same order. One for new skin bandages, one for Compound W, and one for sleep medications. Also in heavier concentrations than I’ve ever seen before were commercials for fast food, skittles, and computers. I was actually shocked to see a normal commercial for, oh, say, makeup or bank stuff. I got to thinking. There must be a reason for this format. It must have been researched and found out that those things are what are selling. Then a vision began to form in my head. This must be the classic space channel viewer. Warts on their feet, cuts on their hands, perhaps from repairing computers, with a bag of Wendy’s on one side and a bag of skittles on the other, unable to sleep. Could it really be the fate of all who watch the space channel? Should I run screaming from it right now? I should run…to the store..to get some….skittles..aaa it’s too late! I’ve become one of them!
Too Bad There’s Only 1 S In Astrology
Russian astrologer Marina Bai has
filed a $3 million lawsuit
against NASA over a recent experiment conducted by the agency that involved smashing a space probe into a comet called Tempel 1.
According to Bai, NASA’s reckless actions could not only be responsible for the eventual destruction of the planet Earth, but will also be responsible for future inaccuracies in her horoscope because the balance of the universe has been forever altered. I won’t bother asking about the *current*inaccuracies in my horoscope, I don’t want to ruin her chances of winning even if I am curious about how many comets NASA has already smashed. It has to be a lot, just look at the horoscope page of your local newspaper sometime.
Bai’s lawyer, who clearly has no problem saying absolutely anything no matter how stupid it sounds, went even further than his client in an apparent attempt to turn the suit into some sort of class action for complete retards.
“The impact changed the magnetic properties of the comet,” he stated, “and this could have affected mobile telephony here on Earth. If your phone went down this morning, ask yourself why? and then get in touch with us.”
But if my phone is down, how am I supposed to…oh never mind.
Engineers at NASA have dismissed Bai’s claims, comparing the impact to that of a “mosquito hitting the front of an airliner in flight,” and calling any effect on the world as we know it “negligible” at best.
So now it’s up to the Russian legal system, which clearly has nothing bigger to worry about, to decide the outcome of this fierce legal battle. NO word yet on when they’ll do that, but hopefully we can keep you posted.
People are Getting Weirder, or Is It Me?
Yes, I’m alive. I just haven’t been very interesting these days, or seen anything interesting enough to write about…until yesterday. I’ve been having to take Babs to the vet because she developed a lump that had to be removed, and then I saw some smaller lumps and so we came back. Most people who come to the vet seem normal enough. But this one woman I saw yesterday had me laughing to myself for a while.
I’m sitting here, waiting my turn, and this shy woman comes up to the reception desk. “Um, excuse me. I have an older cat, and she has trouble grooming her…back end. And now she’s developing…dreadlocks. I’ve been trying to groom her, but she snaps at me. So I was wondering if someone here could groom her, and we could sedate her.”
Ok, I was with her, until the sedation part. They’re actually going to keep the cat over night, put her under general anesthetic, and groom her that way. Isn’t there an easier way? Couldn’t she just buy some kind of harness to keep her still? I can’t believe what people will do for their animals nowadays. Maybe that’s a good sign. Maybe it means people are getting richer and have more money to spare for these things. Or maybe people are falling off the deep end. Either way, it sure looked weird to me.
Am I in the bizarro world?
Something weird happened to me, but it seems I say that a lot on here. The phone rang, it was a weird number, but since I got a cool deal from Bell by answering a weird number, I figured what the hell. So I pick up and some woman is on the phone asking if Mrs. insert my last name here, has received their sample of beef. I’m like what the hell? She explains that some local farmers have gotten together and this is some kind of promotional thing. So I say no, and then she says, well do your children eat beef? So I tell her that I’m alone, and there’s no Mrs. insert my name here. At this point, she immediately says, “Oh, sorry, I don’t want to waste your time. We won’t bother you any more.” Woe. A polite, easy to get rid of telemarketer? This is truly some kind of parallel universe. How did I get here?
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.