Some People’s kids

I have to say that in general, today I’m pretty happy. I basically put an end to all the work for that class that I couldn’t stand. I have wanted to say that for a while, and the end is finally here!

But I saw something today that, no matter how awesome my mood is and no matter how many times I see it, makes me want to walk up to the people doing it and go, “Guys. You might want to use that bunch of tissue between your ears. Ya know. Your brain.” I bitched about this in one of my columns, but every time I see it, it makes me want to bitch some more.

So let me set the scene for you. I am happily munching on my lunch in the food court-looking part of the main university building. There are others doing the same. Everybody’s minding their own business. Then, out of the general din, we hear a bullhorn. Yes, a god damn megaphone thing. At first, it’s impossible to discern what this dude is trying to broadcast to a bunch of people eating their lunches and getting on with their days. Maybe it’s Mr. Wendy. Who the hell knows?

Then it becomes clear. He’s chanting, “Bush, go home! Bush, go home!”
Bullhorn-toting freak: Where should he go?”
Crowd response (and when I say crowd, I mean 10 people): Home!
Bullhorn-toting freak: When should he go?
Crowd response: Now!

Ok, did I miss something? Did Bush come to our campus? Is he meeting with the president of the university or something for some odd reason? No! He’s in Ottawa!

And here’s where my problem begins. I have no problem with people protesting. I think, if done right, it takes a lot of guts and may do a lot of good. But these so-called political protesters might as well piss into the wind for all the good their protests are going to do. If you want to protest Bush’s presence in Canada, go to where he is and protest. Don’t stand in the food area of some university campus that isn’t even in a capital city I might add and protest. Now all you’re doing is drawing attention to yourself and making yourself look like a fool to anyone with more than a few brain cells to rattle together. Again, if anyone has an intelligent reason why political protests have even a snowball’s chance of success in a university cafeteria, then by all means, enlighten me. I could even see it if it was about a student issue. Then go ahead. You’ve got a bunch of the student body watching, it’s the prime spot. But something about the president of the United States? Yeah, real effective.

I can hear it now. “But these people can’t just take off to Ottawa to protest. They’re in school.” Fine. Then start a letter-writing campaign. That would be far more effective than standing around yelling at people who aren’t even connected to this whole thing.

They didn’t even protest for that long, thank god. Then they went outside and stood beside an old cannon filled with cement. Think about that. They don’t like Bush, probably because of his stance related to war, so they finish their protest beside a big cannon! Wow! Talk about symbolism shooting you in the foot. And talk about showing yourself to be an even bigger idiot. To all those people who want to protest in stupid places, please, do yourselves a favour. Think about other ways to be useful. I’m sure you can find one.

The Safety Dance

Update:
The old website no longer works, so I’ve removed the link. But there is now a YouTube channel! If you need an example of what you might find there, this one seems timely what with Kenny Rogers recently dying.

And it would be criminal not to post this one since wash your hands is all we’re being told these days.

Original:
Have you ever been frying up some nice, delicious hamburgers and suddenly thought to yourself “gee, I wish somebody would write a song about how to do this properly”? Me neither. But Carl Winter, a food toxicologist with the University of California did, and since nobody else was going to do it, he even went as far as to write and perform the songs himself.

Combining his musical background with his love of developing food safety education programs, Winter spends what seems to be way too much of his time writing and recording food safety parody songs. His 1 man band even has CD’s available and gives live performances, I’m not kidding.

But you don’t have to buy a CD to hear this greatness for yourself. Winter’s website features many streaming examples of his work including such classics as I Will Survive, They Might Kill You/ We are the Microbes, A Case of Norwalk and many many more. Each song even has it’s own set of Powerpoint slides if the musical experience just isn’t enough for you.

I’m trying to think of a snappy way to end this post but it’s not working so I’ll leave you with a few lyrics so you know what you’re in for, or so you know what you might be in for if you don’t visit the site and take Winter’s advice to heart.

I’ve got a sign
On my fridge door
Sayin’ go away bacteria
Cause you’re not welcome anymore
Listeria don’t scare me nor does that nasty E. coli
Hey Salmonella?
Did you think I’d lay down and die?

Oh no, not I
I will survive
Oh as long as I am careful with my food I’ll stay alive
Cause I’ve got all my safety plans
I disinfect and wash my hands
And I’ll survive, I will survive

Hua!

I guess this is just random thoughts time. I need to be a little more alert before class, so I thought why not throw something up here. Hell I might get mad and then I’ll be awake. Or maybe I’ll type equally horribly as I did Tuesday.

Today I was walking down the street and I thought I noticed someone walk by. A couple seconds later, I knew I did, because I was hit with this wave of perfume. Why do some people need to wear so much perfume that it follows them in a vaporous cloud? Seriously, it was as if the perfume had wings and was flying like a little bird behind them. Easy killer. Who are you trying to impress with that? It’s not working.

And speaking of smelly things, I decided to stroll over to Boing Boing because well I was bored and thought I’d check it out, and somebody’s actually come up with something that will give off a smell when your phone rings. But apparently they smell like food! That would be cruel. Sniff sniff. No that’s not lunch, just getting a call. I can see it all now. Please keep your phones on vibrate or smell mode in the theatre. Just as long as it doesn’t smell like popcorn.

Granted I didn’t read the story, because I ran out of time, but that’s just weird.

And speaking of running out of time, I just did. Wasn’t that a pointless post?

You Really Shouldn’t Have

Partly because I’m such a swell guy and partly because I just came across this over on
Boing Boing,
here is a whole host of fantastic Christmas gift giving possibilities from what could soon be my favourite shopping spot on the entire internet,
Krappy.com.

Right now they’re featuring a bunch of different items from various site categories on their main page as part of their Merry Christmassproduced special.

And if there’s anybody out there reading this who isn’t sure what to get me for Christmas, a
Bubble Wrap Terrorist
will do just fine. It’s only $25 Australian, which is exactly 23.2047 Canadian as of this writing according to the
XE.com
currency converter. Happy shopping.

>I Guess This Isn’t A New Thing

>After the craziness that was the Friday night basketball game that everybody’s probably heard about by now, Sports Illustrated has put together a
list of some of the most memorable fan vs. athlete confrontations
that have taken place over the years. It’s interesting stuff, not to mention a pretty good answer to the age old question, why don’t they serve beer in glass containers at sporting events anymore?

Site Problems

If you’ve been trying to access the site for the last little while and you’ve been seeing strange bits of code or nothing at all, try again a little later. Something seems to be wrong and I’m trying to figure out what it is and hoping I didn’t do it when I was posting something. I doubt I did, I think it’s a Blogger problem and I’m betting it’ll be fixed soon. Just hang tight and come back a little later.

Wholesome Family Entertainment

This is a clip from an actual children’s TV show called “Rainbow” that used to be shown back in the 1970’s. I hadn’t heard of this show until yesterday when it was linked in
RAW Rage,
but now I want to track down every episode ever made to see if they were all this funny.

Seriously,
watch this clip
and marvel at how much these people were able to get away with. There’s no way that all of the innuendo in this thing could be explained away with the old different expressions excuse. It’s deliberate, it’s funny, and it makes me hate the people who wrote the kid’s shows that I grew up on for not being able to pull something like this off.

Could I speak to the man of the house please?

Arg. I just got called by a telemarketer. Man oh man. Part of me feels sorry for them because they must be so desperate for employment that they have to spend their days, evenings, nights, weekends, and all other hours they can selling vacuum cleaners, phone service, newspaper subscriptions, carpet-cleanings, cruises and whatever else telemarketers have to do. But some of them just piss me off. I don’t know what it is, but the newspaper-selling guys are especially bad for it. I can stop them cold pretty easily though. It goes like this.

telemarketer. Hello. Can I speak to, ah, um, Ca-reen?
Me: Speaking.
Telemarketer: I’m calling from the (insert newspaper here). We’re offering a 29-week subscription. Are you interested?
Me: Only if you have it in braille. I’m blind.
Telemarketer: Hmmm. Um. Sorry. Never mind. Bye.

Man it’s fun to watch them run away. What I hate the most about them is when they get all pissed off when I don’t want their subscription. It’s like I’ve wasted their time rather than the other way around. Some of them just hang up. Well excuse me for being a thorn in your existence by not being able to read your crap.

The best response was one telemarketer who, after getting all stuttery and stammery when I dropped the blindness bomb on him, said, “Um, thank you for your time, and I’ll pray for you.” I told him not to worry, but I got off the phone and laughed and laughed and laughed. I got thinking after. I’m at home, going to school and not bugging anyone on a Saturday morning. Mr. Telemarketer on the other hand is probably getting sworn at, hung up on, and rejected. Who needs prayer more?

So another one from the Toronto Star called me tonight and I asked to be taken off their list. Let’s see if they do it. I wonder when telemarketers will realize that badgering people in their homes is not effective business practice. It’s one thing if you’re already with the company. But all these morons calling us up at dinner telling us about their product or service trying to sell it to us. Do they think that we don’t know it exists? Does this conversation actually unfold?

“Gee Mr. Telemarketer, I didn’t know there were such things as vacuum cleaners. If you hadn’t called me, I would have never known. Thank you for opening my eyes.”

Somehow I don’t think so. Stop! calling! our! homes!

Apparently I’m A Douche.

Apologies for the horrid typing in those last couple posts. Especially the snow one. Woopsy. That’s what happens when the computer you’re writing on threatens to crash and eat everything you’re working with, that, and the dude in charge of that section of the library keeps coming over, and sort of staring at what you’re doing and you just want to get it posted quickly! Hopefully that won’t be a repeat occurrence. I don’t like looking like a moron publically.

The Amazing Family-Destroyer

The other day, I had the TV on for background noise while I was doing some school-related drudgery, and on came The Amazing Race. Usually I’d flip real quick because I can’t stand all these quote unquote reality shows. Reality? Ok whatever. But I was too damned lazy to change the channel, so I left it on. As it ran in the background, I noticed something really disturbing. All these people are trying for a million dollars, right? To do it, they basically do a race around the world. Ok, gotcha.

But here’s where I get upset. Everybody’s trying to outdo the next guy in speed to get the dough. They’re stressed. They’re flipping out, planning, running around like loons. Even in the first step of the race, everyone has to get on 3 flights, all going to arrive in Iceland within 5 minutes of each other. But oh no we can’t just pick one, get on and relax. No no no. We have to turn this into a huge extravaganza of strategy and planning. Easy, it’s five minutes. They’re yelling at each other. There’s this one couple that, if I was serious about the show, I’d want to see gone pronto because they’re just way too negative, he is anyway. But then I think, “That poor woman has to go home with him.” But my point is while they’re bickering and screaming, freaking and fighting, they’re missing the opportunity of a lifetime! I mean, how many times are these people going to get to go to all these places? For sure, after that, they’ll never want to come back because it will just remind them of all the fighting they did, especially for those who don’t get the money, which is 10 teams out of 11!

And wanna know the irony of it all? Most of these people said they came on this thing to *strengthen* their relationship with their partner/friend/parent/whatever. Ya think a highly competitive, high-pressured, televised race for a million bucks is going to strengthen your relationship? Try going on a vacation together. Try doing something fun together. If this is going to do anything, it’s going to destroy what you have because it will bring out the worst in each of you. I mean this one guy kept telling his wife that he was starting to wish he’d brought someone else on the race! Another girl, while they had nothing else to do but drive, was commenting about how beautiful the sky was and how it reminded her of Scotland. Her boyfriend’s response? “We’re trying to win a race and you’ve got your thumb up your ass thinking about some place we’re not? About Scotland?” Chill out, bro. You’re in the car, going to your destination. Take it easy and enjoy the ride. Jesus.

I mean I hate reality shows anyway. But this one, especially this episode, just made me sad and made me think of how many people are probably missing the whole point of life just running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Chill out, people. If you’re ruining relationships to get where you want to go, it’s not worth it.