This Being A Day Ending In Y, Your Rogers Bill Is About To Go Up

So remember how letting Rogers buy Shaw was going to be great for Canadians, lowering everyone’s bills and absolutely not leading to out of control rate increases? Three guesses how that’s going.

Wireless phone plans will be getting more expensive for some Canadians this year. 
Rogers Communications Inc. will increase the cost of some of its plans in the coming weeks, the company confirmed to CBC News on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Bell is reportedly increasing some of its existing wireless phone plan prices in February, according to a report by Canadian tech news outlet MobileSyrup. 
The Rogers price hike will impact some customers’ wireless phone plans and internet plans, including customers of its subsidiary Fido, a spokesperson for the telecom giant told CBC News.

While a Rogers spokesperson said many customers will see a price hike under $7, the increases could be as high as $9 per month, depending on the customer’s plan or bundle with their carrier. The hikes apply only to customers who are not on contract.

Customers who have been notified by Rogers will start seeing the new price applied to bills issued after Jan. 17.

It’s not just wireless. Internet and TV rates are going up, too. Based on our most recent bill, those hikes are coming in March. And for us, it means that our already ridiculous bill that we keep getting lowered yet somehow mysteriously keeps creeping back up will be increasing by $21 this year. $4 for internet, $3 for TV and $14 for our two cell phones ($7 each).

Yeah, I know that François-Philippe Champagne said a bunch of tough guy words about non-compliance and whatever, but who cares? Wake me up when he or anyone else in government turns any of that bluster into action. I expect that about as much as I expect a corporate merger to be good for consumers one day. Corporate mergers are almost never good for anyone who doesn’t own the corporation.

Kame & Went

I thought I had posted this a couple months ago, but it turns out that it wound up on my endless I’ll get around to it pile and then never got gotten around to. So thanks muchly to a good friend I won’t name just in case for looking out for us and making sure that we don’t miss the good stuff. And if a fella doing his best to follow the instructions on a Kum & Go sign isn’t the good stuff, what even is good stuff?

The image is split into two sections. On the left, there is a mugshot of a middle-aged man with dishevelled dark hair, some gray at the temples, and stubble. He has a serious expression and is wearing a purple Nike sports top. On the right, there is a photo of a convenience store named "Kum & Go." The store has a red and white sign above the entrance, with large glass windows and doors. The building has a brick facade with a section painted in gray. The address "2303" is visible above the entrance. There is a clear sky above the store.
Why wouldn’t this mugshot be credited to the Johnson County Jail?

According to cops, victims called 911 to report that an “unknown male had said sexual things to them and began masturbating in their presence” while outside the convenience store in Iowa City.
After a police canvass near the Kum & Go, officers identified Kenneth Lee Kelly, 54, as a suspect in the public pleasure session. “Multiple subjects from Kum & Go, neighboring businesses, and apartments identified the defendant as the subject in the photos,” cops reported.

No word on whether one of those neighbouring businesses was a Jack in the Box, but maybe don’t eat there for a while if it was.

Kelly, who has to have been playing the tell me you want to get caught without saying you want to get caught game with police, said when questioned that the person in the security video wasn’t him, but then proceeded to show them all of the identical clothes he owned. He also pulled the ‘ol it’s a big misunderstanding card, telling police that what those nice people may have seen wasn’t him pulling something else, but just scratching it.

All of this went about as well as could be expected and he was booked, it says here, into the Johnson County Jail, which…well…yeah.

Several Hours Worth Of Stories About The Royal Rumble


I haven’t worked my way through all of this yet, but I’m posting it anyway since there’s no possible way that Sean Ross Sapp talking to dozens of wrestlers current and classic about their experiences in the Royal Rumble isn’t going to be at least a little bit interesting.

The Rumble has been my favourite WWE show of the year for almost as long as they’ve been doing it. It’s always fun in a wrestling sense even when it winds up being a bad match because there’s the potential for so many things to happen, but all of the real life moving parts involved in putting something like it together are often as interesting as the storylines. What happens if something goes wrong? How much is called in the ring? How much is heavily planned beforehand? How much has that changed over the years?

The Inside the Royal Rumble articles referenced in the video can be found here. I need to read those, too.

Mr. Speaker, Due To Our Government’s Own Cuts, We’ve All Been Issued Landlines. That’s Why We Don’t Use Them

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that Doug Ford and his cabinet ministers are the only political figures to ever figure out that if you don’t use your government issue devices that it’s harder for people to keep track of what you’re up to, but I’m pretty sure they might be the only ones to make themselves sound this silly and guilty of something when called out on it.

Marit Stiles peppered the government with questions about how ministers communicate after Global News revealed the ministers of education, finance, health, housing and transportation made between zero and 20 minutes of calls on their official devices.
Freedom of information requests have also revealed four months where Ontario Premier Doug Ford failed to make a single call from his official device.
“Is it standard practice for ministers to avoid accountability in this way?” Stiles asked Wednesday.
Progressive Conservative House Leader Paul Calandra denied any rules had been broken and said the lack of phone calls was because the Ford cabinet was communicating in other ways.

“I’ll tell you what the Minister of Health is doing, like every other minister of the government, we’re not contemplating, ‘How many times did I turn my phone on each and every day?’” he said when asked why Sylvia Jones failed to make a single call from her government device in January.

“There are other ways of communicating: my iPad — actually, I can text message on my iPad.”

I’ll bet you can also text on your official government phone, my guy.

And he keeps going, for some reason. That reason, of course, being that this government is made up almost entirely of dumb, arrogant people whose only purpose in elected life appears to be tripping over their own feet, then spinning around and power walking in the opposite direction.

Phone records obtained by Global News revealed senior cabinet ministers were not using their work devices at key times.

The finance minister, for example, made just two minutes of phone calls in March 2023 when he was finalizing and presenting the province’s annual budget.
All five ministers said they followed record-keeping rules and used other forms of communication like in-person meetings or Microsoft Teams.
“I know the Minister of Finance and the parliamentary assistants are crisscrossing the province,” Calandra said. “Not talking to people on a phone.”

Lol.

What else can you say about a quote like that, honestly. What a clown.

Yes, there are a lot of ways to communicate. Yes, I’m sure the government uses several of them. But the finance minister was only on his work phone for two minutes at budget time because he prefers to set up Zoom meetings and wait for a response? Come on, man. There are good lies and there are bad lies. this, without question, is a bad lie. The sort to which we’ve grown sadly accustomed since 2018.

Get Your Head Out Of Your Annus. And Everyone Else’s, Too

File this one under close enough.

Sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison last year for the attempted rape of a boy under the age of 13 was Kristian Annus.

Not sure how he wound up looking the way he does in this mug shot, but you kind of hope it was a fuck around and find out type situation, don’t you?

A man facing the camera with significant injuries to his face. His left eye is swollen shut with bruising and cuts around it. There are multiple lacerations and abrasions across his forehead and cheek, with dried blood visible. His right eye appears less injured but still shows signs of bruising. He has a beard and is wearing a grey t-shirt.
Kristian Annus police photo.

This Should Be Funny, But I’m Crying

Because it’s still New Year’s Day, I thought I’d make fun of myself because there are certain Christmas comedy bits that no matter how many times I hear them, they still make me cry. Not laugh until I cry, just straight up cry. Here they are, in no particular order.

First, there’s what would happen if you got all the stuff from the 12 days of Christmas. Yup. I didn’t cry as much, but there’s still a tear. I don’t know if that one is because he’s crying, but it doesn’t matter how many times I hear it. It still happens. I almost made it…almost.

Next is this Sean Morey song

All it takes is “I want a stick to burn for heat.” and I’m gone.

This one might not be as reliable. It’s called “We’re Shopping at the Mall” and I think I might have heard it for the first time in the pandemic when I was easier to make cry.
This one isn’t getting me as bad as it did the first time. Oh wait. It’s getting worse. It might have made me a little sad, but I wasn’t a blubbering mess.

Here’s the last one on my list. It’s called “You Ain’t Getting Shit for Christmas”.

This one doesn’t make me cry, so much as make me feel all empty and hollow, and not want to laugh at all.

But here’s where I don’t make any sense. This John Lajoie tune disturbs me, but has never made me cry once. What the heck?

Was it because the title made me think I should brace myself for all the terrible that was coming? But if that’s the case, “You ain’t gettin’ shit for Christmas” should have been a good clue. I always go “Oh no! Oh gees! Wow!” a whole bunch of times, but I never end up crying.

So yeah. I’m weird. The question is am I alone in this?

Here Comes 2024

Hi there. It’s me, the biggest absentee blogger in history. Since I started going back to the office, even though I have more energy thanks to ol’ Santa the CPAP machine, I can’t seem to find the time to write, even though I have a great heap of ideas.

So…um…it’s 2024. I say this every year, but the years go faster and faster. I feel like we were just doing this, and here we are again.

What can I say about 2023. It definitely was a mixed bag, but I guess that’s the way life goes. On the positive side, I got Domino. Yeah, about that! I have to write one of my doggy deluges to catch you up on how he’s doing. It’ll probably take several posts. I also have been going back to the office, which has been doing me a lot of good because I’m actually seeing more people. It’s not as good as I had hoped because you never know who will be there each day, but it definitely is getting me out and bopping around, which is rebuilding my confidence.

On the less awesome side, Dad has been having lots of health struggles. Thankfully he got through his cancer scare, but cancer is kind of like that evil doll from the horror movies. You just think you’ve gotten rid of it when it shows up again, and you never know when that will happen. I’m trying not to think like that, but it’s hard.

Even without his cancer, he keeps having health problems. It’s scary to watch your parents get older and be less rock-solid. It’s the natural order of things, but it’s not fun.

I also had it brought home that you never know when you’ll lose someone. I went to the CSUN Assistive Technology conference last March for the first time since 2019. It was nerve-wracking, but lots of fun. But I found out that Joseph O’Connor who I met at CSUN years ago had passed away back in 2020 and I had no idea. There was an early morning session that I didn’t attend, going over people who had been there through the years, and I guess his death was mentioned. Then I went to lunch with a colleague and said “I wonder if Joe O’Connor is here!” My colleague had gone to the session, and had to tell me he had passed away. He always was so kind and passionate about WordPress accessibility, and of course, he was a big part of the ‘Woman! Turn around!’ story. He celebrated the solstace, so I will always think about him on that day. But the point is he had been gone for 3 whole years and I had no idea.

I guess he had proposed a presentation idea about making your funeral services and grave site accessible, and it was rejected, even though I thought it was something that should be talked about. You can tell he knew the end was near and really wanted to make things as easy as possible for his daughter. It was so much more than some dry presentation about theories about how to make things accessible. He had examples that made the whole thing very real.

I didn’t talk to him as much as I wanted to, and I will always regret that. It just reminds me that I never know when I will lose someone.

I’m happy I went to CSUN, but I really hate airports. They bring out the absolute worst in me. People are so focused on trying to get to their gate that they’d bowl you over on their way through. Even the people pushing people in wheelchairs would just run you over instead of watching where they’re going. The employees see a blind person and lose their mind. They either treat us like cargo, or panic that they might have to do more than point and mime what they want. One flight attendant pleaded with colleagues of mine to switch seats so my colleagues would be right with me in case there was an emergency. And what would they do if I was flying alone? The airports are more short staffed, so they have kiosks that aren’t designed accessibly, and we’re expected to use them. And this is all happening while we’re trying to get somewhere. It’s gotten so bad that if I’m travelling with people, I warn them in advance that I might get surly in the airport. I try my best not to, but inevitably something pisses me off.

And it’s not just the airport. The airport is a special kind of hell, but I’m finding more and more that people everywhere are getting less communicative. Throughout the pandemic, people talked about how we missed social connection. It sure doesn’t look like anybody misses it by the way they all have headphones on and have their heads buried in their phones. If I try to speak to most people on the street, I get silence in return. Sometimes I want to bonk into one of them accidentally on purpose and then remind them that I had said hello to them 3 times and most people actually answer back. I sometimes wonder if there’s a language barrier, but it’s just as likely to be an English-speaking person as someone who speaks English as a second language. When I go into stores, there’s no one around to ask for help, and if there is, they just sit there and stare at me, hoping that maybe I will spawn some eyeballs and know that they’re there, or they expect me to make eye contact. If people want me to move, instead of saying “Can you move to the left?” they grumble indecipherable noises behind me. I can tell they’re discontented, but I have no idea why or at whom. This is the world in which I find myself, and it makes me sad and on edge all the time. I want something that resembles what we used to have. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a damn sight better than what it is now.

Gaaa! I sound like an old lady! I guess I am one. But there’s still lots of fun to be had. Our nephews always make us laugh. Seppa is always amazing us with his skills with math, or maff as he puts it. He even kind of knows what prime numbers are! He’s always asking us for the definitions of words, and surprisingly hard questions that don’t seem hard at first. The other day, I was trying and failing to explain time zones to him. And…and…we are reaching the end of an era! Soon he will no longer call me Aunt Carrot! He’s figuring it out! Sukie is smart as ever, and is into Harry Potter. That kid can read like a fiend! And I realize that I’ve never given the other nephews nicknames up here. Let’s call them Kliks and Bricks. Kliks was actually the first nephew, but I just called him the nephew. Then Seppa came along, and then Sukie, but I didn’t see Kliks as much so I couldn’t come up with a nickname for him. Then his little brother, let’s call him Bricks, came along. So what can I say about Kliks and Bricks? Klicks is amazed by Steve’s ability to chase him around even though he tries not to make a sound. He always hopes that I’ll bring “Um…what’s his name? Uncle Steve! Yeah!” whenever I come home for holidays. I don’t think he thinks I’m nearly as cool. Bricks is the smallest of the nephews, and I think he struggles to fit in, but he tries his best. He loves animals and even though he’s quiet, he’s always thinking.

So here comes 2024, for better or for worse. I hope we all have a great year full of all the good things we can wring out of it.