This Is So Convenient! Unless You Happen To Be Inconvenient

It’s so fantastically great when all you want to do is some regular people thing like travel or quickly buy something you need and the world tells you to go fuck yourself. The last time I had this experience was back at Christmas with Via Rail and its stupid un-staffed train station here in Kitchener (luckily it was full of a crowd we could follow that day), and now, if this asshole gets his way, I’m going to be having it a whole lot more. He’s trying to make convenience stores with no people in them into a thing, the fucking dick.

There isn’t a word here about accommodating disabled people, because of course there isn’t. There never is with any of this do it yourself crap. Everybody’s just supposed to be normal and if you’re not, tough shit.

Maybe tough shit is doable when there are other nearby options, but if this winds up in an area where you’re the only game in town for anyone without a car, a blind guy like me or somebody in a wheelchair who can’t reach everything is screwed. Ditto if these things become selling points in apartment buildings and wind up driving my rent up as a result even though I can’t use them.

Yes, I know there are helper apps. but not everybody has a smartphone, hard as that may be to believe. And lord only knows if they’ll even bother making the door opening app accessible, and at that point it doesn’t really matter how many minutes you paid Aira for this month. And even if you get in and have all of the minutes, you still may not have all of the connectivity. Even here in KW, home of eleventy billion tech companies, cell connections still routinely drop if you make the mistake of turning the wrong corner in the damn Walmart, fucking you anew.

It’s 2022. Inaccessibility should never be something that’s baked into your business from the ground up. We’re supposed to have learned so many things by now, or at least that’s what I’m told when I don’t just shut up and take whatever I’m being served straight up my arse.

New convenience stores are popping up in Toronto that are completely self-serve, have no cashiers and are open 24 hours a day.
If you want to get inside to buy something, you’ll need to download an app to your smartphone.
“The store is completely unmanned and cashierless and in order to get into the store you need to have the mobile app,” John Douang, CEO and President of Aisle 24, told CTV News Toronto.

Douang said that once you download the mobile app and create an account, you can get inside. Shoppers can then pick out what they want to buy, go to the checkout station, scan their items and make their payment.

Aisle 24 currently operates eight self serve stores in Ontario and Quebec, but has another 30 planned to be opened soon and hopes to open as many as 200 across Canada within two years.

Douang said he believes other retailers will also adopt this format.
“This type of technology and innovation is going to be prevalent in many different businesses in the future,” he said.

Nice To See The Police Beating Themselves For Once

Not sure what sort of medical condition it is that causes one to slap the suspect around at the park in the middle of the day while one is on duty and has one’s uniform on, but apparently it exists.

A serving PCSO from the Met Police has admitted masturbating in a south London park.
Croydon Magistrates’ Court heard Kevin Phillips, 56, blamed the incident on stress and a medical condition.
Phillips was charged with outraging public decency after being caught committing the act while wearing his uniform in Dog Kennel Hill park in East Dulwich.
A member of the public filmed him, with the video viewed thousands of times after being shared online.
The court heard Phillips, who works in the Met’s Roads and Transport Policing Command, admitted the offence when questioned after the incident on Wednesday.

A sentencing hearing has yet to be scheduled. In the meantime, Phillips is free on bail and banned from being in a park or recreation area in England or Wales.

Is That A Truck?

I AM BLOCKING TRAFFIC WITH MY TRUCK TO SEND A MESSAGE: I HAVE A TRUCK
This was written during America’s dumb truck convoys, but if you take away the self-awareness at the end, it would fit perfectly into what happened in Ottawa a couple months ago. Just a bunch of goobers doin’ stuff at the behest of some really awful people. Some of ’em know it, some of ’em don’t. But they all have trucks. And hey, that’s something. Onward! Honkity honk honk government bad! Yay trucks!

I have decided to drive very slowly in my truck. I may even put my truck in park, right here in the middle of the road. I am going to cause a traffic jam with my truck. Why am I blocking traffic with my truck? I am blocking traffic with my truck to send a message, and that message is this: I have a truck.

I used to have some other messages—they all involved the government capitulating to my demands. But the government already mostly capitulated, without my ever having to make demands. So now I am sitting in standstill traffic that I am actively causing with my truck because I want to say one thing loud and clear: I have a truck.
I may be alone inside my truck, but I am not alone on the road I am blocking with my truck. Some of my friends and coworkers are doing the same thing with their own trucks. They are also driving slowly in their trucks, because they have a message too. We all have a message we are sending with our trucks, and our collective message is this: we all have trucks.
We have other collective messages we are sending with our trucks. But those messages vary in subject and scope, and many no longer apply to the current situation of our country. So we are focused on slowly driving our trucks to send the one message we all agree on: we each have a truck.

Watch Where You Put That Feather

https://twitter.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/1498819792869990402
I don’t watch the show, so someone more qualified is going to have to decide if this is the worst round of Wheel of Fortune ever played. Holy crap, though. The wheel really did not like those fellas, and that woman’s puzzle solving…what even was that? Hat? Fine. I’ll give her that one. Pretty sure I’ve even heard people say hat instead of cap when they use the expression. But after that she was totally lost…map or no map.

All Of The Sushi

I totally identify with this song. I never thought I would like sushi, but slowly I started to realize that yup, I sure do. But Steve is not a fan. So if I want it, I just have to order one of those wee boxes. Or sometimes I go out with friends who like it. But then poor Steve doesn’t go, because we go to sushi places. We need to pick sushi places that have other stuff so Steve can come too.

I’m the weirdest with sushi. I like going with other people who know more of what they’re doing than I do. And I don’t like wasabi. So maybe I’m a mediocre sushi fan. I just can’t do the wasabi thing right. Maybe it’s because of the first time I tried it. I had no idea what it was, got a big ol’ glob, and…yeeeeeesh! Now I just avoid the stuff.

I’m also having another old person moment because I don’t know the song this one is parodying. When I finally hear it, I’ll go “Ooo! A parody of the sushi song!” Um…nope. I do know it will be in my head and make me think about sushi way too much.

Our Old Ghost Friend Has Returned, And I Think It Might Be A Jays Fan

I’m a little rattled at the moment.

I’m not sure how many of you remember about eight years ago when Carin and I were convinced that there was a ghost in our house. Well, he…she…they…whatever it is went quiet after that and we didn’t think much more about it once it did.

Until today.

While puttering around the house this afternoon, I had the Giants and Nationals game on the MLB app. As it was getting close to ending, I looked at the clock and thought to myself “once this is over, maybe I should switch it to the Jays feed and see if I can catch a bit of the pregame.” Soon enough, the final out was recorded and the Giants had won. Then, before I even had time to reach for the phone, something happened. Jon Miller announced that the game was over. I started to walk across the room. Suddenly…silence.

“Damn internet,” I said under my breath.

But then, the opening strains of a familiar song began to play.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fae_GvmalxU

That was immediately followed by a commercial for Lotto 649.

“What!?” I said aloud. “They don’t have Canadian lotteries in California.”

I unlocked the phone and sure enough, I was suddenly on the feed for the Blue Jays broadcast.

I swear to you all, I didn’t touch anything. This happened all on its own.

At first, I tried to rationalize it by wondering if perhaps one of the recent app updates added a feature that would switch to your favourite team’s feed at the end of another game if it was active. But I was swiftly disabused of this notion when I remembered that I have four favourite teams selected in my settings.

So here I am, left with only one explanation.

Welcome back, helpful ghost pal. It’s good to see you…I think

Bernie, Bernie, Bernie The Computer Doctor…

I don’t know why this song appears in my head when I have to call these guys, but it does.

I’m realizing that we have lived in this town for nearly ten years, and have used the services of Bernie the Computer Doctor, and I have never given them a plug, and that’s a shame.

Every now and then, our computers get themselves in a situation that we can’t fix on our own. When I moved here, I was wondering who I would have to call on since Mr. Do A Good Turn wasn’t around and all the stores I would call were no longer local.

Luckily, Google led me to these guys and they’ve always been good to me. They’ll come get your computer and don’t charge you an arm and a leg for doing that, they’re quick, they’re good at what they do and they’re honest. One time, Steve thought his computer’s power supply was busted, and all it was was the UPS was misbehaving. But they didn’t try and take the computer away or do unnecessary things. They just did what they could to bring things back around, told us how to do it in the future and that was it.

Just recently, I had to call them in because my hard drive was starting to go and my computer was acting like a computer possessed. They managed to clone it, and I didn’t lose a thing! Woo! I always hope for an outcome like that, but I don’t always get it.

It was one of the guys from Bernie the Computer Doctor who revived Steve’s old computer, the one we affectionately nicknamed “The Asshole”. It was that same guy who Tansy reeeeally wanted to greet…the one she broke her tie-down to reach. Another one showed me how to open my old computer’s case and get the dust out. I admit that I’m not as good at that as I should be, but I appreciate his patience. Much appreciation to everybody there. I hope they don’t go anywhere anytime soon.

Apparently, their website has died, but they are still around, much to our relief. If you’re in KW and want to find them, look for Wilmot Technologies.

Nice Work, Father One Job

I personally find this hilarious, but I imagine there are several thousand Catholics out there who would vehemently disagree with my assessment.

A Catholic priest in Arizona has resigned after he was found to have performed baptisms incorrectly throughout his career, rendering the rite invalid for thousands of people.
The Catholic Diocese of Phoenix announced on its website that it determined after careful study that the Rev. Andres Arango had used the wrong wording in baptisms performed up until June 17, 2021. He had been off by a single word.
During baptisms in both English and Spanish, Arango used the phrase “we baptize you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” He should have said “I baptize,” the diocese explained.

“It is not the community that baptizes a person and incorporates them into the Church of Christ; rather, it is Christ, and Christ alone, who presides at all sacraments; therefore, it is Christ who baptizes,” it said. “If you were baptized using the wrong words, that means your baptism is invalid, and you are not baptized.”
Diocese spokesperson Katie Burke told NPR over email that Arango is believed to have used the incorrect word since the beginning of his priesthood in 1995.

And it gets worse, because if the church doesn’t consider you baptized, it also doesn’t consider you anything else in its eyes. Like married, for instance.

As far as the diocese is aware, all of the other sacraments that Arango conferred are valid. But because baptism is the “sacrament that grants access to all the others,” a botched baptism could invalidate any subsequent sacraments, including confirmation, marriage and holy orders.
“What this means for you is, if your baptism was invalid and you’ve received other sacraments, you may need to repeat some or all of those sacraments after you are validly baptized as well,” the diocese said.

The diocese said that while the situation may seem legalistic, the words, materials and actions are crucial aspects of every sacrament — and changing any of them makes them invalid.
“For example, if a priest uses milk instead of wine during the Consecration of the Eucharist, the sacrament is not valid,” it said. “The milk would not become the Blood of Jesus Christ.”

Imagine trying to explain any of this to someone from another planet. Hell, I’ve lived on this one for a decent while and I don’t get it.

I’m not going to begrudge anyone having faith in something. But organized religion like this is such a silly, pointless thing to get caught up in at the best of times, and it’s often hard for me to wrap my head around why anyone still does.

Listen To The Universe, Maybe

10 of History’s Most Amazing Survival Stories
I’m at least vaguely familiar with almost all of these thanks to history class and osmosis, but I don’t remember ever knowing that there was a nurse on the Titanic who wound up surviving three shipwrecks.

Ship’s nurse and stewardess Violet Jessop lived through a trifecta of major shipwrecks on the ocean liners Olympic, Titanic, and Britannic.
In 1911, while Jessop was working aboard the White Star liner RMS Olympic, the huge passenger ship collided with the HMS Hawke near the Isle of Wight. Although both ships sustained considerable damage, the Olympic made it back to port, and Jessop disembarked without injury. Two years later, she accepted a job on board White Star’s theoretically unsinkable RMS Titanic. She escaped the ship’s sinking on April 15, 1912, in Lifeboat 16.
Having survived that disaster, she served as a nurse on board the HMHS Britannic, operating in the Aegean Sea during World War I. In 1916, the ship ran into a mine planted by a German U-boat and began sinking; Jessop jumped overboard but was sucked under the ship’s keel as it went down. She sustained a skull fracture, but lived to tell about her multiple brushes with death at sea.

She’s a braver soul than I, that’s for sure. After shipwreck two I think I’d be considering a new line of work so as to avoid there being a shipwreck three.

The more time I spend thinking about this, the stronger the Mark Sokolov vibes get. Just me?

If you don’t know who that is, don’t feel bad. As best I know he isn’t particularly famous anywhere outside of my brain, which can’t forget him. To explain why, let’s go back to January, 2002.

Actually no. First, we need to go back a little further, to September 11th, 2001.

At the time of the attacks, Sokolov was on the 38th floor of the World Trade Center’s south tower. He escaped the building before it was hit.

Alright. Now we’re in 2002.

A Palestinian woman on Sunday became the first female to launch a bomb attack against Israel, killing herself and an 81-year-old Israeli man and wounding at least a dozen people on a busy Jerusalem street.
Israeli police said they were not sure if the woman intended to kill herself or if the bomb exploded prematurely as she walked along Jaffa Street, the main commercial strip in west Jerusalem.
In Lebanon, the Al-Manar television station run by the militant Hezbollah movement said the bomber was Shinaz Amuri, a female student at Al-Najah University in the West Bank town of Nablus.

Mark Sokolov, a U.S. citizen from Woodmere, N.Y., who survived the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, was slightly hurt in Sunday’s explosion along with his wife and two daughters.

“I heard a loud whoosh, like a bang, and I kind of saw things flying around a little bit, and then I realized I was able to get up and walk around,” Sokolov told Israeli television.

People are just wired different from me, man. This woman and her three ship disasters, and now Mark here is not only escaping the deadliest attack in American history, but a few months later he’s on a plane headed for a family trip to…Israel! Yes it’s one of those far away bias things and I’ve read that it’s much safer there than it seems on the surface, but Israel is almost always on the news here because something either has blown up or is about to. Probably not my first choice of travel destinations.

I’m a coward, I admit it. For me, living dangerously is leaving the door unlocked at night because my buddy lost his keys. That made for a good enough story, thank you very much. And I only had to do it once. I may not know much, but I know when the world is trying to tell me something.