Pooch Post

Oh boy, the things kids say because of Trixie. I had two of them today, so I figured they deserved a post.

I was walking back after Trixie did her noon business, and a kid was playing with a ball. He stopped and said, “Hi Trixie!” Without even thinking, I answered him and said it was a beautiful day. He then got all sad and said, “Uh, hi Carin.”

What was he thinking? Was he expecting that Trixie would look at him and spontaneously speak English? Was he disappointed when she didn’t? Was he feeling guilty for not saying hi to me too? Silly little guy.

Then, later, I was coming back with Trixie from more business. When I write these posts, it looks like all Trix does is poop and pee. Anyway, we ran into the elevator with a cluster of kids, one of whom was whining. I heard that he fell, so I thought the whining was just because he scraped his knee or something. then, he looked at me and said in the tiniest voice, “He has big, skehwy teef!” I reached down, and Trixie’s mouth was hanging open. She was panting. I realized her teeth probably did look big and scary. I told the little guy she was just hot, so she was puffing. All he said back was, “Big, skehwy teef!” That’s a first. Someone afraid of my little Trixter.

This year, the bugs seem to be worse than last year. Trix actually refuses to go in the bushes anymore because there is a super huge mosquito congregation in there. Smart pooch. I don’t like being chomped on either, so down to the grass by the road it is. She shakes her head a lot when we’re out and they’re bad, and I don’t remember her doing that last year. Poor beast.

That’s about it for today. This seems like a pretty small post. Oh well.

Something’s Rotten In Denmark

This whole thing makes me sad, and makes me feel like Denmark can’t win with Muslims at all.

A TV program in denmark decided to have a Miss Headscarf competition, and muslim women were encouraged to send in videos of themselves sporting the thing. The winner was Huda Falah, an Iraqi woman who moved to Denmark and wanted to bring the two cultures together. That sounds like a great goal. But oh no, that’s not the way it went over.

Good lord, these women entered of their own accord. And it’s not like a bunch of non-muslims put on head scarves and joined in. Then I’d be mad, not at the TV station, but at the idiots who loused up the contest. But this was a bunch of people trying to alleviate the alienation of muslims in Denmark. Now, there’s an uproar from their own side.

Plus, I think it’s sad that Al Qa’eda went and bombed the Danish embassy in Islamabad last month as an act of revenge for the cartoons published years ago. I guess it’s too much to expect terrorists to see that doing that only proves the point that the cartoonist was driving at. It sure doesn’t help anyone.

What a messs, and I can only feel sorry for Denmark.

How Is This Possible?

Exactly how dumb is Evan Ramsey? He claims that he didn’t know, at age 16, that when you shoot someone, they die. I guess he thought videogames were accurate representations of life. So when he opened fire on his Alaska schoolmates and one of them and the principal ceased to move an dlook alive, he was shocked and horrified. Oh boy. Do you believe this guy? I sure have a hard time. He had said he was angry with people and wanted to shoot them. So…if shooting them wasn’t supposed to kill them, what was it supposed to do?

I try to understand, within reason, when someone says they didn’t know better. But at about four years of age, I knew that shooting a gun at something could kill it. I remember when I was about five, and being scared when I went to my sister’s track meet because they fire a starter’s pistol. I asked what was getting shot, and why? Mom had to explain to me that that gun didn’t have any bullets. So I have a hard time believing that he didn’t have a clue. He mustn’t have seemed naive to the jury either, because they gave him 210 years. Holy crap. Well I guess that’s a lot of time to get a clue.

Our Father, Who Belongeth Not In Government

I was really disappointed to hear about the decision by Dalton McGuinty and the Liberals to
keep the Lord’s Prayer around as part of the day in the Ontario legislature.

But if that part disappointed me, what I read next downright made me want to flip my fucking lid.

Not only are they keeping the prayer, but there will also be time set aside for recognition of other faiths.

This is a horrible, horrible idea. Not only did the province miss out on a great opportunity to separate church and state, but now it’s opened itself up to the whining and lobbying (yes I’m aware those 2 things are essentially the same) of every fringe religion that gets left out. Knowing the way that religious groups and governments work, I won’t be at all surprised when the day comes that sees our elected officials spending more time haggling over who’s cool enough to pray for and less time actually tending to the business of running the place.

What should have happened is this. the prayer, gone. Simple as that. No question, no debate, no nothing. Just scrap it. It’s a leftover from a different era, and while I’m all for preserving history, sometimes there’s just no good reason for keeping something around. In its place would go a moment of silence that every person in the house could use to reflect as he or she saw fit. If they want to say the Lord’s Prayer quietly to themselves, fine. If they’d rather think about veterans and the people still serving in the military, that sounds good. If somebody wants to pray to a golden cheesecake that lives in a glass case in the basement of a planetarium, that person can be my guest. If the thing to do is text your wife to tell her to pick up milk on her way home from the office, go nuts. Do whatever you want, just be quiet about it. That way everybody’s included and nobody has to complain. They will anyway, but there won’t be any basis for it. And the more baseless the complaining, the quicker we as a society can put this behind us and move on with our lives.

The Town Of What?

I’m surprised this town didn’t make it into the towns mentioned in Steve’s worst town names post. I was looking at the Greyhound site, and stumbled on something that made me do a double take. Among the places in Ontario that the big grey dog stops is a town called Swastika!

Noooo!

Yup!

Still don’t believe me? Have a good, long, hard look at this map then!

Most Ontarians probably would never hear of it. It’s way up north by Kirkland Lake, and was founded around a gold mine, the Swastika gold mine to be exact, which was staked in 1907. Apparently, it is inhabited by some pretty stubborn folk. In World War II, the government tried to rename the town Winston, but the townsfolk would have none of it, insisting they named their town Swastika long before the nazis took over the name and symbol. They even ripped down provincial signs with the new name on them and put the old town signs back up. To this day, it’s still Swastika.

Wow, there’s a town you don’t want to mess with! They even made the government shut up and go away. From time to time, they get Jewish folk writing screaming letters to them. But they just explain they’re not a flock of nazis and don’t even think of changing their name. In an era of political correctness, this is refreshing to see.

Guide Blogs For The Blind

Har har. Aren’t I funny? Probably not. Oh well.

First, GDB went and got a podcast. Now, they have a blog! It’s called “no bones about it”, oh har har har har, and I think it will end up being pretty cool. I had to kind of get mad at them about the first post because they put in cartoon animations and then didn’t describe them very well, at least I don’t think so, but the next post was pretty cool. So, hopefully this reaches some more people. Go GDB!

Deadly Training

This seems tragic and completely unnecessary. Ian Terry was a police officer, and he was shot to death. Was it while he was on duty? Nope. He was shot by a colleague during a training exercise. Yup. He was pretending to run from a fake crime scene, and they had to stop him. Well, they sure did.

Why in christ would you use live ammo in a training exercise? They said at one point they were using special bullets that were supposed to stop cars. Why not use something like paint balls and just aim for the spots where you would fire the special ammo? Maybe I’m missing something, but this just seems horribly unnecessary. Who knew you would die at a training exercise.

The War On Laughter?

Since when has it become unacceptable to laugh? First we have Chris Cocker, who laughed so hard at a television comedy that he fell off his sofa and disturbed neighbours who called police. Then, because for some reason the police officer wouldn’t leave, Cocker got charged with resisting arrest, got sprayed, and got halled into the cells. That’s on the same ridiculous level as Dawn Herb, the chick who got arrested and halled into court for swearing at her toilet.

And another non-laughing matter is that of Darra Kollios. She was working in a restaurant/bar, talking to a customer, and started laughing. Apparently the laughing was too much for the owner, and he fired her.

Just listen to her laugh. It’s more like a giggle.

Man, I thought laughter was the best medicine. Who knew people would wage war on it as if it were an illegal drug.

Joe Knows Baseball

My good buddy Marty (who has much better taste in baseball teams than
Greg Twilly
does) clued me in to a funny note about the guy who caught Ken Griffey Jr.’s 600th home run ball.

It seems the man, identified only as Joe, did some thinking ahead just in case he happened to be the person lucky enough to catch it. He had another baseball with him, and once the homer was hit, he dropped that ball underneath the seats in right field and pointed to it as the one just hit out of the park. This caused the scrum you would expect, allowing Joe to stash the real one and make for the exit. Fine man that Joe. I wish I was half that smart.

the full story is
here,
including a debate about what should be done with it. For the record I’m with Marty, give the thing back to Griffey. Just because there’s money to be made doesn’t mean it *has* to be made. He’s only ever going to hit one 600th home run, and he should have first dibs on it if he wants it.

Dear Greg Twilly, My Bestist Friend Ever

This one’s for you buddy. I figured since you were nice enough to hijack the comments under this post in a pathetic attempt to make yourself feel better about your shitty favourite baseball team, the least I could do was give you a little something in return.
Mariners Fire Whiffing Coach

Fuck you very much, and have a fantastic day.