Of all the sites on the internet, this is one.
I guess Ronald D. Wittenberg will never know because he was trying to scratch it off while walking down train tracks and…scratch scratch scratch…he never heard the horn blowing…scratch scratch scratch…from the train…scratch scratch scratch…as it blew for 45 seconds straight…scratch scratch scratch…as it came up from behind him…scratch scratch scratch…and got him!
They never mention whether the ticket was a winner. All we know is he doesn’t get to play again.
Here’s a quick note to girls everywhere. Don’t date Lance R. Stelzer. If you do, and then things go bad, he may sue you. If that’s not bad enough, in the discovery phase, he may ask for things like:
Is that even legal? I hope to hell not. It sucks that she left him when he was sick, but this guy sounds like a huge stalker!
So, the moral of the story of William Topaz McGonagall is even if you suck heartily, and people throw rotten fruit at you as you recite your horrid poetry, keep going in your suckalicious fashion, because when you die, people will love you for your complete lack of self-doubt in the face of tons of proof of your sucktitude. We’re an odd bunch, us humans, aren’t we? Now that he’s dead, everyone’s fighting over where he’s from, and they have memorials to him.
I have no more words, but I can’t stop chuckling.
Since we’re heading out for some May long weekend food and drinks, I got thinking about two food commercials I’ve heard recently that make me want to hurl!
The first was Subway raving about their new pizzas. Mmm! Pizza! They tell you it’s topped right in front of me! Mmm! With whatever I want. Mmm! And ready in 90 seconds! Blech!
How can they say eat fresh after that? Maybe I misunderstand something, but that sounds like a nuked pizza to me. Has anyone tried one? Are they good? I’m curious.
The second commercial was for a Tim Hortons Brownie Ice-Cap supreme. I would think mmm, except I know how much the other Ice-Cap supremes already tend to have stuff settling to the bottom. Now imagine brown chunks settling to the bottom of your drink. Mmm. Slurp it up, baby. Then part of me wants to try one, insisting that it’s brownies after all, at which time another part of me slaps that part and calls it a fool. Oh boy, do I have multiple personalities?
Ok, I’ve got to stop thinking about bad food so I can eat some good stuff! Hope everyone’s having a good weekend, even though the weather took a crap.
Well, It’s the May long weekend again, and you know what that means, don’t you? Fireworks. And do you know what that translates to in Trixie-land? Puffpantpuffshivershivershakepuffpuffpuff. Last year, I noticed it, but some people told me once she was more bonded to me, she would feel less afraid. Well, nope. It’s weird. People started firing them off on Thursday night while we were out playing, and she didn’t seem super uber weirded out by them. She would walk away from the bangs, but not in an overly insane fashion. As a test, I harnessed her up and got her to walk me home. She did, even thinking enough to walk along the fense until we got to an opening, and then walking down the sidewalk instead of madly cutting across the grass to the building, which she tried to do last year. I thought woohoo! I think she’s better!
Then the next night when a few went off, she was a basketcase! She glued herself to Steve. I don’t get why she chose Steve. That’s just weird. Her ability to listen to me went straight to hell. She would barely do obedience no matter how many times I did it. She didn’t even care about her Wubba! What the? It’s her wubba! Eventually, I tied her down, and again, that was the only thing that worked.
So, tomorrow, I’m going on a walk to the health food store to pick up something called Rescue Remedy. It’s supposed to help people with anxiety and panic attacks and dogs with high anxiety or, ta da, fear of loud noises. Has anyone tried it with their dog? I’ve heard lots of good stuff, so I hope it works!
Now, Here are a couple things I’m confused about. It says there’s a Rescue Remedy and Rescue Remedy Pet version. It seems the only difference is the Pet version is alcohol-free. If there’s anyone out there who’s reading this and using it, is the pet version just as easy to find as the human version? And they say it can actually eliminate their fear of loud noises. How? They say in some cases, you should give it daily. But I don’t think my situation is one of those that call for that. I think I would just give it when there’s fireworks or thunder. Am I right?
Well, I’ll post how this whole thing goes. I’m sure tomorrow night, and the night after, I will have many an opportunity to try out Rescue Remedy! Wish me luck! I need to find a solution, because nothing I’ve tried works. Not music, not obedience, not distraction with toys, not even treats, not leaving her alone. The only thing that does is putting her on tie-down, but we can’t very well do that if we encounter a thunder storm or some goof setting off fireworks while we’re out somewhere. Bang! There goes another one! She’s tied down, but if she wasn’t, the panting would begin immediately.
Holy crap. It just hit me. Remember when I talked about Trixie’s raiser’s next puppy going into training? Well, today, she graduates! Yup, Marlene, Trixie’s raiser, can say she created another fine dog. You go, Betts, I hope you’re just as awesome as Trixie. You probably are, since you got a fine start. Hopefully the person who gets Betts will be far more articulate than I was on graduation day. I remember the staff talking about graduation and saying that we don’t have to make a speech, but you can if you want to. I was so tired I couldn’t think to prepare a speech. I thought the right words would come when the time came. Well, no, they didn’t. I’m sure I looked like a deer caught in headlights. I stammered, bit back tears, and tried to leave the stage too soon. Yeah, that looks good. I still can’t bear to watch myself on the DVD they sent home of the graduation.
I wish I could find Betts’s handler. It would be cool to have something in common. But then I think I am idealizing things, and if I did meet her, she might drive me insane. I just hope she keeps in touch with Marlene. She deserves as much. Go Betts! You rock!
If you want to see the full version of the Bill O’Reilly freakout video that was shown in
my last post,
here ya go.
I should have posted this the other day, but for some reason (probably laziness) I didn’t get around to it.
If you’ve known me for any length of time or been following the blog for a while, you know that I love it when broadcasters flip out. And since I know some of you like this sort of thing too (how could you not?),
here’s a cool video montage of some pretty good ones.
It’s a nice mix of classics and new stuff, including Bill O’Reilly’s recent one and the Sue Simmons clip that Letterman has been playing the hell out of this week. And one of these should be familiar to longtime readers, see if you can pick out which one.
Note for JAWS users: To get the video to play, press the 0 button in the Flash movie.
>I’ve been meaning to write this thought pile down for a while, but for some reason, I just couldn’t get started. Even now, it isn’t flowing like it usually does. Oh well, hopefully it will pick up before it’s done.
I can’t believe I’m halfway through that French class I joined. Things are going very well. I really like my classmates. They’re a lot of fun. I’m hoping that we can exchange info and meet up afterwards to informally keep our French alive. I don’t want to keep paying for courses if we can just go to the park and have a chat or something.
The teacher is really cool. She says she’s happy that I’m in her class. She’s so thrilled with me that she told her night class about me! One of the students recognized me when I walked into the store where she works. It’s weird to be standing in line and then the cashier says, “Are you taking a French class?” Uh, yeah.
The teacher even says she’s happy that I didn’t let her know in advance because that would have given her time to get herself all worked into a frazzle. How often do you get thanked for not warning someone about something? She’s a cool lady. I’m glad I could show her that having a blind student isn’t the end of the world.
Remember back when I mentioned getting Pacman Talks? Well, my scores have gotten a hell of a lot better, and I’ve been able to turn off training mode! Someone halfway good at this game could still probably clean my clock, but at least the scores are respectable, and I have to actually do some work to get into my own top 10. God I’m so addicted to that game it’s not funny.
Sometimes, when I’m not playing it, I’ll imagine certain things as ghosts. I was eating a sandwich, and the jam was trying to leak out the bottom, and instead of my brain thinking that I should make sure I don’t spill jam on myself, in my head I heard the sound in the game that means a ghost is coming. Oh dear. I’m a sad case.
What is it with me thinking about old technology a lot lately? In any case, Steve and I got talking, and he was trying to tell me about an even older piece of software than I ever laid eyes on. It was called Braille Edit. Let’s go back a bit. Back in the 80’s, I used an Apple IIe with a program on it called Bex to do all my school stuff. The way it was set up was kind of like HTML code junior, in the sense that you had to write out codes in your text if you wanted certain formatting. But BEX could also do braille and interface with all manner of blinky portable technologies. I loved watching it make the Versabraille display dance when you sent text to it. I loved it at the time, but anyone who even used WP51 would cringe at the site of this.
Scarily enough, there was an even older version of this program. You see, BEX stands for Braille Edit Express. Before BEX, there was just Braille Edit, and apparently it was a very clunky piece of software to use. I tried to google it to get an idea of what it was like, but I’m finding it’s slowly disappearing from even the internet. Does anyone remember using this archaic piece of software? What was it like? I can’t imagine something clunkier than BEX.
Steve also mentioned the weirdest braille printer ever. He can’t remember what it was called, but apparently, you had to roll paper into it sheet by sheet, and it had a braille keyboard attached to it and something that resembled the carriage that you pull across on a brailler, only this carriage moved on its own. You apparently had to push a whole bunch of key combinations to get it to go, and at the end of each sheet, you had to hurry up and put the next sheet in or the whole process would time out and you had to start over. No no no, we didn’t know how to resume print jobs in those days. You had to be thankful that you could print at all! So what is this museum exhibit called? Does anybody know? I’m deadly curious.
On the newer technology front, my Book Port problem is fixed! They upgraded the transfer software, and now the daisy book works! Yea! Woo! I love my Book Port!
My pedometer arrived! Now, I feel like the biggest idiot on the planet. Why? I can set the time, I can set my stride length. I just can’t figure out how to get it to count steps! That’s kinda its most important function. Wow! I am a huge moron! In case anyone can help out a toolchest like me, here’s the one I bought. Ah hell, here’s a picture too. 
When I read the story about the fake drug enforcement agent, something jumped out at me, besides the ridiculousness of the story itself. The town had a dogcatcher! This made me think about being a kid, and how many kids’ stories had dogcatchers in them. These were usually evil men who you didn’t want catching your dog. What’s up with that? Did dogcatchers used to be evil people who you had to pay off to get your dog back? Did they steal dogs? What’s the history of the dogcatcher?
I experienced a new twist on people wanting to give themselves a big pat on the back for helping me out, only this pat on the back makes me look like an even bigger fool than I already feel. I was downtown, and for some reason, I always have trouble getting back across the street from this one store. Once again I tried, and once again I failed, and ended up right next to a tree in a parking lot. Feeling pretty stupid, I hoped someone came along. Someone did, and asked me where I was trying to go. I told her, and she helped me. That’s great. She decided to walk me all the way to my destination. She didn’t have to do that, but I didn’t mind. But when we got to the destination, she really didn’t have to do what she did next. I walked in and walked up to the counter, at which point she said in a loud voice, “Excuse me, can someone help this lady? She got lost on her way here, so I brought her here.”
Um, was that necessary? Did she have to announce to the world that I got a little screwed up? People already think we can’t do anything without help, thanks for perhaps furthering that assumption for anyone in that store. People probably think I’m overreacting, but let me put it this way. If you gave someone directions, would you then yell at everyone around you, “Aren’t I great? I just helped her find the mall!” No, you wouldn’t! You’d just help the person out and go on your way.
I don’t know why some people have to make a big production out of helping someone. Can’t the act of helping be enough? Can’t they realize that the person they’re helping would like to preserve some of their dignity?
And that’s about it for now. Wasn’t that the most random pile of uncoordinated thoughts? Oh well, that’s nothing new I guess.
This
makes me angry almost beyond words.
The Ontario government has announced that it will resume covering sex-change operations under it’s health insurance plan in the near future. This is the same health insurance plan that does not cover things such as eye exams, not to mention the same health insurance plan that had my family wondering how much of my dad’s care would be covered when he had his stroke a couple of years ago and hoping that we could sort out what kind of coverage he had through private insurance so that his hospital stay wouldn’t cause financial problems for him if/when he got out.
The article I linked above doesn’t nearly do this story justice, at least not compared to the report on my local TV news the other night. In that story, supporters of the change were crowing about how these kinds of surgeries should be covered on human rights grounds and that they’re a quality of life issue, oh, and we can’t forget a matter of life and death because a few people offed themselves because they felt they had been living in the wrong body.
I have no problem with somebody wanting to become a new person, and though my words might indicate otherwise, I don’t have that much of a problem with the government helping them out. What I do take issue with is all of this human rights and quality of life business. It’s a violation of somebody’s rights that the government won’t foot the bill for a cock snip, but delisting exams that could allow a person to continue to live his current life with the eyesight he already has is perfectly fine? To quote somebody who’s name escapes me at the moment, “horsepebbles!”
If the government wants to spend my money on this they can go ahead, but they’d better be prepared for all of the whining from everybody else who wants elective surgery, and for the justified complaining from people who can’t get funding for medical care that truly falls under the category of life-saving.