Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz, Oh, What Intense Pain It Is

Hey there Chrystal Kolinski! Explain something to me. Please explain this, because I cannot wrap my head around it. If you met a random man in an adult video store, and you became friends with him, and he kept asking you to drink some random fluid and capture you on film doing it, wouldn’t you ask more questions? Questions like “What’s in this shot?” or “Can I see the videos of the other people who drank it?” spring to mind for me. If you thought of it as a “hitch” and you eventually did it to “shut him up,” didn’t you know it was wrong? Do you not obey your gut instinct? Well you should have, because now you have no gut. Yes, that was mean. Mean, but accurate.

Ya wanna know what she drank? It was caustic fluid. Ya know, sodium hydroxide! Still mystified? How about drain cleaner! That clear things up for ya?

I don’t know why I read this story and feel this bubbling, boiling anger that this even happened. Hmmm….interesting that I chose the words bubbling and boiling, because her digestive tract probably did a lot of that that fateful morning.

The Secret To Our Success

Well, I think Mushers’ Secret is already a success! We went on our first walk with it, and it worked like a dream! Trixie was steady, confident, fast but safe, and she went through salt and barely yeeeped! I think it was a yip in anticipation of pain, because after I wiped her paw, she walked through the same patch and not a peep out of her. I think this stuff is what I’ve been looking for. Go Mushers’ secret!

I Offset, Therefore I’m not

I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about the concept of carbon offsetting. In case you’re not familiar with what that is, it’s basically a system that allows businesses and individuals to contribute financially to environmental projects such as forestation and renewable energy initiatives to compensate for things they’ve done that are considered detrimental to the planet. Essentially you do a bad thing, then help out with a good thing and the bad thing is cancelled out, hence the term offsetting. People seem to be all over this idea, treating it like the greatest thing since sliced bread. By the way, what was sliced bread the greatest thing since? Unsliced bread? Sliced meat? Fire? An answer would be nice.

But back to the matter at hand, I don’t understand how this offset credit deal is supposed to work. Where else in life does this logic apply? If you kill a guy but save somebody else’s life on the way to your murder trial, are you free to go? No, you’re not. If you rape somebody but also volunteer at a centre for abused women, does the rape not count? Yes, it does. So how is it then that spewing hundreds of tonnes of chemicals into the air on a daily basis can be undone by forking over a few bucks to a guy with a truck full of seedlings and windmills? That’s right, it can’t.

I wish people would do a little bit of critical thinking before buying into such a fundamentally flawed idea, but I suppose that would be a lot more difficult than throwing money at a problem to create the illusion of doing something while not having to put effort into making real and lasting changes.

More Things And More Stuff

Wow. Two random thought posts in one week? That doesn’t happen very often. Off we go.

Last night, we were doing the old flip around the music channels thing again, aren’t we predictable? This time, what grabbed our attention was an English kids’ song. It sounded like that song “The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round”, with some improvised changes. Ok, fine. But the ending killed me. It seriously said “the bus on the bus goes bus bus bus.” What? What does that even mean? I know kids’ songs have some jibber in them, but that’s just ridiculous. And then we wonder why kids are getting dumber. Nothing designed for them has any messages anymore. It’s just meant to keep them busy and out of the way.

I know no one except people who live in the Guelph area will get this, but oh well. Does anyone else think that the radio commercial for Barry Cullen silverado is saying “great fuckin’ name”? I know it’s great truckin’ name, but I always think the other. Maybe I’m just demented. Yup, probably that’s it. But I’ve managed to spread my dementedness to friends, and they want to sing it my way too.

I had two dreams I wanted to write up here because they’re just weird. One dream I had months ago. I dreamed I was having trouble with Trixie, and I called Chuck, the field rep. After explaining all my difficulties, he said in his calm, teaching voice that he has, “Well, there’s only one thing to do. You have to turn Trixie in at the police station. We’ll come pick her up there.” I cried, and cried, and cried, but that’s what he said I had to do. So, off to the station I went. When I got there, and tried to turn her in, I couldn’t let her go. I cried some more. It was like an unending stream of tears. I finally handed her over, but through some kind of slight of hand, I got her back, and walked out of the station with her! Once I realized I’d gotten away, I just ran faster, hoping they’d never figure it out. They never did. Weird dream.

The other dream I had just happened a couple of nights ago. I dreamed that I ran into a rabid dog. But it was the weirdest rabid dog ever. It just stood there growling and foaming. It didn’t lunge, bite, or anything. It just stood there as if it was frozen. I had time to run and get someone, tell them to get a gun,and come back, and there it stood, gurring and foaming still. That was just strange. It must have been because of my post about the rabid puppies.

I’ve bitched about my computer so many times on here that I can’t think of one particular post to link to. I just know that ever since this computer was brought to me in November of 2004, it has sucked. Even with a windows reinstall and the addition of a decent sound card, it has continued to suck. You know it’s a screwed up computer when a good tech stares at it and says, “Uh, any ideas on how this thing opens?” Now, hopefully, its woes are over! Why? I have more ram for it!

You wouldn’t believe how much of a difference some more ram can make. Now, when I leave it alone and come back, it just pops back into action. There’s no five-second drag and another few seconds when I change windows. Yea! It might make its final year and a half without hobbling!

My Mushers’ secret arrived my Mushers’ Secret arrived my Mushers’ Secret arrived! Can you tell I’m happy? So far, it’s already seeming like more of a success. When I put it on her, she doesn’t try to run away from me in disgust. She just lays there and lets me rub it in. Plus, her paws already feel softer. Hopefully this does the trick! I’m running out of options, so this had better do it!

I noticed something weird at the bottom of a spam. I forget why I read a whole spam the other day, but I did. At the bottom, it said that Norton had scanned this email and all attachments, and no infection was found. Well, that’s what it tried to say, but it spelled things wrong. Apparently Norton folks can’t spell, and were completely fine with saying that “noinfection was found.” Or, maybe the spammer was writing a fake virus-free certification. Yeah, I’ll go with that one. This is why those stupid “no viruses found in this outgoing email” things are useless. Everybody, get your own antivirus solution and don’t trust other people’s.

And that’s about it. Hopefully you enjoyed my random pile of thoughts.

Send This On To Ten People…And Regret It!

This is beautiful in a Craig Shergold sort of way, only better.

Apparently, about 3 years ago, an email started circulating about a poor little boy with a tumour encroaching on his juggler, hahahahaha you mean jugular? Nope, it says juggler vein. The email asked people to pray for him, send the message on, and when it got 1000 names, send it back to an address so they could show the boy how many people cared for him.

Well, in its travels around the net, it landed in the inbox of one Peggy Lesley. Peggy decided to send it on, but as she did, she left her signature at the end. since the original email was pretty light on details while it talked about juggler veins, people assumed that Peggie Lesley must be the original sender. And this is where it gets fun.

“I wish I would not have sent that e-mail,” Peggy Lesley said. “I can’t take it back now. It’s everywhere.”

“People are e-mailing me. They’re asking me questions about this child,” she said. “I had some woman call me who said, ‘I had a brain tumor and this is how I got rid of it.'”

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! I wish that happened to more people who send out chain emails. If it did, it would cut back on the bull that circulates on the internet. People would be more likely to do their research and determine whether a given email asking for help is a cause that has a root in truth, is a hoax, is something that was true years ago but no longer is, or what before slamming forward, shoving their whole addressbook in there with no regard for privacy of the recipients or authenticity of the story, and hitting send. “Hell, what could it hurt?” they think. Ask Peggy Lesley what it can hurt.

I wonder if she’s still fielding calls and emails. I guess she is, since the Snopes story was last updated February 13. It does illustrate one thing. Forwards get around easily. It’s just sad that whenever that ability manifests itself in a powerful effect, it’s usually a negative one.

Things And Stuff

I have some random thoughts I’ve been meaning to write down. So here they are, in no particular order.

The other day, that old song “Knock Three Times” came on. You know the one, “Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me, twice on the pipe if the answer is no.” this made me think some strange thoughts. You wouldn’t want to do that in a building with rusty, clicky pipes. Otherwise, you might here click click, and think the guy was blowing you off when it was just clicky pipes. Then he’d knock three times and you’d be so confused. Is it yes? No? Should I meet him in the hallway? I don’t know! I heard three knocks and two clicks. Yeah, I’m a loser with a twisted mind.

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day, and I had a pretty good one. Steve and I went out for dinner at Eastside Mario’s, mmm…Eastside Mario’s, and Steve gave me the Pacman Talks game. It’s Pacman for blinks! I’ve wanted this game for a while, but the Canadian price looked like a ripoff, so I wasn’t getting it. But because Steve is king at finding another way, he found a way to pay through PayPal for the right price. So I now own Pacman Talks, and I’ve discovered I’m a big loser! Ok, there’s a training mode where the ghosts stay stationary. Yeah, they don’t move. Even so, I still have managed to lose all my lives! Yeah, I suck. But I’m getting better, and have managed to pass one level so far. Woo Give me a gold star! I’m addicted, and have already played the thing more than 10 times, because I’m all over my high score standings that only have 10 spots. They’re totaly lame scores, and anyone halfway good at this game could clean my clock. But there they are.

I noticed something the other day that persuades me that languages are weird. We were flipping around the digital music channels that come with our cable, and landed on the French kids’ music channel. Because sometimes that can be kind of entertaining, we stayed there for a minute. This pretty little song came on, and we started listening to it. The chorus said something about “J’suis avec Maman, j’suis avec papa, avec la tortue, le poisson rouge et puis le chat.” Translation: I’m with mom, I’m with dad, with the goldfish, the turtle and the cat. Notice anything, anyone? A goldfish, when translated into French, becomes a red fish. Why? Anybody know?

And here’s another anybody know question. What happens if it’s a leap year and a baby is born on February 29? Is that the baby’s birthday? Or do they change it for the dday before or after? What do they do, since that day only shows up once every four years.

Since Trixie got to talk about how she was doing the other day, I figure I should give you guys a quick update from my perspective. Now that we’ve stopped putting boots on the poor beast and started putting on wax, she’s better, although the wax isn’t standing up to the crazy salt that is put down. Let’s list off all the things I have tried for her feet so far.

  • a set of boots with the brand name Fashion Pet. Yeah, because that sounds like they’ll work. They didn’t. They would fall off at the drop of a hat.

  • Muttluks. They fit a lot better, but they’d still fall off, and Trixie found an art to removing them. She wasn’t happy when I then attached some straps to her back like those mitten straps for kids so that if the boots fell off, they were still attached. They were a bitch to put back on on the move, especially on cold days! My fingers would go numb, and numb fingers don’t put boots on well. Gloved fingers don’t work either.

  • A set of boots called Barkn boots. I haven’t even left the house with them because Trixie won’t heel properly in them, and jumps around in the hopes of shedding them, which happens.

  • A product you spread on the pads of the paws called Pawsitive Therapy. It seems to keep the pads soft, but it does not act as a proper shield against the salt, as promised, and that’s what I need.

  • A product called Biobalm that the vet wanted me to test. It does better than Pawsitive Therapy, but it’s not durable enough. She guides a hell of a lot better with this stuff on, but it fades mid walk, and I don’t think reapplying it on the move is a good idea, since it doesn’t get a chance to dry before hitting wet snow that would probably just wash it right off.

I’ve ordered something called Mushers’ Secret. That’s supposed to be the holy grail of foot protection! Let’s hope it is! The yeeeping needs to be prevented. It breaks my heart. I’ve also been given a lead on booties for injured paws that are supposed to be unshakable. Expensive, but unshakable. So, one way or another, Trixie won’t suffer anymore.

Yeah, I mentioned that she’s doing a lot better. I’m amazed at the difference comfortable feet are making. For a while, I was actually afraid to go out alone with her because she was so wacky. With the boots on, she would just stop walking at random. I couldn’t be sure if she was stopping to show me something, or just stopping. My confidence took a pounding, and it made it hard to do anything, because getting there was such an epic struggle! People would comment about how badly she was guiding. I hadn’t heard that…ever! Even in the “new dog” days, that was all it was, wondering if she was new. But this was so bad that people were saying it didn’t look like she was guiding me properly. I called my field rep from the school, and he told me I wasn’t the first one who had troubles like this, which made me feel a lot better. He sent me more boots, which weren’t the ticket. But he told me one way or another, we would get through this.

Now, with this wax, even though it fades half way, I feel safe with her. She’s gotten a few corrections for trying to walk way too fast to be safe, and she seems to have realized that the same rules apply even when the ground is covered with white and there are mounds of snow everywhere. I come home happy after walking somewhere, which I didn’t do with the boots on her. Now I just need the protection to be longer-lasting. Come on Mushers’, get here now!

I’ve noticed something else weird she does. When we’re out relieving, if she sees another dog she’d like to play with, she makes the weirdest noise. It’s barely audible. It’s this low, short grunting sound. When I first heard it, I froze in terror. I thought some other wild animal had found its way into the spot where Trixie goes pee, and we were about to meet it up close and personal. I put my hand down, and then felt Trixie’s throat vibrate when I heard the grunt! It was her! Steve hasn’t even heard it. The closest description I can give is the noise chickens make when they’re thinking about breaking into a full buckbuckbuckbuckbuckock, but havent’ yet.

And that’s about it. What a pile of randomness. Hope it was fun.