Get On The Right Bus, Gus, Make A Route Plan, Stan

Second update: I think I fixed all my gaps, errors and booboos. Am working on figuring out where the community bus fits into this mish mash o goodness. Also. Guelph Transit said they'll be putting up a text version of the bus layout in the square and UC soon. When I see it lives, you know I'll be linking to it.

Update: I've noticed some significant gaps in the info about all these new bus routes. I'm working on filling them. But in the meantime, sorry. As soon as I know the answers, I'll post them.

Steve talked about Guelph Transit's crappy time to change the bus routes. Well, I went down to Old Quebec Street Mall to get a few things straight in my head to hopefully lessen the initial grief of dealing with this whole bus system being turned on its head mid winter thing. I got some really awesome info out of one of the employees down there, so figured I'd pass it on. Probably the sightlings won't care much about this, but I'm hoping it might help a few blind folks. And sadly nobody outside of Guelph will give a flying crap about this. Oh well, I don't care. Ready to get confused? Ok, let's go!

I'm going to go around the square and name off the buses that will be at each intersection. I'll also name the old buses that used to park on that corner so you know what side I'm talking about.

Layout of New Buses In The Square

Corner of Square	Buses From Old System	Buses from New System
RBC corner	54, 10, 3 (I think)	4 York, 14 Grange, 21 Hanlon Industrial
If Shoes	9, 6 (I think), 51	9 West End Community Centre, 8 Stone Road Mall
BMO corner	22, 23, 24	3A East Loop Clockwise, 10 Imperial, 11 Willow West
around the corner, same side of the street, now on Wyndham Street	52, 4	2A West Loop Clockwise, 3B East Loop Counterclockwise
Scotia Bank corner	61	20 Northwest Industrial
CIBC corner	1, 7, 8	2B West Loop Counterclockwise, 12 General Hospital, 13 Victoria Road Recreation Centre

Confused yet? I sure was. Now, here's a big warning. the new no. 9 is not the old no. 9. the old no. 9 was 9 Stone Road Mall. Now the new 9 is the 9 West End Community Centre. So, do not think that a number means you're getting on the same route...unless you're getting on the 4 York that is. I can't remember all the names of the new routes, but I was able to jot down the numbers. There are some that I remember, such as no. 8 goes to Stone Road Mall, no. 9 is West end and no. 12 is the Guelph General, but the rest you'll have to get from either the website or calling Guelph Transit. Put 822-1811 in your speed dial. Learn it, love it, know it, dial it!

Now, to make things extra interesting, the new routes have two places that are considered transfer hubs: the usual square, and the University Centre loop. So some buses just don't bother going downtown. Also, because Guelph is extra fun, as you know, when a route ends, the bus that did that route doesn't just start doing it again. It becomes another bus route. So the lady who I spoke to helpfully gave me what all the buses turn into. If you're seeing route numbers I didn't mention before, that's because they're those groovy buses that consider the UC to be their main transfer point. Oh ain't this a bag of fun? Alrighty, let's go. Note: I'll only name the buses I haven't previously named.

All the bus routes, and What They Turn Into at route's End

is	becomes
4	11
11	4
12	8
8	12
9	13
13	9
10	14
14	10
1A College Edinburgh Clockwise	2A
2A	1A College Edinburgh Clockwise
1B College Edinburgh Counterclockwise	6 Harvard Ironwood
6 Harvard Ironwood	3B
3B	1B College Edinburgh Counterclockwise
5 South Gordon	3A
3A	5 South Gordon
7 Kortright Downey	2B
2B	7 Kortright Downey
20	20
21	21

Now, everybody, get up, shake your head wildly in an attempt to prevent your brain from short circuiting. Aaa, doesn't that feel better?

Some routes to popular destinations: As I said, 8 will take you to Stone Road Mall, 9 will take you to West End Community Centre, 12 will take you to Guelph General. Also, 3A will take you into St. Joe's and 3B will take you from St. Joe's back downtown. Warning! If you get on 3A from St. Joe's, it does not go downtown. It does go up to Walmart, and eventually ends I believe at the University Centre where it turns into the 5. Remember, did I mention a 5 pulling in downtown? I sure as hell didn't. Especially watch out if you took a route ending in A somewhere. Chances are, to return, you want the one ending in B.

It is extremely important to make sure you get on the right bus, as lots of the routes are very long, and some of them won't end up downtown again! So, ask lots o questions to whoever will answer them.

Big, actually huge thanks go out to Ryan at Guelph Transit who put up with me badgering the royal bejeebers out of her for an hour. I didn't mean to do that, but well, when you turn a transit system on its head, I'm gonna have lots and lots of questions. No thanks go out to her coworker who could only manage to whip maps/brochures at the heads of all who approached the info booth, and said a lot of "oh, good luck with that." when asked questions. Listen, lady, "good luck with that" will not get me unlost when I'm dumped unexpectedly at the corner of Where The Hell Am I Street and Middle of Nowhere Avenue. "Good luck with that" will not help restore my faith that I will be able to navigate this new system. I came here for help, not "good luck with that." Luckily Ryan was more than awesome, and made up for the useless. Also, huge thanks go out to whoever was tasked with manning the Guelph Transit Twitter on New Years Day. They fielded about six zillion questions from yours truly, and never lost it.

Understand that this is just what I jotted down from my talk with the helpful Guelph Transit lady. I have tried to make this as error free as possible, but please, do not let me lead you astray. Check and double check to avoid getting yourself lost in the cold/snow. Also, several stops have been removed, so if you're going to a location for the first time, please, for the love of Pete, make sure the stop you used to use still exists.

Good luck with this crazy new system. I have a feeling there will be quite a few lost/frustrated souls about in our fine city over the next while, myself included.

I Have An Emergency! I Seem To Be All Out Of Brain Cells!

Ahh, the people with whom we share this world. Chatham, Ont. police unveil silliest 911 calls of 2011. Yes, all of these are from one town. A town which, it should be pointed out, is in the same general area where you should probably just say no to the holiday punch.

1. A woman called during a massive February snowfall to complain that snowplows were making too much noise.
2. A 17-year-old wanted advice on whether he could disown his mother because she wouldn't give him money.
3. A man called police after a mysterious roll of carpet appeared on his lawn. (He later called to cancel when he learned his wife had placed it there.)
4. A woman called after being denied entry into a nightclub and wanted police to prove she was legal drinking age.
5. A man called for an ambulance for a friend, and assured the friend he would "get rid of the dope" while dispatchers were still on the line.
6. A man called to alert police to a "small lion" crossing the road, assuring dispatchers that he had not smoked any drugs that day.
7. A woman asked to have a man removed from her residence when he would not switch sides of the couch that they were sleeping on.
8. A man called police claiming his car had been stolen. When police found it in his driveway, he claimed the suspects had returned the stolen car and fled. It was later determined that the man had seen a car similar to his own drive by his window and jumped to conclusions.
9. A couple called police over an argument about which video game console they would play – an Xbox 360 or a Nintendo Wii.
10. A woman called because her cats ate her hamburger and she wanted another one.

I DON'T LIKE THE CUBS!

I don't have a kid, but if I did or got tasked with buying a present for one, this is totally something I would do.

iNever Fired That Thing

Just in case someone out there is desperately searching for a last-minute Christmas gift, and office war implements would totally be the perfect gift, there are newer, crazier USB rocket launchers out there. This one, you can control from afar, using your iThing.

Can you imagine? You're not even at your desk, but your desk mate receives an assault of nerf rockets. He has no idea where they came from, but you so totally do. You're down the hall, setting up your attack with your iPad, and your rocket launcher at your desk dutifully comes through.

Gees, I hope nobody near my desk gets that idea. That would scare the bejeebers out of me.

I Love You...r Car

There are many, but here is just one sign that your new boyfriend may not be that into you.

You're at the movies. He pays your way in, you pay for some food. Aww, cooperation is so nice. During your film, he asks if he can borrow your keys so he can run out real quick and grab something he needs from the car. You give him the keys and go back to enjoying the movie. Time passes and he doesn't return. You leave the theatre and your car is gone. You give your new love a call and quickly discover that he's driven off in it and doesn't plan on coming back. Well, unless the words "Ha ha I stole your car" mean something different to the kids these days he doesn't.

Such is the tale of Michael Pratt. He pulled this stunt on Sarah Bush, a woman he had been dating for approximately two weeks.

But instead of getting her car, he ended up getting Enterprise's car, which may or may not have been why he called her later to tell her where he had left it.

He's been charged with felony grand theft and is currently cooling his heels in the Pasco County jail until he comes up with somebody who's willing to part with $5000. He probably would have had that money, but movies ain't cheap these days.

Merry Winter Time Celebrations To All!

Well, today's the day. Carin and I are doing the last of our packing and loose end tying and then will be heading off to spend our first ever Christmas together. I'm glad she gets to spend the time with my family on what looks like a rather light running around year. A couple of the parties are at my mom's place, so at least we get to stay put a little more than usual.

I had hoped to get a few more things put up here and a couple of small gift additions picked up before I took off, but a Subway sub gave me an early Christmas gift in the form of several round trip tickets to the can, so that didn't happen. Hmmm...round trip shit tickets? But I'm ok now and about as ready to go as I'm gonna get.

Before we're gone for days, I want to take a second to wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy every other festive event that might come up between now and whenever. We've gotten to know some pretty cool people over the years doing this, which is pretty damn awesome. We appreciate that you take the time to read and that a few of you even find us amusing.

If you want to get in touch over the holidays (you likely don't), Twitter is likely your best bet. My phone isn't smart but it's smart enough for text tweets, so if you mention me I should see it. If you like email or commenting here, feel free to do that. There's a computer where we'll be staying, but I'm not sure how much time I'll have to use it so you might not hear back for a while. Who am I kidding, you probably won't need me anyway. You're all old enough to take care of yourselves and if you haven't been mentioned in one of the bad tags, you're probably more than capable too. But feel free to say hi anyway. Most of you it's nice to hear from.

Whatever you're doing this next little while, have fun and be safe about it. We don't need any of you ending up on the wrong end of Festive RIDE.

Talk to you at the tail end of this year or maybe the beginning of the new one. Until then, enjoy the lovely sounds of this seasonal favourite.

I've Been Poisoned By A Sub, So Here Are A Few Jokes To Save Me Doing Anything Difficult

To get you ready for Christmas, here are a few jokes that have nothing to do with Christmas. Thanks to everybody who sends these to me and to me for finding the ones you don't send. I promise I'll get better at posting these...for real this time.

*Just asked a Scottish friend of mine how many sexual partners he's had. Bizarrely, he started counting and fell asleep.

*When my wife was expecting our first child, a friend asked me what I hoped it would be. "Mine," I said.

*A married couple had been out shopping at the mall for most of the afternoon.

Suddenly, the wife realized that her husband had "disappeared".

The somewhat irate spouse called her mate's cell phone and demanded: "Where the hell are you?"

Husband: "Darling, you remember that Jewellery shop where you saw the diamond necklace and totally fell in love with it and I didn't have money that time and said, 'Baby, it'll be yours one day'?"

Wife, with a smile, blushing: "Yes I remember that, my love."

Husband, "Well, I'm in the Pub next to that shop."

*Went to a nice, local restaurant/bar with my girlfriend last night. But the regulars were shouting "pedophile!" and other terrible names at me, just because my girlfriend is 21 and I'm 50.

It completely spoiled our 10th anniversary.

*When I was a kid, I got a pocketknife for Christmas. I then used it to open up all my other gifts. Still a shame about the puppy...

*The job application I was filling out asked "have you ever been convicted of a crime?" followed by "explain why." I wrote down "no" and "good lawyers".

*My son was thrown out of school today for letting a girl in his class give him a hand-job. I said "Son, that's 3 schools this year! You'd better stop before you're banned from teaching altogether."

*A man comes into a bar...no wait, it was a horse. So, a man comes into a horse...

Thought Explosions About #SpikeMobileCCC and other things.

Here comes another monster o thoughts. While I'm doing the laundry, I might as well write a blog post.

This whole being out of town part time thing has taught me that I suck at time-management. I was always able to get by since I had lots of flexibility to get stuff done. I didn't get to that today? Oh well I'll do it tomorrow. Now, I have to think ahead to make sure I get everything done on my off days.

Even laundry has become slightly more of a pain since our building has those inaccessible laundry card-filler-uppers. So, if I'm getting low on laundry money, I have to either a. coordinate like hell to be there when the huppy's mom is doing laundry, or b. pray to the lord above that someone will be down there to help me fill the damn card. I'm seriously thinking about rounding up an apartment-sized washer/dryer set. Seriously I am.

Since I don't have as much time/energy to look at Twitter as I did before, I've started organizing the people I follow into lists. As a result, I'm uber behind on the news, people's retweets and random folks I decided to follow. I really need to fix that giant news Twitter hole I've created though. That's just shameful.

And because I'm behind on people's retweets, I didn't notice in enough time that The guys who did Twittereen were at it again, with another contest, Countdown2Christmas.

I suck, and have missed out on two days of the contest, but I don't care. I'm still going to try. I mean, look at the prizes! They wrote 'em out. Yeah yeah yeah I would like a leak-proof travel mug and a Timmy's card. Sure I would.

So wish me good luck in what's left of this here contest, There aren't any iThings, but the contest is still cool.

Edit: looks like I didn't need the luck, since before I posted this, I won the prize I wanted. Yea! Gimme gimme gimme my Timmy Timmy Timmy's stuff!

Another sign that I obviously don't have this whole time-management thing down: I didn't get a happy birthday Steve post up like I try to do. Failbox! Well I guess I did pay for his dinner at Smokin' Tony's. Maybe that makes up for it.

By the way...Smokin' Tony's? Om nom nom! Check out their menu. They really give you a lot of food, and it's good. Mmm sweet potato casserole! When I first walked in I was afraid you could only take your food and go...but then I remembered. They serve beer, they must intend for people to sit down. And they did, and they were great.

Even though Steve and I are doing Christmas together, we figured for the sake of not lugging each other's gifts on the road, we'd exchange our gifts on Steve's birthday. That's probably a good idea, since I can't keep a secret at all. Out of the 6 things I got Steve, he knew what 3 of them were, and had guessed at a fourth. It kind of kills the surprise element when he knew what half the stuff was already. And he didn't snoop, it's because I can't keep a secret worth a damn...and an email came in which had the name of one of his gifts in the subject line..which just happened to read as he walked in the room. Damn JAWS, ya busted me. can't win for losin'.

But I'm happy to say that I own all the Austin Lounge Lizards CD's to date, and their concert DVD! Oooo that one's gonna be fun! Will have to review those when I get some time...so considering my big pile of comments about my lack of ability to time-manage...could be a while.

It is really hard to believe it's Christmas. I'm happy there's no snow, but it's hard to remember to wish people a merry Christmas and stuff when I'm not trompling through the snow. Christmas is going to be here and gone before I know what hit me.

And I think I've found the song that is as irritating to me as it's the most wonderful time of the year is to Steve. It's Do They Know It's Christmas.
I know it was a song raising money for people in Africa, but the line about "Do they know it's Christmas time" kinda bugs me. Maybe they don't care. What if they celebrate something else? And don't they need the money the rest of the year too? I don't know, there's something about that song that bugs me.

So they're starting a Go Train service out of Guelph. Right now it's designed to shuttle people to Toronto, but I hope some day it will go to Kitchener, giving me more options for travel to my awesome job. But as a preview, they gave everyone a free trip to Kitchener, and because a friend was also going, she asked me if I wanted to. Sure, what the heck!

So we headed for the train. She's a far bigger Go guru (goru?) than I am, so told me all about the accessible car, and how if I'm going to take the train, I'd be best to get on there. For one, there's always a person there watching for folks. For another, it always pulls up in the same spot, and third, it opens at every stop! Yup, sounds like a deal to me.

We got on, and actually got to talk to our MPP Liz Sandals. She was surprised that the bus service from Guelph to KW had deteriorated so badly. We talked for a little while to her about how awesome this whole Go service thing would be, because really it's the only truly accessible public transit service there is for folks in wheelchairs. Greyhound? Yeah right. Via? pfffft! Go Bus? Maybe if the drivers remember to do the fancy dancin' with a strip of seats. But with Go Trains, it's cool. A ramp comes out to close the gap between platform and train, and folks in wheelchairs just wheely wheely wheel onboard, and there's an area that's designated as accessible seating...although women with strollers think that means they're entitled, even though there are seniors with walkers and people with wheelchairs in plain sight. May you develop a disability making that seat necessary for you later in life and encounter a stroller-wheeling woman just like you. That is all. But the point is Go is really the only way to go for folks in wheelchairs, so let's start Go-ing in more directions.

The trip was wicked fast, like 20 minutes. Yup, I could deal with that. It's too bad poor Go got stuck behind a broken down freight train, which delayed their exit by an hour. But the trip itself was pretty cool.

In this rambling winding post of crazy, I have to give two gigantic woo's to a couple of folks in a couple of businesses. Let's start with Portions Canada. I heard about them through Twitter, the way I seem to hear about most things these days, and they were talking about having gluten-free food and prepared meals for folks with diabetes and stuff. I knew the shoe thief was kind of run ragged by a bunch of stuff, so I decided to get him a couple of frozen meals and some cookies. So off I went on a crazy adventure.

Can I say again that Google Transit is the worst thing known to man? Unless I'm an epic fail at using it, it always tells me the exactly wrong bus to get on to get to a given destination. I saw a link to it on the Portions Canada's Google map, so I thought I'd try it. "Take the 1 Woodlawn," it said. So I called Guelph Transit to get more details, and their response? "Um? 1 Woodlawn? To get there? Um, erm, not even close! You have to take the 22!"

But that's beside the point. I just couldn't miss the opportunity to rag on Google Transit. After going on a wild adventure through the city, being dumped on a giant grassy sidewalkless zone and being escorted across a busy parking lot to the store, the people *in* the store were nothing short of awesome. They told me next time, just call before I come and they'll come meet me at the bus stop! Not only that, but they went through things until I found the perfect combo of stuff. And to top it off, they delivered it to the shoe thief for me! Like, um, holy crap?

So if you're in the market for gluten-free goodies, stuff for folks with Diabetes or kidney disease, and I'm sure lots of other things, pop in there and see what you will find. But I have learned that if you're alergic to garlic, you should definitely not pop in there. All their meals and stuff have garlic in 'em. Ah well, how else are you going to flavour it without salt?

I have to also give a gigantic thankya to a very cool employee at Wind Mobile. Long story time. I have a blind friend who has been searching for a phone that he could at least possibly operate a little bit. Every phone he gets, he has been promised it talks, but all it has is voice recognition, i.e. "please say a command." That works to an extent, but you can't enter your own contacts, or operate most of the phone's functions. So, eventually, in frustration, he asked me to go with him to the store to see what we could see.

I first went in hoping they had something that could have the Nokia Screen Reader installed on it. I know it's free and kind of preliminary, but CodeFactory had their hand in it, I thought it would get us by. But they had nothing that would take that screen reader. So the woman from Wind Mobile toiled, talked to Samsung tech support, and twisted that phone into halfway working to the point that he might be able to at least get to voice command on his own.

This was no easy feat, but she did it. Not only that, but she taught me a few things about his phone, so I could continue helping him. Adrien from Wind Mobile in Old Quebec Street Mall in Guelph, you are the most awesome of awesome, and we appreciate all your hard work. Thanks to you, I was able to show him a couple more things. You deserve to get promoted yesterday.

You know, I have been buzzed by several colds and flus, and as each one zooms by, I thank my lucky stars. I did not want to be sick and need time off when I'm just starting work. But now, just before Christmas, I've got this wicked cough. Sometimes, when I cough, I sound like I'm pulling a Carl Barron. I can't find a damn clip of him doing it, but maybe others have heard him do that bit with the loud dry sounding cough. I'm hoping to beat it into submission before Friday when we head for Steve's family.

This got me to thinking. Why is it perfectly ok to come home for Christmas with your own family when you have a cold, but if you're going to someone else's family, that's just wrong? Why is it ok to infect your own family? Yup, we're weird.

I've been told by several people that Trixie has a lot more white around her muzzle. Um, eek? I don't like the physical reminders that she is getting older. I know she's still young, but well, it's just another reminder, like the pile of her city tags in the drawer, that time marches on.

I'm making a little something for Trixie's raisers this Christmas. I still don't know if they read here, so can't say what it is yet, but I hope they enjoy it. It'll have to arrive late this year, because I lost their address in the hard drive crash of doom in May, and I've emailed them but haven't heard back yet.

I got some very sad news yesterday. Don't worry, noone died, but it kind of feels like someone did. I just found out that the Fresh at Home program has suddenly been discontinued. You know what that means? No more easy to get local and awesome food. It's back to the grocery store for us, which is one big boo. It was cool that it was delivered, but the cooler part was how amazing it was. It truly was amazing. I don't know what happened to it, but one day, there was a program and the next it was gondo. It makes Steve and I very sad pandas.

And I think this monster has gone for quite long enough. I should be snoring, 6 a.m. comes early. So...I will post, fall down, and finish the thoughts I had left over in another post. Yes, I have more, and other posts that need a place up here. But I have to stop or I'll be no good to anyone tomorrow.

I Won the Right to Save Some Bills, I Saw Some Bills And Quickly Try To Save My Radio Sanity

Just a couple of small things I forgot to mention/didn't know I'd be mentioning while I was brain dumping away yesterday.

The WWE pay-per-view prediction contest I've mentioned here and there is over. And in an act completely uncharacteristic of me, I won! I managed to keep the 2 point lead I had going into the final month, which I fully expected to blow because that's just how I roll. As a result of my great triumph, a couple hundred dollars stays in my pocket in the form of subscription fees I don't have to pay for a few years! Excuse me as I pause a moment to savour what given my track record could be the last time I ever win anything!

...!!!

...!!!

...!!!

Yay!!!!!!!!!!

...!!!

And with that, we may move on.

These hundreds aren't related to the ones I just wrote about, but I got my hands on one of Canada's new $100 bills yesterday. They're weird and are going to take some getting used to.

I obviously can't describe the look of them, but the feel is not at all like money. The best way to explain them is that they feel a bit like receipts, but more like the shiny junk that company's stuff in with your bills and statements every month. If you're not paying attention, you could easily toss one out while cleaning up paper.

But on the bright side for people who find them useful on our current money, the Braille full cells seem to stand out better on these new ones. I can never remember how many cells are supposed to be on each denomination so this means little to me right now, but hey, there's that. Maybe better cells will help me over time since the proper number will actually stay there instead of being rubbed out within 5 minutes.

If the new design stops fraud I'm all for it, but right now I'm not sure how to feel. I want my money to feel like money, not like garbage. Lots of things feel like garbage, while very few things feel like money. I know me, and I'm sure the day will come when I toss out some cash because I made the mistake of setting it down and forgetting about it. I also know I'm not the only blind person who feels that way. I showed it to Carin and she said the same thing. Yes we have mind beams, but we don't agree on everything, believe it or not. she likes the money cells, for a start.


If you've never seen one of these new bills, Google Images tells me that this is a picture of one. I hope Google Images is correct. I know from the searches that some of you would appreciate photos of goats humping, but if I'm gonna post those I'd like to do it intentionally, you understand.

Before I go, I want to pass on a quick message to CJOY. Guys, there are more than 17 Christmas songs. Can you please start playing a few of them? If I hear All I Want for Christmas Is My 2 Front Teeth one more time... Thanks for your understanding.

Here, Have A Post

This is one of those posts where I start writing without much of an idea of what I'm going to write about and see where it takes me.

It's been a busy last few days. Friday consisted of some running around, a late lunch with my brother and sister and then seeing the Arrogant Worms again with Carin and that same brother. Carin and I have seen the Worms at least four times, and it's always great. And after all this time, we finally got to meet them! It's amazing how much easier it is to meet people when you happen to get into a long conversation with somebody who happens to have one of them as a family friend. Here, have a nice little Christmas song about a fellow you may not have heard of to help get you in the spirit. Christmas is just around the corner, you know. Raaaaaaaaaaaaar! That'll make sense if you were there, like we were. Speaking of which, the being there like we were thing will only truly make sense if you're me, Carin or Brad.



Question: With all the advancements we've made in so many ways in this world, when is somebody getting around to figuring out toilet paper that your finger isn't going through? Just wondering, because that sucks. I like surprises, but not that one.

Ok, so where was I? Saturday was a nice birthday breakfast with Carin and my brother, a visit with my grandparents and then an evening filled with Shoe Thieving Christmas cheer. The major takeaway from the night is that Innis and Gunn is some amazingly good beer, I must say.

Sunday was pretty relaxing, but it would have been much more enjoyable had I been able to sleep more than a couple of hours. I did have a strange dream during my little bits of sleep though. The weather fell over. Carin and I were lying in bed and there was a sound like electric guitars ending a song or playing an open chord, I can't remember which. We both looked at each other and went aww crap! Don't tell me the goddamn weather just fell over. Guess we'd better get out there and pick it up. So there we were, heading outside, trying to pick up the weather as if it were a Christmas tree of sorts. There was just the two of us out there trying to right things for the entire world, but it was like this wasn't out of the ordinary. We expected it would just be us. We first tried to get under the weather, but the sun was too hot so we couldn't touch it. But even if we could have grabbed onto it like we'd hoped, there was so much snow on top of it that we wouldn't have been able to lift it anyway. I'm not sure how it turned out because I woke up right then, but I'll assume things went ok since it's still weathering out there.

I was in a cab the other day and the station on the radio was plugging its commercial free Sundays. The guy said "commercial free Sundays are brought to you by..." and then listed a couple of sponsors. Call me crazy, but isn't that a commercial?

Yesterday was my birthday. Thanks to everybody for all of the good wishes, by the way. I appreciate it. I was surprised how many happy birthdays I got from Twitter. I think I got more tweets than I did emails, which is sort of odd to me. Not complaining at all, just something I noticed. Maybe there really is something to the idea that email is losing some favour. Not with me, but with other people. Either that or the Twitter folks just like me more. Naaah, it can't possibly be that.

I learned something yesterday. If you eat at Casey's and you can prove that it's your actual birthday, your meal is free. Mom made a birthday boy comment while the waitress was around to see if we could score one of those free desserts like most places will give you, and she said that if I had ID to prove that today was my birthday, it was on the house. I gave it to her, she took it away with her and when she came back with the bill, sure enough my stuff wasn't on it. I hope for their sake they take the IDs and put them in a system somewhere so people who aren't as nice as me won't game the system and ruin it for everyone.

I picked up my gift wrapped Amazon package from the post office the other day. the mail is so weird around here. Not only do you never know when something's going to the post office as opposed to coming to the door, but half the time you don't even know which post office it's going to. And helpfully, that bit of information never seems to come out when you run the little cards through the scanner. The gift wrapping is...interesting. It has flat ribbons on it and the gift is covered in what feels kind of like glossy cardboard. Picture a CD digipak. If you know what that is, you know what this stuff feels like. It's not what I was expecting. When I think wrapping, I think paper. But hey, as long as it looks ok, who cares, right? I guess I'll be finding that out soon.

Here's a question for people who use Amazon more than I do. Why would you bother choosing anything higher than the standard shipping? Whenever I buy from Amazon, I choose the regular and I'll get my stuff in a day, perhaps two. Do you really need stuff faster than that, and more importantly, how much faster can it get? Let's say for the sake of argument that my standard shipping always takes two days. If you choose the next level up...let's call it express since I can't remember what it actually is, maybe you get your packages the next day. And the third level, we'll call it priority, what's the point of that? You have the two day shipping and the one day shipping, so what can it possibly do? Do your things land on your doorstep before the thank you for ordering page finishes loading? Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like a bit of a scam to me.

Question: Ever have one of those days where you totally want to tell somebody to F off, but you realize that it would actually make things less annoying and complicated to deal with if you didn't, and then you use your better judgment and do the smart thing and keep your mouth shut even though it's not as fun? I'm sure you all have. Well, that's so me today. But even though I'm not going to do it in real life, I here and now send out a gigantic, heartfelt and hearty go fuck yourself to the bane of my existence on this day from all of us here at Vomit Comet World HQ. You deserve it. Merry Christmas...koont. Ok, I feel a touch better now.

So I'm watching TV the other night and I see a commercial for a low dose, daily use version of Cialus. You take it every day like people take the low dose aspirin. The voiceover said something like, "it may not happen every day, but you can be ready when it does." Naturally, then comes the list of the horrible death that awaits you should you dare ingest the stuff. the first thing mentioned, swear to Christ, was headache. Bit of a mixed message, isn't it? Take this and be ready to go when she is...unless you're not up to it. Instead of performing, you're the one saying "not tonight honey, I have a headache."

I think that went well...ish. I'll talk to you all again soon. Oh, and before I forget, happy Hanukkah too all of our Jewish readers. Jewish people read websites, right? I'm not up on all these weird foreign cultures and customs that the world has now. Seriously, all the best of whatever season it is that you celebrate to all of you. Thanks for reading, especially if you made it through this garbage. We appreciate all of you.

Hello, 911? We Wouldn't Like To Report A Robbery, But We're Too Stupid Not To

Reason 17392 why you A: never program 911 into your cellphone contacts and B: always lock the aforementioned cellphone: If you knock off a Target to the tune of some DVDs and video games and then want to brag about it while you're getting away, the getaway might suddenly become much more difficult than you had anticipated.

Police said the two men entered the Target store Tuesday afternoon. When they got into their SUV after the heist, 911 got a call and the dispatcher listened in as they "yakked, jawed, and chortled about all they had done."

In the nearly one hour call, police said the men bragged about what they stole, described the vehicle they were in and where they were going next.

"The men even dialogued about how police would be looking for a blue Dodge Durango without license plates, so they decided to put the plates back on," police said in a release.

Police officers followed the pair and, as the two men got out of the SUV at another parking lot, arrested them.

A Few Words On Guelph Transit's Ridiculousness

Excuse me for a second while I rant about Guelph Transit. Yes, again.

Listen, guys. I understand that you have a tough job. Pleasing everybody in a city of 100 some thousand people many of whom have different wishes, wants and needs cannot be an easy task. I'll even be up front and admit that I'm glad that task isn't mine. But a job being tough is no excuse for you being kind of terrible at it.

Routes change. Sometimes circumstances make that a necessary evil. I get that. But when you can't make even the smallest of changes without screwing senior citizens and the disabled out of stops they need, that's bad. Not only is it bad, it's stupid. What's even more stupid is telling the very people you just hosed that these changes will make things better for everybody. Oh really? Try telling that to the old woman in the walker who can barely get around but now has to walk several blocks instead of getting on the bus right outside her door, or the guy fresh off the knee surgery who now has to cross at an unsafe location and be quick about it to get to his therapy when he used to be able to go a few feet across a parking lot. It'll save us lots of time, you say. Sometimes upwards of 5 minutes. First of all, I ride the route near the hospital you messed up. It only took like 30 seconds to go through there. And if that 5 minutes needed saving so badly, why do I sometimes find myself on buses that need to sit on the side of the road doing nothing for almost that long so that they don't get in too early?

Yes, some of those issues have been fixed, but it's going to take me a while to get over it because I don't understand how a logical person could allow that to happen. Even worse, I assume that there's more than one person drawing these things up and approving them. How is it possible to be so out of touch with your audience? Have any of you ever taken a bus? That's a serious question, because I really do wonder. If you ever happen to saunter onto one, take a look around. I'll bet you'll see a few old/disabled people if you wait a few minutes.

And logic. That brings me to my new problem. Like I said, I get that routes sometimes need modification. But do they really need wholesale modification...at the beginning of January? Did nobody see the problem with this? Since I assume from past experience that the answer is no, I'll spell it out for you.

In which country is Guelph located? Did you say Canada? Very good.

January in Canada is usually...? I heard somebody say cold. Well done!

Along with the cold in Canada in January, there is usually a lot of what on the ground? Snow is correct. Gosh, you're good at this. Probably too good. Don't ever apply for a planning job with Transit, you're over qualified.

When the route a person needs to take to reach a destination is suddenly no longer the same, that person can and likely will become...? That's right, lost.

Getting lost in below freezing temperatures when you need to be somewhere on a schedule is...? Frustrating is a good answer. the judges would have also accepted a rather poor customer experience.

Therefore, changing everything there is to change in the middle of winter rather than in the nicer weather when the new terminal is supposed to open and some stuff will have to change anyway is...? I heard pretty goddan retarded. Yes, we'll take that.

Forgive me for being so angry, but frozen lost late blind guy marooned in a snow drift that used to be a sidewalk and some grass in an unfamiliar area is not how I'd like to spend an afternoon or 15. Again I must ask, how do things like this happen? Better yet, how and why are they allowed to happen? If the aim is to grow ridership by getting people out of their cars and onto the bus, shouldn't you be trying to make transit more convenient rather than even less so than it is now?

I don't think I'm over simplifying anything, because this part of things really isn't that complicated...is it? All it takes is a little thought and a few sets of open eyes and ears so you can see and hear what people expect from their bus system. Maybe that's the problem. Rather than taking your time, you'd much rather ram things through and hope nobody will notice. But believe me, we notice. and we're going to have a lot of time to keep noticing while we're busy not getting places on time in the cold. Thanks again for that, by the way.

What A Dmubass

I imagine there are quite a few vandals roaming around with a less than adequate grasp of spelling, but I'm not sure how many of them are as consistent or as easy to catch as Adam Hall.

Last month, somebody Vandalized Brittany Speckman's car. Whoever it was bent the license plate, keyed it and scratched the word "sult" into the hood.

Sult? Just what the hell is a sult?

The answer to that question is where Hall enters the picture.

According to an affidavit filed in Bennington Superior Court, it didn’t take long for Speckman to finger her 34-year-old ex-boyfriend Adam Hall as the suspected vandal. As Speckman explained to a cop, “she did not think Hall could spell at all,” and she later discovered two text messages from him in which he called her a slut but spelled it “sult” each time.

Bennington police Sergeant David Dutcher reached out to Hall who denied vandalizing the car but in a subsequent interview with the investigator--after waiving Miranda--Hall was asked to “write out the sentence ‘you are a slut’,” and predictably Hall scratched out “you are a sult.”

Hall appeared in crout on Mnoday, and now faces up to 5 years in priosn if convicted of the felony mischief chrage he faces.

Welcome To The Second Annual Shoplift With A Cop

For the second year in a row, there's been a shoplifting arrest at a Shop With a Cop event. I'm hoping this is something we can expect every year, like Christmas and the Darwin Awards.

Loss prevention officers at the Wal-Mart on Acton Lane saw a man in a back room cutting open packages of video games and game accessories and stuffing them inside his clothes. As the suspect walked towards the door, Charles County officers in the store were alerted and grabbed the suspect in the parking lot.

Timothy Randall Clark, 22, of Waldorf, was found to be in possession of 26 Play Station and Xbox games, two controllers, and several other video game accessories which were concealed inside his pants and sweatshirt. The total value of the items recovered was $635.04.

Clark, who has been charged with theft, apparently forgot or was unaware of how well a similar stunt didn't go last summer when Shane Alexander and Jason Vantress tried it.

I wonder what became of those two. I was certain I'd have seen their names come up again by now, but so far it hasn't happened. Maybe next year.

Radio

I got an email from brother Brad asking me to plug something for a friend of his. I told him I'd be happy to do it so long as I get my damn Cherpumple. Actually I didn't, but in all seriousness he's thinking about trying to make one, at least that's how it sounds. If he does, my vote is do it for dad's Christmas so that if it sucks we can leave it there. One thing about dad, he'll eat just about anything regardless of whether or not it's a good idea.

Anyway, here's Brad's email.

Have a listen to this and tell me what ya think.

Also, if you don't mind, he's trying to get it out there...so if you might post it he'd like that too. 

I don't know if you know Jesse Perriam. I think you did meat him once. He's put together something of an album, and this is the first thing off it.

Personally, I'd rather it without the electronic voice butcherer, but, it's his song. 

Thanks. 

Brad.

Yes, I did meet him once. Seemed like a nice enough dude, so post it I shall.

And I agree. The song isn't bad at all, but the "electronic voice butcherer" is very distracting in spots. Makes it hard to get into because all the attention is focussed on the effects rather than the words and the melody. Maybe there's a compromize where you could keep the effects but tone them down, but as it is it's too much. Most people use that sort of thing to hide a shitty voice, but he doesn't sound like he has to.

With all of that said, here it is so you can form your own opinions.

Hey Officer, Wanna See My Weapon?

I said yesterday that it was time to pick things up around here again after a few bad days, and what better way to do that than with a guy in a nightclub parking lot, pants down, putting a pink thing in through his out door while masturbating and eyeing up a couple of cops? If you like the sound of that, then give a big thank you to 49-year-old Robert Matello.

Yes, I realize the if you like the sound of that part could have and likely should have been worded better, but who has time for editing when there's this much excitement going on? You know, maybe I should just stop.

When Officer Michael Smith asked Matello if he was carrying a weapon, he gave an answer never previously memorialized in a police report:

“Yes, I have a pink dildo,” Matello replied.

At that point, Matello removed the sex toy from his pants pocket and attempted to hand it to Smith, an offer apparently declined by the officer.

Matello went on to say that he “was only pleasuring himself,” according to the complaint. And that he was “just spanking his ass.”

I'm not sure if he thought move along, nothing to see here would get him off...the hook, but Matello quickly discovered that what it would actually get him was a January court hearing and charges of indecent exposure, open lewdness and public drunkenness. It may, however, also get him some help spanking his ass should some custodial time be involved.

If Jaws Was A Disney Movie

A fellow by the name of Caleb Hepler noticed that all of those Free Willy giant sea creature movies are pretty much the same. Big friendly sea creature, happiness, a bad guy or two...you know the drill. So to make a statement or perhaps just because he had a few hours to kill, he thought to himself hey, I wonder what it would look like if Jaws was one of those Disney sea creature movies. The result is this, which is pretty funny.

It's made up mostly of rearranged scenes from the movie, but the familiar theme song, well, it's not quite so familiar.

Note for blind people: When you get to the Flash movie, hit the first button and it should start playing.

Complaining, Christmas And Wrestling

You know what sucks? Migraines. You know what sucks more? Migraines that last for a couple of days and then leave you a worn out shell for another day after they're gone. And you know what else sucks? Getting over the migraine, feeling better for a day and then running smack into one of those colds that lays you flat and all you want to do and all you really have the energy to do is sleep. So yeah...that's why the blog's been quiet other than the odd joke and the stuff Carin wrote on the weekend. Hopefully we can stop sucking so much and get this thing going again...just in time to disappear for Christmas.

I think I'm ready for Christmas. I need to buy some more stuff for Carin, pick up the other half of the Shoe Thief's gift and wait for something to come in the mail, but I think aside from that, the shopping is all done. It's funny, because I'm never sure if the shopping is really done or not. This year Carin and I are spending Christmas together for the first time. Not together in our own place, but together. We figured we'd alternate between spending it with my family and her family, and for some reason we're starting with mine. Don't give me that typical selfish man stuff, it was Carin's choice.

Where was I? Right, shopping. Shopping is always interesting around here. For quite a few years, we threw a big New Year's Eve party. A lot of our good friends would come, and since they were close pals, we'd often exchange gifts. So every year we'd have to know who was coming ahead of time and shop accordingly. Then a couple of years ago we quit having the parties. They were fun, but too much damn work. Carin's family lives 6 hours away and while mine is closer, I'd come back and have to get ready to have a few days worth of guests immediately after being away for a week and going to something like 4 Christmas get togethers on consecutive days...sometimes two on the same day. There wouldn't even be time to unpack, and poor Carin would come off of a huge road trip and some years be dropped right into a party in progress. We're still young, but we're too old for this shit. We decided that it'd be a good idea to stop throwing the parties while they were still fun so that maybe we'd want to do them again someday. But one of the consequences of this is that it messes with my head. Do I need to buy something for that guy? NO, we're probably not seeing him until April. What about him, he'll be at the New year...oh yeah, we don't do that anymore. And this year is even worse. Not only am I still doing that with the usual suspects, but now Carin isn't going on her usual trip. That means I don't have to get anything for our friend up there right away, which is odd. And Carin's family can't decide if they're exchanging gifts or not, so I have no idea whether I'm supposed to be buying them things. My brain, which can be a real pain in the ass sometimes, is having a freaking field day with this. It keeps going over and over the list, stopping on all the people I have nothing for, making me feel worried about it and then reminding me that it's all good...only to do it all over again with the added vision of a giftless person handing me a present.

Speaking of presents, I did something this year that I never do. I paid Amazon to gift wrap something. I'm a horrible present wrapper and the timeline this year doesn't allow for getting somebody competent to do it for me, so I dropped a couple of bucks on having a gift done as a test. Has anybody gotten this done and if so, how does it look? The paper doesn't have gigantic Amazon logos all over it or some shit, does it? Please, tell me it doesn't. Ahh well, live and learn, I suppose.

On a totally different note, the WWE pay-per-view prediction contest is almost over. There's one show left, that being TLC this weekend. Guys, I seriously could win this thing. Right now I'm all alone in 1st place with a two point lead, but it's no sure thing. If I screw this up really bad, I could easily be toast. I didn't do super great on my Surviver Series picks, but I did well enough to keep myself ahead. All I have to do is hang on, but I know me and I know my record in online contests, so I'm scared.

I'm not sure how I'm doing in the TNA/ROH contest. There are a couple of shows I haven't seen and I didn't want to spoil them by checking the standings. But what I do know is that as of the last time I looked, I was in a pretty big tie for 9th place. that sounds kind of awful, but all that was separating 9th from 1st was 2 points, so it's not so bad.

One more wrestling thing before I go. I know I've harped on this before, but Jesus Christ the names on these guys in WWE!

I was watching some FCW the other day. There was a six man tag match that saw the team of Conor O'Brian, Tito Colon and Kenneth Cameron take on Colin Cassady, Mike Dalton and Jason Jordan. What I want you to do is look at those two sets of names and tell me without looking it up who the guys getting squashed are supposed to be. Indeed, one team is supposed to be a bunch of scary guys that strike fear into the hearts of their opponents while the other is there to be faceless geeks who's job it is to be beaten up by the scary guys. But if all you have to go by are the names, how would you ever know that? All six of those names sound like guys who would be getting massacred by the Undertaker or Hulk Hogan back in the days when Vince McMahon knew how to name a wrestler or when he was still smart enough to let them keep the ones they came in with. None of these names stand out in a good way. They either don't register at all or in the case of poor Conor O'Brian, they make you feel bad for him and for the people who lack so much creativity that they named him after a fucking talk show host.

I think that's going to be all for now. The cold is starting to bug me again so I'm going to find some soup and maybe watch some guys with awful names wrestle for a while.

Sploosh Splosh Swimmin' In A Thought Pool

It's random thought splatter time. Put on your rubber boots, this thought puddle's a doozer.

Like every year, I have to get my silly Christmas shopping talk in there. When December started, I was flipping out, I'd hardly bought anything, and it was...what was Steve's word? De-fucking-cember? I can't find it, but ya know. Anyway, in one whirlwind trip around the mall, thanks to Steve's mom, I had nearly everything bought. I'm on the hunt for a couple things, but for the most part, I'm all set.

But one crappy side-effect of that is I noticed just how much money I was spending. It was so bad that my brain was envisioning trails of money being left in my wake. But really I'm not that nuts. It just feels that way because I don't usually luck out that huge/do it all at once.

Maybe the reason I was done so fast is I bought a lot of gift cards this year. But I tried to pick ones from stores that I thought the recipients would like. But one particularly hard gift card to get was the Red Lobster one. I'm pretty sure the person who I bought it for doesn't read here, but if they do, well, there goes the element of surprise.

I went to Red Lobster's website, and got all excited. They had gift cards! Then I was stopped dead in my tracks by the fact that the "state/province" box only had states in it. Grrr!

So, I called the closest restaurant, which was in Kitchener, and I was told that the site didn't sell them to Canada, you had to come to the restaurant. Um, not gonna happen.

Luckily for me, I have smart friends on Twitter *coughcough* @MELISSAandRUBY *coughcough*. She linked me to the FAQ that told me where I could call and order a card...which I did. I'm still waiting for it to arrive, but it's been ordered.

We're starting our new traddition of spending Christmas together. This year, we're off to Steve's family. It should be an interesting experience going to 4 or something Christmas thingamabobs so close together. But it'll be so nice to spend Christmas together.

Remember back when I talked about the person I picked to donate to his Movember campaign? Well, who knew I'd end up getting thanked for it? He made a cheesecake, brought it in and said everybody who donated to him would be guaranteed a piece. How awesome is that? Damn it was a good cheesecake, and I needed it that morning since I didn't sleep worth shit the night before.

If anyone's curious, I'm making huuuuge progress getting around our new floor. That whole reference points from upstairs plan kinda got blown straight to hell since it's shaped just differently enough that I don't make the connection. But that's ok, I'm figuring it out. Thanks to my coworkers being extremely patient, and repeatedly pointing out the same landmarks, it started to click. In fact, on Thursday, I zooped around the second floor with very little help.

Trix puts me to shame. She had the damn place mastered in a day. I took about four days before things started to happen. But they're happening, so that's all that matters.

Our new floor is apparently gorgeous. It definitely has some very cool things about it. One thing I have to get used to, though, is that there's no sink nearby for me to dump Trix's water. But I have learned that there's usually a solution to every common problem, and I now own a pretty spill-proof water bowl. This means I can carry it from my desk to the bathroom, probably sloshing all the way, and not spill. Yeah!

But the process of learning a new floor has made me quite fascinated with my own brain. I have noticed that in the beginning stages of learning a place, I am incapable of noticing random details that usually end up being helpful. I'm so focused on listening to where I'm supposed to turn that I notice nothing else.

Then, gradually, I will notice things like the colour of a wall, the way a certain hallway feels, or the smell of coffee. But all these obvious details went completely unnoticed until I reached a certain point in my learning. It's so bizarre.

But I'm really disturbed by the flipside of all this new learning. I am noticing that more and more, I am getting lost in familiar areas. I'm making stupid mistakes, turning too soon, and once, I crossed a street, then turned and crossed the other way when I only intended to cross one way. The scary part about this is I have no conscious memory of making the second crossing. This is my memory of events the other day: walk up to pedestrian pole, push button to cross street, cross, continue to bus stop...bus stop? Hey? Bus stop? Where are you? They don't just tear down a shelter...or do they?

What really happened was after I crossed the first time, I turned and crossed the other way. I did it safely, but I have no memory of doing this and had to deduce what I had done based on playing that old hotter colder game with Trix where she goes faster as we approach familiar areas. This scared me so bad that I nearly stopped, pulled out my phone and scheduled an appointment to see my doctor because I wondered if I may have had some kind of bizarre seizure.

I'm starting to think that no, my brain has just been so busy absorbing so much knowledge that something had to give. I know that as it adapts, I will stop having these brain burps. But if I don't, the doc and I are going to have a long talk. Crossing streets and having no memory of doing so could get me and/or Trix killed, and I don't want to die anytime soon.

And I'm sad to report that my hopes of reviving my GPS didn't pan out so well. I got the new part, it was the right part, but it has the same sloppy connection problem the other one does...so I can only think that maybe something bent in the actual unit. I'm not going to give up until I have to. I might bring it to work and let someone who is the right kind of genius have a boo at it. There are enough different kinds of geniuses around there, someone might have an idea or six.

I watched the dumbest movie ever. If someone comes up to you and says "Let's watch 'The Happening'," tell them you'd rather not waste an hour and a half or so of your life. Believe me, watching that movie is...just dumb.

Ok, the premise is that this weird toxen is circulating through the air that's causing people to find funky ways to kill themselves. Freaky idea, but well, the ending totally suuucks. It couldn't be any more anticlimactic. And along the way, you could put a jeep down some of the plot holes in this movie. Oy. Just...why?

But I have run into a whole pack of people this weekend that have made me wonder if instead of there being a toxen out there turning people suicidal, there's one out there stealing people's ability to think...at all.

Let's back up to a couple of days ago. I went into the liquor store to pick up a gift card there. The woman who served me, after seeing someone show me to the counter, pointed at the gift cards. "We have that one, or that one, or that one." I had to tell her that I couldn't see anything, so she'd have to tell me what she was pointing at. Then, she proceeded to freak out, wondering how to put through a gift card. A manager had to walk her through every step of the process. In a final move of duh, she nearly swiped my gift card, which would have probably used it up before I'd even paid for it. Thankfully the supervisor stopped her.

Ok, whatever, a frazzled worker at a store. No big deal, right? Let's move on to yesterday. Trix needed another bath. For some reason her skin and coat got really oily really fast. I don't know if fish oil will do that or what. Since it was so cold out, I took a cab from the bathing place since I didn't want her to stand out in the cold, and even if I put a coat on her, it was her face I was worried about.

So, I paid debit for the cab. He swiped the card, pushed some buttons and waited. I asked him please give me the pin pad. "No," he says, "It's just waiting to go through." Um, hello? I need to specify the account and, um, enter my PIN. It took me a couple of attempts to get him to look at the screen, realize that I did in fact have to press some buttons, and give me the damn pad.

"Yeah," you say, "Whatever. Maybe he'd had a long day." But the parade continued this morning. I went to that Tim Hortons I talked about a little while ago. I had a craving for apple cider, so decided to get Steve and I some breakfast sandwiches and drinks. I arrived, and started to make my order. Before I finished, the girl started madly calling for a manager. I don't even know why. I think she thought they didn't sell cider or something. When someone could finally convince her that they did, she then said "Is that everything?" I asked her what she had heard, and basically she said nothing. So, how could that be everything if she doesn't remember a damn thing I ordered?

I went to pay with debit, since I can now, put the card in and punched the buttons. She then said she couldn't figure out if it had worked or not. She had to call someone over, and neither of them could figure it out. I had to actually call my bank and check that it had gone through.

Whatever, it's a new Tim's, they're a little frazzled. But while I was in the same store, a woman was very kind and offered to help me with my stuff. I told her what I had ordered and she handed me a bag and said that's everything. I said I had ordered a few sandwiches and a couple of drinks. She said "Yup." I knew the drinks weren't there because I didn't have a tray. Finally someone pointed out that the drinks were still sitting on the counter. She then said "Oh, I thought they were in the bag!" Um, what would have happened if they put the drinks in the bag with other things? They would have fallen over! Gaaaa!

The stupid virus wasn't confined to Guelph. I came home to my email, and found an email saying that a person had left a comment on this post about a USB stick. Just look at my first comment, and then Lilly's. Hello, did you actually think I was being completely serious? For real?

I ventured back out, and the stupid continued. As I was crossing the street, someone shot by and said "Is your dog doing better?" Huh? What is she even talking about? And why not stay around for the answer? Another person asked me what all Trix does for me, and then said "I have to run." Asking me what Trix does is a pretty complicated question. If you don't have the time, don't ask the question.

As I tried to find a place I'd never found before, I ran into a guy and thought I'd ask him. I was standing at the corner of two streets, let's call them Smith and Jones. I was looking for something on Jones. I asked him about the place, and said it was on Jones. His response? "I don't even know where Jones Street is." Uh, chief, take a gander at that there sign. He did, and still didn't know, so walked up to a woman and asked her where the place was. The response she gave him was a shriek that sounded like the woman a. didn't understand English and/or b. thought this man was out to rob or rape her. Instead of realizing this woman was not going to be of any help, he pressed on! I had to persuade him to leave her be, she was confused, and seemed scared.

At last, I was about to get on the bus and get home, hoping I wouldn't breathe in the stupid gas and start doing dumb things. An older fellow walked up to me and this is all he said. "Do you remember my voice? I met you on the bus." Well...that narrows it down in a hurry. He then told me he helped me find some place where an old theatre used to be. I still have no idea to what he was referring, nor do I remember him.

Ack. That is just too much weird in two days. I know if I show up at work tomorrow and people are acting stupid, I have something to fear.

I think that's about it for now. Hope you enjoyed the trip across my river of thoughts.

Arriving In Heaven

It's been a while since i've posted one and I know how much some of you like these, so here's a Steve's mom joke to start your day.

All arrivals in heaven go through a bureaucratic examination to determine whether admission will be granted. One room has a clerk who records each applicant's fatal activities on his or her last day of life.

The first applicant of the day explains that his last day was not a good one.

"I came home early and found my wife lying naked in bed. She claimed she had just gotten out of the shower. Well, her hair was dry and I checked the shower and it was completely dry too. I knew she was into some hanky-panky and I began to look for her lover. I went onto the balcony of our 9th floor apartment and found the SOB clinging to the rail by his fingertips. I was so angry that I began bashing his fingers with a flower pot. He let go and fell, but his fall was broken by some awnings and bushes. On seeing he was still alive I found super human strength to drag our antique cedar chest to the balcony and throw it over. It hit the man and killed him. At this point the stress got to me and I suffered a massive heart attack and died.

The clerk thanked him and sent him on.

The second applicant said that his last day was his worst ever.

"I was on the roof of an apartment building working on the AC equipment. I stumbled over my tools and toppled off the building. I managed to grab onto the balcony rail of a 9th floor apartment but some idiot came rushing out on the balcony and bashed my hands with a flower pot. I fell but hit some awnings and bushes and survived, but as I looked up I saw a huge chest falling toward me. I tried to crawl out of the way but failed and was hit and killed by the chest."

The clerk couldn't help but chuckle as he directed the man on.

The clerk is still smiling when his third customer of the day enters. He apologizes and says, "I doubt your last day was as interesting as the fellow in here just before you."

"I don't know," replies the man. "picture this... I'm buck naked hiding in this cedar chest....."

I Was Wondering If You Could Help Me

This is the kind of thing I wish I'd thought of years ago and may have to try at some point.

You and a friend write shopping lists full of nonsense items for each other. Neither of you know what's on your list until you start asking questions. Yes, asking questions. With list in hand, you walk into your department store of choice, find one of those employees that always seems to be wanting to help you with something and start asking where you can find things. Whoever gets through the most items without getting blown off or told off wins. If you've got funny friends, there is much potential in this activity. There is video proof of this potential here and here.





Have fun, and let me know how it goes if any of you give it a shot.

I'm Not Sure Why I Wrote This

There's snow outside. Not a lot of it, but it's honest to god snow, the stuff that sticks to the ground. I'm not impressed because I really can't stand winter anymore, but I know it's only going to get worse. Hopefully not so much worse that the services of the military are required like they were in 1999, but worse than it is now. Ug.

Remember that? If you don't and wonder why people sometimes make fun of Toronto, that's one of the reasons why. Yes it was a lot of snow, but more than 400 soldiers sent in to shovel it? Get a life!

I started writing this post for a reason...but what was it? I honestly can't remember. There was the snow thing...which I suppose can lead into Christmas shopping. I'm still not done, but I'm much further along than I was just a few days ago and I think I only have a few more things to buy before the big day. Some folks I'm not even going to think about until well after Christmas since I won't be seeing them until who knows when, which helps things along and makes me feel better about my slowness.

Speaking of shopping, the PINless chip and PIN credit card system is working well. I've used it at a restaurant and in a few stores without incident, which is nice and a trend I would like to see continue.

Let's see...I still can't remember what this post was supposed to be about. But did you know that when you're feeling even the slightest bit stressed/annoyed, the song It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year is enough to induce slight homicidal thoughts in even the nicest people? Go ahead, try it.



See?

If you don't at least want to give some one or some thing even the mildest of beatings, congratulations on your worry free existence. I really do mean that.

On a nicer musical note, I saw the Irish Rovers for the second time. I'm not recapping the whole experience again, so read this, add in some Christmas and a couple more people, subtract the part about Brantford's drinking policies, take out the references to Brantford altogether and replace them with Guelph and change the name of the new album and you've got the night in a nutshell. Indeed, fun times were had...and we even got to shake hands with a couple of Rovers! That was pretty cool. And just for fun, here's one of the songs they had us sing along to.



And props to the Rovers for being talented enough to make me enjoy Christmas music for a little while. I mostly can't stand the stuff and would be happy to only hear it for no more than a couple of days a year, but if it all sounded like them I might change my mind.

Next concert stop is the Arrogant Worms for the...um...I can't even remember how many times it's been, much like I still can't think of what in hell I started writing this post for. Maybe I should go and think about it since nothing else is coming to mind. did I even have a reason to begin with? I'm not sure anymore.

His Lawsuit Sure Puts The Dim In Dimmick

This is the stupidest lawsuit I've seen in a while.

Jesse Dimmick has filed a $235,000 breach of contract lawsuit against Jared and Lindsay Rowley. That sounds fairly routine, until you hear what the contract was and how it came to be.

Two years ago, Jesse Dimmick was a wanted man. He was a suspect in a murder case, to be specific. While trying to evade police, he found his way into the Rowley's home. He claims that over some Cheetos and Dr Pepper and a viewing of the movie Patch Adams, he and the couple came up with a plan that would see them hide him in exchange for an amount of money to be determined later. Everybody else, however, calls what happened kidnapping at knifepoint. Dinner and a movie was nothing more than a way out of getting themselves killed, which makes perfect sense to everybody but Dimmick, who is acting as his own lawyer.

Dimmick personally — in longhand — wrote the counterclaim document, which was filed Oct. 21 in Shawnee County District Court.

He wrote: “As a result of the plaintiffs breech (sic) of contract, I, the defendant suffered a gunshot to my back, which almost killed me. The hospital bills alone are in excess of $160,000, which I have no way to pay.”

The Rowleys sought this month to have the suit dismissed, saying they never accepted Dimmick’s offer of money and — if they had — their consent would have been given under duress. District Judge Franklin Theis has yet to rule on their motion for dismissal.

Oh yes, the shot in the back. that was an accident, say police. While arresting him, one of their rifles went off unintentionally. But as you can see above, had the Rowleys not snuck out of their home when Dimmick fell asleep allowing the police to enter and scoop him up in clear violation of their agreement, that never would have happened. Dimmick is suing the police for that, which is likely one of the things that prompted the Rowleys to sue him, and now here we are.

Hopefully tossing this ridiculousness out of court won't take long, but you never know with the legal system being what it is.

Oh, and one more chuckleworthy thing considering the film they were watching. Dimmick, who has been convicted of several things and won't be going anywhere for a while, is being held in Colorado's Adams County Detention Center.

You really can't make stuff like this up.

I May Never Eat Again

I do believe I have found the anti Cherpumple. It's name is Twinkling Turkey and it sounds, for lack of a better descriptor, like complete shite wrapped in a blarfcake glazed in who's dumbfuck idea was that sauce.

So...who's dumbfuck idea was it? Hostess's, as it turns out. In 2006 the company put out a Twinkies cookbook, which I'm sure can't help but be mostly horrifying. I mean really, cutting up Twinkies, using the cake part as stuffing and then the filling as a glaze? The mere thought of that makes me want to throw up things I haven't eaten yet.

"Dear God, what is that smell?" my husband remarked as the odor wafted from the kitchen.

"What does it smell like?" I asked.

He wrinkled his nose. "Cake. Bad cake. And meat."

Indeed—the house smelled exactly how you would imagine a house with Twinkie-stuffed poultry in the oven would smell: like a turkey being roasted in a cupcake-scented Yankee Candle.

When the turkey was almost done, I mixed the reserved Twinkie crème with a quarter cup of honey, and used it to glaze the hot bird before popping it back in the oven for another 12 minutes. Suddenly, the smell coming out of the oven changed.

"Motor oil!" yelped my husband. "Will you open a window?"

Funeral Arrangements

While my parents were making their funeral arrangements, the cemetery salesman pointed out a plot that he thought they would like.

"You'll have a beautiful view of the swan pond," he assured them.

Dad wasn't sold: "Unless you're including a periscope with my casket, I don't know how I'm going to enjoy it."

Cherpumple

If any of my dessert creating family is reading this (yes Brad, I'm looking at you), it would make you even more of a legend in my eyes if you could pull off the construction of a Cherpumple for one of our family's various christmases.

I know what you're thinking. what the hell is a cherpumple? Well, think of it as a dessert Turducken. Instead of turkeys, ducks and chickens stuffed inside of each other though, it's cherry, pumpkin and apple pies inside of a big ass layer cake.

Here's how you do it.

THE CHERPUMPLE “MONSTER” PIE CAKE

1 8″ frozen pumpkin pie
1 box spice cake mix

1 8″ frozen apple pie –
1 box yellow cake mix

1 8″ frozen cherry pie
1 box white cake mix

eggs and oil according to the cake mix

3 tall tubs of cream cheese frosting

3 8.5″ round cake pans

Bake pies according to instructions and cool to room temperature overnight. Mix cake batter according to instructions. For each layer pour about 1 1/3 cup of batter in the cake pan. Carefully de-tin the baked pie and place it face up on top of the batter in the cake pan.  Push down lightly to release any trapped air. Pour enough batter on top to cover the pie. Bake according to box instructions. Cool and remove from pans the frost it like you mean it.

Each pie is listed next to a cake mix because each pie was baked inside of that cake, in case you were wondering. The link above has a few more whys and hows if you need them. I know I would.

Speaking of the whys and how's of the Cherpumple, here they are in amusing video form.



And with that, I'm off to eat my decidedly less awesome dinner.

St. Joe's Has Its Bus Stop Back

Yup it's me, queen of the quick posts.

I have a very happy update to the St. Joseph's bus stop going away story. To make a long story short, it's back where it belongs! It actually was brought back Thursday, but I've been a little swamped.

I thought this editorial did an awesome job of summing things up.

I'm so happy this was resolved relatively quickly considering how long legal wrangling and assorted crap can take. But I'll never understand why it was taken away in the first place.

Who's Gonna Sing This Song? Carin's Gonna Sing This Song, It'll Be In Her Head For Days And Days Now

This damn song from this video from Cracked.com won't leave me alone.

Who's got a face like waaaa?

Just don't say your name is poop around that guy.

You Talkin' To Me? If So, Please Speak Into This Police Camera

This is pretty gross. Oxford taxi conversations to be recorded, council rules

Sadly, the way things are going, the days of being able to say of course this is a UK idea look to be coming to an end. But yes, this is indeed a UK idea.

A council spokeswoman said the "video and audio would run all the time within the vehicle".

She said police would only locate footage, stored on a CCTV hard drive for 28 days, if it was needed for a police investigation.

She added: "The risk of intrusion into private conversations has to be balanced against the interests of public safety, both of passengers and drivers."

The necessary equipment must be installed by taxi drivers licensed for the first time by 6 April 2012. A panic button must also be fitted.

Cabs already registered will have until April 2015 to get the kit fitted, the council said.

The Sound Of Old Things

Don't you just love it when you're in your early 30's but the internet is doing its best to make you feel ancient? That just happened to me thanks to this piece called 11 Sounds That Your Kids Have Probably Never Heard.

I remember all of them. My grandparents even still have a rotary phone on the wall in their hallway, believe it or not. Yes, in 2011. And better yet, they use it, or at least my grandma does. Grandpa seems to appreciate his portable button phones, but whenever grandma gets on the line, it's always on the old, crackly beast that you can barely hear anymore. It hardly works, but I'll still be sad when it finally comes down...if it ever does. I have a feeling that thing is going to outlast us all.

Oh, and I must take issue with one of these. Gas station driveway bells? How young are our theoretical kids? Granted there aren't as many of those around as there used to be, but at least where I've been they haven't really started fading out until the last few years. Am I crazy?

Enjoy the little trip into Back In My Day Land, everybody. And Carin, I'm sure you'll appreciate the first bit of the cash register description. It sounds like something you'd say.

A Nice Little Song About Beer

Thanks to Twitter I believe I have found the newest song that's going to be impossible to get out of my head. If this doesn't get you in the spirit for spirits or something somewhat related, nothing will. Seamus Kennedy - The Beer Song.

If you need me, I think you know where I'll be.

The Pirate Bay Dancing: Soon To Be The Internet's Most Useful Program?

It would be fantastic if programs like this one weren't needed, but since the world's governments and businesses are bent on making sure they are, you may want to head over here and read a little about a program called The Pirate Bay Dancing.

Don't let the name fool you. it may be named for the Pirate Bay, but it serves much more of a purpose than simply letting you download some movies or albums from that one place. It was actually created to make a much wider point and to serve a much wider audience.

When Homeland Security’s ICE unit started seizing domain names last year, a group called “MAFIAAFire” decided to code a browser add-on to redirect the affected websites to their new domains.

The release went viral and by now more than 200,000 people have installed the add-on. ICE wasn’t happy with this and asked Mozilla to pull the add-on from their site. However, Mozilla denied the request, arguing that this type of censorship may threaten the open Internet.

Today MAFIAAFire delivers a new release that aims to thwart the increasing censorship efforts in countries worldwide. Named “ The Pirate Bay Dancing,” the Firefox add-on undoes local DNS and IP blocks by routing users through a series of randomly picked proxies.

The MAFIAAFire team told TorrentFreak that the development of the plugin was partly motivated by SOPA and PIPA, the pending anti-piracy bills in the US.

“DNS and IP blocking is probably the most dangerous part of SOPA/PIPA in terms of ‘breaking the Internet,’ so we tackled that first. We will be going after the other parts of SOPA in later releases but probably not in ‘our usual plugin form’ – the other parts require different solutions that we have already started work on,” we were told.

the add-on is free, and can apparently be set up with just a couple of clicks. I sure hope it's screenreader accessible. Blind people hate censorship too, you know.

That Time When The Rockers Kind Of Became Tag Team Champions For A Minute

People ask me wrestling questions a lot, and most of the time I like to think I'm pretty decent at either answering them myself or finding somebody who can/has. But one of the ones that stumps me every time is when people ask what the deal was when the Rockers beat the Hart Foundation for the WWF tag titles but didn't get to keep them.

Answering the did this actually happen part has always been easy. Yes, it did. It happened back in 1990 at a TV taping. I think the Rockers may have even defended the things once or twice after they won them.

But the match never aired, and that's where things get complicated. Things get complicated because everybody seems to have their own reason for why this happened. Depending on where you look or who you ask, you'll hear everything from Jim Neidhart was about to get fired so they had to take the belts off of the Foundation to backstage politics having a part in it or even simply that the broken top rope was the problem because the match would have come off badly on television. Whatever the reason was, the WWF decided to act like the switch never happened. The Anvil wasn't fired, the Harts got the belts back and life went on. The Rockers never ended up winning the titles for real and eventually split up during that awesome Barber Shop segment where Marty Jannetty got thrown through the window.

Meanwhile, the phantom title match became one of those mysterious things that could probably never happen today thanks to everybody having a video camera and the ability to post things to YouTube...ahh, YouTube. Everything winds up on YouTube. and as I just discovered, everything now includes video of the Rockers winning the titles at that TV taping in 1990.



Now if only YouTube could explain why all of this unhappened within days, I'd have one less thing to think about and one less question I can't answer.

Anton And His Theatre Friends present...The Gift of the Magi

If you're looking for something to do really, really soon, our old pal Anton may have just the thing for you if you happen to be in the right area or aren't going to the Irish Rovers and having people stay with you this weekend like Carin and I are.

Join Out of Sight Productions for
a Special Christmas Presentation of
"The Gift of the Magi" 

London, Ontario, October 12, 2011 - To celebrate the spirit of the Christmas season, Out of Sight Productions is pleased to present "The Gift of the Magi", the classic tale by O. Henry adapted for our stage by London's Steve Stockwell. 

In this enduring tale of self-sacrifice we witness a love of such depth and understanding that it nurtures sustenance for a couple who, in a mad desire to please, have surrendered their most precious possessions while unwittingly ensuring a future on which their current dreams can be built. 

"The Gift of the Magi" at the CNIB Auditorium, 749 Base Line Road East:                  

Thursday, December 1 at 7:30pm                  

Friday, December 2 at 3:00pm and 7:30pm                  

Saturday, December 3 at 3:00pm and 7:30pm                  

Sunday, December 4 at 3:00pm 

Admission is Free - a small donation to help support the work of Out of Sight Productions would be greatly appreciated. 

For further information, please contact:
          Kelly MacDonald, Company Director, Out of Sight Productions       

Phone: 519-675-0379       

Email: info@oosproductions.com       

Web: www.oosproductions.com 

Out of Sight Productions thanks you for supporting our unique theatre initiative

Another Candidate For Festive RIDE Theme Song

If you listened to yesterday's big batch of audio, you know we had a hell of a fun time trying to come up with Festive RIDE Program Christmas songs. We didn't mention this one yesterday since we were thinking so hard that it slipped our minds, but it seems appropriate to share a seasonal classic from Bob Rivers that fits the theme nicely. Enjoy Police Stop My Car.

Have fun getting that out of your head.

It's The Occupy VC Cast

Update: The audio hasn't worked for a while here. Thank you Blind File Sharing for hosing us. So now, for all things cast, pop on over to our new site. There, you'll find audio that works!

Well, it is here. The Occupy VC Cast, the Occucast, whatever you want to call it, it's here...and it's about to occupy about 2 hours of your time. It would be awesome if you found it 99% funny.

We divided it into 4 parts. It would have been only 3, but well, ya see, I'm a giant moron and caused us to need to make a bonus part.

Part one lasts for about 25 minutes or so. In it, we spend some time on the whole Occupy VC thing, and how the Occupy movement has invaded my subconscious, because when I hear 1% or 99% from the computer as it's loading something, I immediately think of Occupy-related stuff. We mention Lunchupguelph, and ramble a while about the work Christmas party we went to, some about the odd weather, the Baker Street Station, and then we set off on our first major rant. Steve got very creative in making fun of the reasons people come up with for petting guide dogs when they know they shouldn't, and Trix got excited by his silly tone. I also did my best to describe the drink I tried at Baker Street Station, man that was awesome. Then after Steve talked in a funny voice, a joke next to noone will get, we brought this part of things to a sudden end.

In part two, which lasts about 42 minutes, Steve made me a drink and we talked about its ability to smack me around six ways from Sunday. We also talked about how Steve knows what drinks I'd like and has a pretty good track record. the story of the recent time where one of our Twitter buddies jokingly called Steve a douchebag came up, as well as the fact that someone seriously calls themselves Magnificent Douchebag as their Twitter name. We asked a question about something someone said who has gone lots of times to the Occupy Toronto movement, and Steve scared the hell out of me by mentioning this video. We lament the fact that BlindFileSharing's front end went splat, cutting off access to the files. Other topics talked about are the Occupy Movement's biggest curse, the stupidity of news media working people into a frenzy over nothing, Black Friday insanity, The mumbly new Tim Horton's slogan and general suckiness of Tim Hortons commercials, especially the use of the words "whipped topping". And before we break again, Steve talks about how much he loves the Grey Cup finals, and a few recent Grey Cup party memories.

And then, we really get silly in Part three, which goes about 50 minutes. This was the other half of our inspiration for audio. The story goes that the police in our area step up their efforts to watch out for impaired drivers. So, they pull everybody over on a stretch of road, ask them if they've had anything to drink, and if they think they have, they test them and deal with them. This is called the RIDE program (Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere). But at Christmas, they call it the festive RIDE program. This always gave us an image of singing cops jingling bells and being full of jolly cheer while making people walk the line and blow into the breathalizer. We then wondered what sort of songs they would sing at the festive RIDE program...and that's what we spend the majority of the time doing. Part of the way through, I suddenly realize we need bells, and go off in search of something that would serve as bells. Since I can't find them, we have to settle for jingling our keys. At the very end, we wrap up by laughing at someone for thinking the Foo Fighters were called the Food Fighters, and there's a little joke in there for a fellow known on Twitter as @thedangillis.

And just when you think it's over, we make Part four, all because I found those pesky bells! This one only goes about 4 minutes or so.

We had a lot of fun doing this audio, so I hope you enjoy. Here's Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and finally, Part 4.

Enjoy, or something.