The Best News Bloopers Of September 2024


Does anyone have any idea how YouTube’s personalized notifications work? There seems to be no rhyme or reason to anything they do.

“Oh, you’ve subscribed to this channel because you enjoy its semi-regular offerings and would like to know when there are new ones? Perfect. You’ll never hear from it again. But here, have this batch of recommendations based on no subject that you’ve ever indicated you would like to see videos about. And don’t worry, we’ll almost never tell you when something that you try to watch every day is available, because that would just be silly and a waste of everyone’s time. Hey, remember that one thing you subscribed to, watched a lot of and then we stopped telling you about for months? Here’s a couple videos from there. Oh, you liked those? Hahahaha. Outa here! Hey man. We told you the notifications were personalized, we just never said to whom.”

And that’s why I’m posting the September blooper video near the end of October. That and life in general, but I’ve been wanting to get that YouTube thing out of my system for a while.

Enjoy your cinnamon toast…what he said. Or maybe put some wieners down you. Just make sure you get paid. As for me, I think I might have lunch in the Seattle school district. It sounds pretty rad.

Perhaps We Need A Registry For That, Too

I’m having a little trouble figuring out exactly how stupid this gentleman is. Like clearly he’s stupid, but is he stupid or is he stuuuuuuupid?

Police say a Hamilton man went to Kitchener around 11 a.m. on Thursday to “meet with a female youth for a sexual purpose.”
When he arrived at the meeting spot in Kitchener, he was allegedly confronted by several men who demanded money from him.
Police say the Hamilton man transferred money to the men and drove away.
He reported the incident to Hamilton police, who then notified Waterloo regional police.

Later that night, he was arrested and charged with child luring.

Which brings us back to the question of how stupid he is.

Did the police take his report assuming that the girl in question was one of the legal ones, but then do some investigating and figure out in the process that “hey, dude’s a pedophile, let’s get him!”? Because that would be stupid. Why are you getting the police involved? You know you’re doing something you’re not supposed to be doing, and that that something is looked upon much worse than robbery. Maybe put this one down as a learning experience, cut your losses and head it on home and lay low for a bit, because that was close!

Or did he, as my brain after decades of reading and writing about these sorts of things suspects, call them up and say “yes, police? I went on a field trip to Kitchener today. Why? Oh, just to sleep with an underage girl. You know, normal guy stuff. But anyway, while I was there, some awful, heinous criminals held me up for money! Can you even believe it? Who does that?! Please deal with them immediately! Thank you. You have a good day too. I’ll see you around”?

I shouldn’t have to tell you that that would put him solidly in column B. Or maybe I should, because well, decades and such.

Thanks, Doug. Still Ain’t Votin’ For Ya

Doug Ford poised to send out pre-election cheques to 16 million Ontarians
Don’t get me wrong. I’ll happily take an extra couple hundred from the government if they’d like to send it to me. But you know what would make me even happier? If they would take the $3.2 billion that this pre-election bribery with our own money is estimated to cost and put it into something like healthcare. Or education. Or long-term care. Or legal aid. Or properly funding the Landlord and Tenant Board. Or services for the homeless. Or honest to god affordable housing. Or infrastructure that isn’t some stupid highway. Or harm reduction strategies for drug addicts that might actually work. Or raising benefits for the disabled to an amount approaching realistic. Or…

Premier Doug Ford is poised to send cheques to 16 million Ontarians to offset rising costs as a possible early election looms, the Star has learned.
Sources say the premier’s gambit will be announced in Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy’s fall economic statement on Oct. 30.
While the precise amount of the rebate cheques is still being finalized, it should be at least $200 for every adult and child in the province.

That means it could cost the provincial treasury about $3.2 billion when the cash flows out the door in January or February.
The payments would be tax-free. It could mean an additional $800 in household cash for a family of four at a time of year when paycheques are smaller due to employment insurance deductions and when holiday credit card bills are coming due.
Even though inflation has dropped to 1.6 per cent and mortgage rates are declining, Ford’s Progressive Conservatives privately point to stubbornly high grocery prices and energy and housing expenses as the rationale for the payouts.
The move echoed what former premier Mike Harris’s Tories did in 2000 when then-finance minister Ernie Eves announced $200 “dividend” cheques.
While Eves’ budget that year was in surplus, Bethlenfalvy is not expected to balance the books until after the next election, which is scheduled for June 2026 but could come as soon as this March.

We’d Call It A Honk ‘N’ Bonk, But Pedestrians Can’t Honk. That’s Why This Is Their Fault

I don’t know if this one is the fault of the police or the media, but I’m going to guess it’s the police because the media tends to just go ahead and regurgitate whatever silly ass language the police put in their press releases without bothering to think about it.

When you hear the words “pedestrian collision”, what comes to mind? If you’re me, you’re picturing two people on a sidewalk or crossing the street bumping into each other, probably because at least one of them was too busy staring into his phone to pay the fuck attention. I picture that because that makes sense, but according to police, that’s not what it means anymore. To them, “pedestrian collision” now means fella got pasted by a truck, and that irritates me.

When two of the same thing collide, we call it what it is. We don’t use the term “car collision” (at least I don’t think we do), but you’ll often hear that two vehicles collided. Or if a car hits something else, we’re told, for instance, that a car collided with a hydro pole. But it’s never called a “pole collision”.

So why, in these cases, have we started A: being intentionally misleading and B: specifically going out of our way to make it sound like we’re blaming the pedestrian regardless of whether or not the blame is his? It sounds like the police are shaming him for recklessly not being in a car while getting hit as though it’s something they can ticket him for.

When did it become wrong to say that a pedestrian was hit by a vehicle at an intersection? Or if you can prove that the same guy who walked into me on the sidewalk a minute ago was still too busy staring into his phone to pay the fuck attention, that a pedestrian walked into the path of an oncoming vehicle? Both are more accurate, not to mention that they treat the situation with the sort of seriousness that it might deserve.

I realize I’m asking a lot here, wanting my police to talk like normal human beings. I should use my time more wisely. Instead of sitting here whistling into the goddamn wind, maybe I should do something productive like commit a person on person robbery, whatever the hell one of those is.

Do You Want Cord Cutting? Because This Is How You Get Cord Cutting

Pretty sure I just figured out how Rogers plans to pay for its shiny new chunk of sports monopolization. You’ll be shocked by the answer, no doubt.

Upcoming change to your TV Box rental fee(s)
We hope you’re enjoying your TV service. With the rising costs to deliver the latest technology, we’ll begin charging an additional $7/month (plus taxes) for each TV box rental on your account, starting on your first bill on or after September 24, 2024. Any existing discount will remain in effect until its end date.
Please note, if you have box(es) included as part of your condo maintenance or property rental fee(s), they remain included. Any additional box(es) will increase by $7/month (plus taxes).
The rest of your Rogers TV service remains the same. If you have any questions or no longer wish to rent any of your box(es), please reach out to us as outlined in the Contact Us section of this bill.

That’s right. More of those price increases that the magic of corporate consolidation is somehow supposed to be preventing.

Even by Rogers standards, this one seems especially brazen. Or maybe I’m just very, very annoyed by the second major price increase of the year. Yeah, it’s definitely that, but it’s the other thing too, to some degree.

Seven dollars plus tax per month…per box! You did catch the for each box part before your eyes glazed over, didn’t you? That’s very important to understanding just how much of a blatant cash grab this is.

Fortunately (as much as any of this can be described as fortunate) for us, we only have one television. How many people do you know with more than one? If you’re like me, likely quite a few. Even with one that rate increase is not insignificant especially when piled on top of all the others, so just imagine the pressure it’s going to put on those with two or more and how much money Rogers will be raking in while giving the consumer little to no new value for it. In fact, the plan is to continue stripping that value away come the new year.

Content from specialty channels bound for Rogers including Cooking, OWN, Discovery Science, Motor Trend and Animal Planet will be streamed and on demand when the brands switch to the media giant next year.
Rogers Communications Inc. says these newly acquired lifestyle brands will disappear as a linear option Jan. 1, 2025 but their programming will be available through the streaming service Citytv Plus and on demand through cable packages.

Translation: “If you pay for TV channels expecting that you will be able to watch TV on TV channels, lol, you’re funny. That’ll be another $7.”

Some days I wonder if Rogers et al actually *want* us to cut the cord. Things like this and selling their sports rights to streamers at the expense of the sports network they own and that a lot of us are still paying them for are a fine way to reach that outcome, if so.

Even Carin and I, the last generation who truly grew up on TV and who many nights can be found sitting down to dinner while watching Jeopardy and what’s left of the local news, have started having conversations about whether or not TV is still worth it. No being the answer would have been unthinkable not long ago, but moves like these and others over time have begun making it a lot harder not to say that.

Long Live the Death Of The Touch Screen

Touch Screens Are Over. Even Apple Is Bringing Back Buttons.
Product designers are embracing how users actually feel after years of pushing flat and sleek

Man, do I ever hope this guy is right, because I hate touch screens. I say that without the slightest hint of exaggeration. If there was a regular old push button cell phone that could do all the fun and useful appy smartphone stuff that the iPhone does, I can’t guarantee you that I wouldn’t run through your grandmother to get my hands on one.

Even after 12 years and three of the things, I still don’t like my iPhone all that much. There are a number of reasons for that, but we’ll stick to a basic one. Typing. As much as I appreciated apps like Fleksy and FlickType when they existed, I was never as fast with them as I was with good old T9 on my Nokia. I’ve gotten myself to be a decent but slow touch typist on the regular keyboard, but it’s inefficient as hell and I curse it regularly.

Speaking of cursing things regularly, don’t even get me started on all of the touch screens I encounter in the wild. Hell, even on my way out into the wild.

Several years ago, someone involved in the management of our apartment building decided that what we really needed around here is a touch screen keyboard to replace the old telephone looking buzzer code system in the main entrance. They didn’t tell your blind friends about it ahead of time, of course. Why would they do that? If they had, we would have done inconvenient things like point out that they’ve effectively locked rent paying tenants out of their homes if we ever lost our keys because touch screens to blind people are like step ladders to a wheelchair.

Yes, buttons can present their own problems, but the major difference is that most people can learn and remember a button sequence, because there are ways to orient yourself to where everything is. There’s no way to do that with a flat slab of touch screen unless it also has a screen reader interface, and 99% of them don’t have that. Even if one technically exists, it’s usually not active and there’s no way for the people who need it to activate it. And before you say anything, the answer to your question is no. Asking someone else to activate it for me is not helpful. It would be if literally anyone knew anything, but literally no one does. I’m not even saying that to sound like an asshole. It’s just facts. The next time I don’t get an answer something like “ooooooo………….thaaaaaaaaaaat wooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuld be haaaaaaaaaaaaaard………….yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh……..”, will be the first time I don’t get that answer. People just don’t see it as a problem.

And so people like me now live in a world where we can’t do all sorts of shit we used to be able to do. We can’t helpfully answer someone’s phone while they’re driving. We can’t change the radio station or mess with the air conditioning. We can’t use someone else’s stove. We can’t turn on the washing machine…

And by the way, who are these clowns putting important controls in the splash zone of a cooktop? That getting through the prototype phase should be a mass firing, no?