Bring Your Own Google

I guess some productivity came out of some rage. After I ranted about the google blogsearch, I got us a handy dandy little regular google search box. So, I pass the ball to the sighties. Attention working sets of eyeballs, does it look ok? Should it be in a different spot, in a different colour, size, anything? Or, does it look just fine? We know it functions, but it still hasn’t found most of our blog. Oh google, you have some work to do. But in any case, we have a not so functional blogsearch box that we can’t seem to garbage, arg, and a very functional websearch box!

Happy googling.

Backlash Predictions

We don’t talk nearly enough wrestling around here these days, so this is the first step towards changing that. If you’re not a wrestling fan, you’re free to skip this whole thing if you wish, but why you would want to take a pass on something I wrote I have no idea.

WWE’s Backlash pay-per-view will take place just a few short hours from now, and since
Salty Ham
doesn’t do Roundtables anymore, I thought I’d put my predictions up here. I haven’t done a predictions post in a long time, I know there are wrestling fans out there who read this thing and hey, posting is good, so here we go.

I’ll use the old Salty style of who should win, who will win and thoughts on the match because I got used to doing it that way and because it’s a good way of doing things.

By the way, you can feel free to leave your own thoughts on the comment board or in my
inbox,
both of which are always open for business.

WWE Championship Triple Threat Match
Champion John Cena vs. Edge vs. HHH
Who should win: Edge
Who will win: John Cena
Thoughts: They never should have taken the belt off of Edge in the first place, but they did, so there’s no point in bitching about that now. but even though he’s lost it and that’s bad, he shouldn’t win it back here. With the ECW show coming up in June and all signs pointing to RVD cashing in his title shot that night, it would be better to leave the strap on a guy like Cena who whether it be a positive one or a negative one, always gets an amazing reaction from a crowd. The ECW fans will eat that man alive, and a lot of times with Cena matches, the fan response makes things seem much better than they really are. You could make a case for Triple H, but it seems like he’ll be turning face shortly and it would be stupid to stall his momentum by putting him in a situation where he would no doubt be booed out of the building. Besides, with ECW coming back full time in the very near future, it would get things off to a fine start if one of that company’s biggest stars won a match over someone as hated by the masses as Cena.

Shawn Michaels & “God” vs. Mr. McMahon & Shane McMahon
Who should win: Michaels and “God”
Who will win: Michaels and “God”
Thoughts: If you’re one of those non-fans who decided you were going to read this anyway, no, this is not a joke. God is honestly scheduled for a match on a WWE pay-per-view. Yes, wrestling is stupid sometimes, I know. But since this match is happening, I’ve got no choice but to talk about it. I won’t say much other than that the whole thing is stupid, the feud has gone on for far too long and that I’m praying to Shawn Michaels’ tag partner that after tonight it will all be over. I’ll miss watching Vince McMahon lose his mind on live television, but if that’s the price I have to pay to get this over and done with, I’m beyond fine with that.

Intercontinental Championship/Money in the Bank
Champion Shelton Benjamin vs. Rob Van Dam
Who should win: Rob Van Dam
Who will win: Rob Van Dam
Thoughts: This shouldn’t be a hard one to call, but for some reason I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Shelton went over but Rob won back the Money in the Bank shot in a rematch somewhere between Monday and June. This one should be pretty good, and other than the title match, I think it has the best chance of being match of the night unless of course “God” or Shawn Michaels decide to work a miracle, which is entirely possible.

Kane vs. Big Show
Who should win: Kane
Who will win: Kane
Thoughts: I have no idea where they’re going with this whole Kane is hearing voices and losing it whenever somebody says the date of his movie opening thing, but unless something changes and changes quickly, where they’re heading is down the long and winding road to Thisisretardedburg. I cannot possibly put into mere words how stupid this whole thing is. I’ve heard people comparing it to WCW’s late 90’s angle where the Ultimate Warrior was haunting Hulk Hogan but nobody around him could see it but everybody on TV and in the arena could, and I can’t come up with anything better than that. By the way, for the non-fans, what I just wrote makes no sense to me either, and I’ve been watching this stuff for almost as long as I’ve been alive.

Women’s Championship
Champion Mickie James vs. Trish Stratus
Who should win: Mickie James
Who will win: Mickie James
Thoughts: This is the only storyline I can think of in the current crop that has been consistently interesting and well built over the course of several months. I like the new twist they’ve thrown in, with Trish now acting like Mickie in order to try to get inside her head and drive her as crazy as Mickie did her. I’m not sure where they can take things from here, but putting the belt back on Trish and blowing off the feud wouldn’t be a good idea since Mickie is something new and fresh as opposed to Trish holding the belt, which has been done time and time again. I get the sense from watching the shows that a lot of fans feel the same way I do, and as we’ve seen with John Cena and even Rey Mysterio to a point, the fans have no problem voicing their feelings about things they don’t like, and I’m sure that the last thing WWE would want on their hands is another face champion that gets treated like a heel. As for the match itself, it should be fun, but I doubt we’re going to see a clean win. My guess is that Trish gets herself disqualified and Mickie retains.

Carlito vs. Chris Masters
Who should win: Chris Masters
Who will win: Chris Masters
Thoughts: This is a weird one in the sense that I’m pretty sure that no one, and I include WWE Creative in this, has any idea where it’s going or how the hell it’s supposed to get there. When the angle started after WrestleMania, it wasn’t clear to anybody which of the 2 was the face and who was the heel, and while it’s still not the easiest thing to figure out, my guess is Carlito based on the way things have been booked so far. But they’ve got a long way to go if they want to establish him as a true fan favourite and if Masters loses he’s pretty much doomed, so unfortunately, Masters needs to win and this feud needs to continue for the sake of both men’s careers.

Ric Flair vs. Umaga
Who should win: Umaga
Who will win: Umaga
Thoughts: There’s not much you can really say about this match other than Umaga needs to go over fairly strong here in order to keep his new guy push and monster character going. It’s way too early for him to be doing the job for anybody, even if that person is Ric Flair. I’m not sure what happens once this match is over, but you can’t have anybody beat the crap out of a guy like Flair without giving him a rematch unless you’re going to retire him, so I guess they’ll have no choice but to find a way to continue a storyline that should have never started in the first place. It makes absolutely no sense to bring a new guy in and right away put him in the ring with Ric Flair. New guy’s job should be to kill people dead for a few months before moving on to more competitive fights once he’s established. It’s really pretty basic stuff, and I’m amazed that somebody like Vince McMahon can’t remember it considering that he used to use it so well.

Those are all of the matches announced so far, but it’s possible that another one could be added by the time the show starts since there’s no Tag title match that I’m aware of.

I’ll put up some thoughts on how things turn out once I have a chance to see it, whenever that is. I rarely watch anything as it happens anymore, so you could get your Backlash review just in time for SummerSlam for all I know. But no matter what order things get posted in, there will be show thoughts and I’m looking to do quite a bit more wrestling writing here, so either be warned or be on the lookout, depending on which side of the wrestling fan fence you’re on.

Who are you and what have you done with google?

Ok. I can stop pulling my hair out, because I now know that all of what I’m about to talk about is not my fault.

Has anyone ever tried to search their own blog or any blog they’re currently on with that stupid google blog search button? Has anyone noticed that it’s about as useless as a round hole for a square peg? Well, I just did.

A long time ago, I noticed that I could never find anything on this blog that I knew I wrote about. I also noticed that after I was done typing in what I wanted to search for, the piece of shit would throw in a few extra words that looked like lines of code that I didn’t even know existed, so how could I have written them? I would also notice that even if I wrote in words that were definitely present on the blog, it would find nothing. Finally, this morning, I decided to do some research to figure out what in the blue fuck I could do to make this blogsearch thing work. It was then that I found out that the answer is that it, my friend, is fucked. Ron? Steve will get this if no one else does. yea blackout of 2003 memories. Anyway, on with the show.

I went to the blogger help and found out that…
a. that foreign code isn’t garbage, it does serve a purpose, but…
b. the blogsearch only has records of posts after the site feed was created and…
c. of those, it only has the ones it has deemed worth saving in its ssilly google blogsearch mind.

And this creation was unleashed by whom you ask? Google, the reigning and defending, undefeated and undisputed champion of the search engine world. Did they give this project to the google newbs? What the fuck happened?

It is a brilliant idea…provided it works. It’s too bad it’s been defective since birth.

What’s in A Name? Hopefully Not Cancer!

When you hear www.redgreen.com, or www.airfarce.com, where do you think they go? I think they go to Red Green’s website and the website for the Royal Canadian Air Farce, don’t you? Actually, I know they do. So, what would be the logical conclusion when you see www.cancer.ca? For me, I become frightened. I think that a tumour has developed so much that it has neurons within it and has designed a website to represent itself. Or, someone is evil enough to develop a site rooting for cancer. I picture a banner that says “WELCOM TO TUMOUR TOWN!” and a bunch of links like, “click here for the cancer cam,” “Kick chemo,” “donate to the fight against the fight against cancer,” and “buy your Melanoma merch here!” At the bottom where most people would have their hit counter, there would be a death meter with some sort of catchy phrase like, “Over 100000000 served!” Oh I feel sick now.

But there is a point to all this horrible rambling. Would you believe that that URL actually goes to the Canadian cancer society? Does that make any sense to you? That would be like ford having a website of chevy.com. People, cancer.ca might be catchy, but it doesn’t bring happy thoughts.

Was Yesterday Grumpy Day or Something?

I swear there must be some fact that the rest of the world is aware of, but through some miracle, I have been left completely in the darkabout it. Yesterday must have been national be pissed off day or something because practically everyone I ran into was super bitchy, if not to me, then to each other!

The first place I really noticed it was H and R block where I went to do my taxes. Now, here, I can understand a little unpleasantness. It’s the last business day before the deadline, and if you owe, you’d better get it done, or the government will release the hounds. Well, not literally, but you get the picture. Plus, the place was packed and they were running behind schedule. So, I can understand some resentment. But what I saw wasn’t just resentment. This old couple walked in to get their taxes done. My first thought was, “Look at the cute old couple.” But they ceased being cute immediately. The woman was very scared and pushy. She’d throw t-slips and mail from the CCRA at the poor woman who answers the phone and seats people. The man, well, if this is his everyday behaviour, is a dick. I admit she was a bit irritating, badgering him about why he didn’t want cash back today, even going so far as to say, “Hey, part of this is mine!” He kept saying he didn’t want to talk about it, and then at one point, he simply said, “Ruth, Fuck off!” Now picture the f word coming out of a man in his 70’s in a tax office. Strange picture, isn’t it?

Then he would just snap at her for making small talk. There were a ton of times when I’d hear him say, “Why do you care?” My mind was consumed with three thoughts:
1. God you guys are grumpy.
2. If you hate each other so much, you said you were common law, why don’t you just split and be done with it? You’re obviously not one of these sanctity of marriage couples.
3. I hope you don’t beat her, old man. The way you talk, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit to find out you do.

If that wasn’t enough sniping and bitching for one day, I got some more whenI called my friend’s house. Her room’mate picked up the phone and didn’t even bother with giving me the niceties of the word “hello.” All I got was, “yeah what?” What the hell kind of greeting is that? When I asked where my friend was, she got more irritated. Excuse me for calling my friend’s house and asking a simple question.

Later on, my friend and I were sitting on a bench minding our own business, when a car drove past us and the driver yelled, clear as a bell, fuck you! It was aimed at us because my friend said in this hillariously calm voice, “Thank you, and have a nice day!”

So what swarm of bees crawled up people’s colllective underwear and stung them, and how did I miss it? I’m glad I did, it seems like a pretty vicious sting.

Bring The Acoustic Noise

Here comes another of those goofy folky rap song covers I love so much.

This time it’s
Public Enemy’s Bring the Noise,
as performed by Brent Runyon.

I know nothing about Mr. Runyon other than that he’s written a book about his life, specifically the time he
attempted suicide by lighting himself on fire.
How he went from that to covering Public Enemy I have no idea, but I suppose I would if I read the book.

Speaking of the book, if anybody out there has read it, what did you think of it? The short excerpt was more than interesting enough to make me want to track it down, but other people’s opinions are always a good thing.

All Hail Stupidhead’s Replacement!

Well, folks, I have a new neighbour! I just met her and she scared the hell out of me because I heard some noise as if someone was trying to get into what once was Stupidhead’s apartment, and that wouldn’t surprise me since she has a lot of criminal friends. Oh wait, they’d crawl in the window, what am I thinking? Anyway, she introduced herself and said she’d be moving in tomorrow but not too early, since she didn’t want to wake anybody up. wow! Someone who wants to consider other people’s feelings! There is hope for this little building. Too bad I’m looking for another place to live soon.

To Serve and Protect and The People’s Court All On One Bus!

Today I had the weirdest bus ride. I got on a pretty quiet bus and it started to drive. It stopped to pick someone up and he got on the bus and showed his transfer. The driver said thanks and the guy walked away. The driver caught his attention and asked him to please either put the transfer in the garbage or give it to him. The passenger looked at him and walked away. The driver yelled for him again and said, “The rule is put the transfer in the garbage or give it to me. You can’t ride around all day on the same transfer.” Like duh. Where does that even work? The passenger responded with, “No. I want to keep my transfer as proof of payment.” At this point, we all wonder what this guy’s problem is. The driver asked him once more for the transfer and said if he didn’t do it, he’d have to call the police. I understand why, since in the last while, bus drivers have been beaten up by people who try to get on the bus with an invalid transfer and the driver says no. Come on, people, a bus ticket is 2 bucks. I mean, with the whole blinky thing, we don’t have to pay the bus fare, but even if I did have to pay it, I don’t think I’d be so poor and desperate that when a bus driver said I couldn’t ride and had to pay 2 bucks, I’d hurt him.

Anyway, back to our friendly neighbourhood weirdo. The passenger still said no. Now we definitely think he’s weird, because if the driver’s willing to call the police, why fight him over a stupid transfer? Is that little slip of paper really all that valuable? So the driver calls the police, and the passenger goes into this crazy rant about how the driver only wants to punish him because he hates his job, how stupid this is, why in hell would he call the police, etc. So we sit pulled over to the side and, after about 5 minutes, long enough to make everybody miss their buses downtown, the police officer comes on board. What follows makes me feel like I’m in an episode of To Serve and Protect, except nobody seems drunk. He asks the driver and passenger what’s wrong. When he gets to the passenger, Mr. Weirdo starts using all these way too official words. “Sir, if I’d only had the procedure explained fully to me, I would have had no issue with cooperating. I only want to reach my final destination, sir.” Seriously, what’s with that? Whenever you see people who look like total slobs on the People’s Court, especially slobs who are obviously in the wrong, they use all these needless, big words as if they’ll somehow impress the judge and make her say, “You’re just too smart to lose your lawsuit.” This looked like what the guy on the bus was trying to do. The police officer just cut him off and told him either handover the transfer or get off the bus. He grudgingly handed over the transfer and then the officer asked the driver if he was ok with the guy riding to wherever he wanted to go, after taking the weirdo’s name and birth date, and he said he was. Now, think about that. Because this idiot wouldn’t hand over a slip of paper, he’s written down in police files for causing a disturbance. I know it’s not a huge thing, but that whole pile of crap could have been so easily avoided.

As the police officer left, I thought to myself, “Damn! I wanted to see him drag our weird passenger friend off the bus!” At the same time, I realize thatI’m evil for thinking that. So what a needless waste of our time, the police officer’s time and the driver’s time! How hard could it have been to just do what he asked? I almost think this situation was more stupid than the screaming freak incident!

Meet My New Heroes

Whoever the men are who invented
this,
they’re super geniuses.

According to the site, the Beer Belly as they’re calling it can hold up to 80 ounces of liquid, and looks and feels exactly like a real beer gut, other than all the hair and stretch marks I guess.

The marketing pitch is pretty convincing too, since the idea is that you can strap this bad boy on, fill it up, go to a concert or a sporting event and avoid paying an arm, a leg and a small Mexican child every time you get thirsty. At $34.95, I figure it’ll pay for itself in no time flat. Think about it. At a lot of places, the hotdogs are $34.95, which leaves a lot of us broke and thirsty with no way around it.

But as cool as this whole thing is, I should probably throw a few tips out there because once human beings get involved, it’s only a matter of time until a fine idea is ruined forever.

  • Don’t use this thing in places you go to frequently and expect to get away with it. People will probably recognize you and wonder what the hell happened, especially when they see you out on the street much thinner before and after the fact.

  • Don’t drink and drive. I shouldn’t have to say that, but you know somebody’s gonna try it sooner or later.

  • As Carin says, “if you’re a woman, just don’t.”

But since I’m not a woman and drinking and driving really isn’t in the cards, if any of you have 35 bucks you don’t know what to do with, Christmas is coming up and I can think of at least 1 blog writing guy who wouldn’t object to seeing one of these under his tree.