Stop It!

I’m getting really tired of all of the emails from people asking me to help them update their address books through some automated company or telling me that such and such a person wants to contact me, and that all I have to do to get in touch is click a link and fill out a form. I get several of these things every month and sometimes they’re even multiple emails from the same person using a few different services.

The really annoying part though isn’t the emails themselves, though they certainly get on my goddamn nerves. It’s the fact that almost all of these messages are coming from people I know personally. Yeah, I said almost all. I’ve actually gotten email from people who’s names I don’t even know wanting me to give them all of my info. I figure they’re either spammers, stalkers, people who read this site or
Salty Ham
or some combination of the 3. But whoever they are, that’s sort of weird isn’t it? But that’s kind of beside the point so let’s get back on track.

What I can’t figure out is why, if you know enough about me to know my email address, do you need me to provide it to some third party company that can’t be trusted? If you want me in your address book so badly, why can’t you just put me there yourself? You have the time to sit there and send out the annoying email to every person you know and a few you don’t, so would it really take that much extra time to just punch the email address that you already have into the system on your own? By the way, who needs the same set of people in 7 different databases? Are you really that forgetful/important/starved for things to do? For God’s sake, go outside or something!

And don’t even get me started on these companies. I decided a few months back that I would try to fill a couple of these things out as an experiment just to see what would happen. Jesus Christ, what a nightmare! They want more of your contact information than actually exists, the exact time date and location of the last time you took a piss, and a DNA sample from your first born child! And not only that, a lot of them won’t even let you update your buddy’s contact list without you starting one of your own so that you can spread the virus and bother all of your friends too because hell, why should anybody miss out on this much fun?

So please, everybody, stop using these services. They’re useless, they’re irritating, and they make people not like you. Trust me on this one.

This Post Has Nothing To Do With Politics

Ok, actually it does, but not if we use the Stephen Harper definition of the word. Let me explain.

Some of Canada’s war veterans are upset and rightfully so that government officials including Harper and Prime Minister Paul Martin missed
Sunday’s V-E Day Celebration in Europe
for political reasons, specifically the current situation that could see the Liberal government fall and an election called within a few days.

When explaining why Canada’s political leaders arrived in Holland a day late, Martin had the following to say:

“”Unfortunately, there were political events back home that got in the way. I’m very glad we’re here today. I wish we’d been here yesterday.”

To which Harper, taking his job as leader of the Opposition way too literally, replied, “This argument that somehow it was politics that prevented the Prime Minister from being here is absurd. The House of Commons does not sit on Sunday.”

That would be a fine and dandy retort if not for the fact that it was already made public knowledge that the only reason anybody made it to Europe at all was a purely political one. Martin had decided to miss the entire trip to deal with his fragile hold on the Prime Minister’s office because Harper among others had been turning up the heat and threatening to bring down the minority government. He eventually proposed that he would make the trip if Harper and the other leaders went with him so that nothing underhanded could happen while he was away. Everyone agreed to that deal, and off they went.

Now knowing all of this and especially since he was part of the decision making process, how can a seemingly intelligent guy like Harper say something so ridiculous with a straight face? You’d think that a guy who takes every opportunity that comes his way to make policy statements for his political gain would understand that the idea of political and non-political doesn’t begin and end when you enter and leave a single building. If you’re a politician, you’re a politician 24/7, that’s it, end of story.

Consider this. If everything that happens outside of the House of Commons has nothing to do with politics as Harper would like us to believe, why is he wasting so much time and energy trying to bring down the government over the whole sponsorship deal when none of the shady contracts were signed while the House was sitting? Considering that this was all behind the scenes stuff, it’s completely non-political and Harper is wasting perfectly good work time that we the tax paying citizens are footing the bill for to worry about purely personal matters that are none of his business.

And when that election is eventually called, and it will be, Harper had better campaign from the House and the House only, otherwise he’s just showing up in my city for no real reason other than taking a vacation. Unless he wants to have a beer with me and chat about sports and how my family is doing,, I’m not listening to him. Hey, I’m doing him a favour, because we wouldn’t want politics crawling out of Parliament and finding its way into real life now would we?

Happy Holidays

A small town in Brazil officially declared yesterday to be
Orgasm Day.

According to the news story linked above, the festivities were intended to improve relationships between the town’s married couples as well as to celebrate the orgasm in all of its forms. the day even included a panel discussion on premature ejaculation which unfortunately ended early when many of those in attendance left before it was over. Yes, I posted this just for that joke, I’m sorry.

Bye for Now

Well, I guess this will be it from me for a little while. You’re probably happy that I’ll be quiet for a while. Leaves more room for Steve to be funny. He’s been whooping my ass lately anyway, so the ass-whooping can continue.

But I’ll be off to guied dog school, I leave bright and early tomorrow morning. Rise and shine, it’s a 7:00 train! So I’ll be there until the end of the month. Maybe I’ll be lucky and have a chance to write something up here, but I don’t know what to expect from this training. I hope everyone will stay safe and well, and hopefully when I come back, I will have so much material to write about that I can whoop Steve’s ass again. Na, that’ll never happen.

Help Me Out Here

Welcome to flawed logic 101. Today’s lesson is about a Rubella outbreak. Yup, Rubella. Ya know, German Measles. The thing we’ve all supposed to have been vaccinated against when we were itty bitty. Well a whole bunch of people in a nearby city who are part of a specific religious sect refuse to be vaccinated. And what do we get? 90 people all running around catching Rubella!

Now for most people, that’s no big deal. Ya get a rash, a cold, ya move on. But if you hhappent to be pregnant, like one person is who has it, your kid is likely going to be fucked beyond belief. Deaf, blind, mentally handicapped, likely all of the above, sick, and might die before being born.

Do you know what the people of the community are saying? It must have been God’s will to have a disabled child. “God’s will.” I love that phrase. Anything can be made to be God’s will. Inaction is made excusable because God must have wanted this stuff to happen. If someone dies, no matter how they die, it was God’s will to have him taken now. But then school shootings are said to be because we’re asking God to leave us alone. Hold the pony. Weren’t they God’s will?

And I damn well hope that the people who say that it was God’s will to have this disabled child, and I will add that these weren’t the pregnant woman and her husband, chip in to help the parents. I hope that when the kid is rushed to the hospital, they’re there to support them. I hope they give the parents lots of respite when the kid is driving them up the wall. I can’t prejudge these people, but I know the church that my parents were part of were far from supportive when I was apparently hanging between life and death. But they can all happily sit back now and say it was God’s will.

Hey, I’m all for personal choice. If you personally don’t want to be vaccinated for Rubella, and you’re not in contact with any expecting mothers, go ahead, knock yourself out. But don’t go fucking up kids who aren’t even born yet, who haven’t had the chance to know what personal choice is before it’s likely taken away. And I’m also not saying the kid shouldn’t be born. But come on, all this crap caused by something as preventable as this? That’s like standing in a toxic waste dump while expecting, breathing deeply, and then saying it must have been God’s will for your kid to be fucked. No, it was your will. You could have avoided the toxic waste, you could have gotten vaccinated.

Now we’ve got the minister of health running around addressing the outbreak, We’ve got the media all worked into a tizzy, and we’ve got one possibly messed up kid to come, and who knows how many more. It just seems like a completely unnecessary turn of events. Come on people, if God didn’t want us to have vaccines, they wouldn’t exist. Go out and get vaccinated!

Green Day

Last night I went and saw Green Day in concert, and wow, that’s all I can say. They put on an absolutely fantastic show.

The set was a really well put together mix of new and old and even though a couple of albums weren’t as well represented as others, I have no complaints. Everything they did play was played well, and every performance had energy to spare. It always helps the experience when it seems like the band is having fun onstage, and if they weren’t last night, they had me fooled.

They also did a lot to get the crowd involved. Call and response, sing alongs, getting people to come up onstage and play their instruments, it was all there. They even let the guy playing the guitar keep it, how cool is that?

So if you get a chance to see them when they come to your town, go, you’ll have a hard time not having fun. Ok, so I saw 1 person not having a good time, but she’s kind of a bitch anyway so who cares? Well actually she was probably dragging the guy she was with down and he’s not that bad of a dude so I guess that could have messed up his night since I know he was stoked to be there.

My Chemical Romance was the opening band and they managed to pack a lot into their 30 or so minute set. They did their best to get the crowd going and for the most part it worked. People seemed to be into them, and even I dug their set though I’m not really a fan. I left with a bit more respect for them and their music than I had going in though so I guess you could say that they did their job.

The most memorable part of their performance for me wasn’t a song, it was something that the lead singer said between songs. He was calling out to the crowd and getting the girls in the different parts of the building to scream. Then he quieted everybody down and said something that for some reason stuck with me.

“Ok, now that I’ve got your attention girls I want to tell you something. You’re probably going to go to a lot of different shows and see a lot of different bands. Some of them may look like us, some of them may look like Motley Crüe, you never know. But a lot of these bands are going to come up to you and tell you the same thing. If you show us your tits, we’ll give you a backstage pass. Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to get right up close to them…and spit right in their fucking faces, because you’re better than that! You’re all better than that!”

I guess the reason that was so memorable to me is that I never thought I’d hear a guy in a band say something like that, and I thought it was kind of cool in a way.

My biggest complaint about their part of the show would have to be the sound. It wasn’t horrible by any means, but I’ve noticed that for some reason concerts in arenas generally have one band that sounds a lot better than the other from an actual audio perspective. I’m not sure why that is, but the opening bands always seem to sound technically worse than the headliners. If anybody knows why that is, let me know because it’s bothered me for years.

Before I get out of here I want to let everybody know that things might be slow around here for a little while. I’m out of town visiting my family for a few days and Carin’s got a lot going on too so updates could be few and far between until at least next Tuesday. I’ll try to get some stuff up here when I can and who knows what Carin will be able to do and hell, maybe Matt will even come back, yeah right. But keep checking back, things will be back to normal real soon.

Sticks and Stones…

You know the old saying, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names, or words, will never hurt me?” If that’s true, then why is there all this political correctness bullshit? It’s always bothered me, because it doesn’t solve anything.

Let’s think about this. Back in the old days, the actual technical terms, with no bad intent, for someone with a developmental disability were idiot, imbecile and moron. Then those words got stigmatized, so instead of dealing with the attitude, they changed the word. I think the next one was mentally retarded. And when you think about that word, there is nothing offensive about it. Mentally slower. That’s all it means. It’s the most honest word we’ve had so far. But that wasn’t good because people started calling them retards. So let’s change the word again. How about handicapped? Delayed? Nope, same problem. How about challenged? Special? Well let me ask you this. Ever heard the sentence, “You’re special, in the olympic sort of way.” Or, “He has…challenges.” to describe someone who someone thinks of as stupid? What’s happening, boys and girls? Different words, same stigma. And now the words’ meaning doesn’t even come close to what it’s being used to describe. AT least retarded and delayed were honest words.

And, ever notice that an asshole can still be an asshole even if he uses the “right words”? Changing the words doesn’t change the problem. And the funny part is, while it gives assholes the means to veil their attitudes in polite words, it makes the honest good people become too afraid to so much as speak to people who are different than them in any way, for fear they’ll use the wrong word to offend them. Nothing is funnier than watching someone go, “So, have you been v-b-v-um, uh, that way since birth?” Or, “Can I say see and look and watch?” All political correctness does is make it very obvious who is different, and put up barriers.

I’m not saying we should use the old words. It’s too late for them. But I’m saying stop making new words. Put the brakes on PC and let’s start changing the attitudes! If we don’t, we won’t be able to say anything because anything could have a bad connotation.

Radio Is Stupid

I was just listening to the song “No Surprise” by Theory of a Deadman a minute ago. Everybody seems to hate that song, but I’ve been digging it since the first time I heard it. Maybe I suck, who knows, but that’s not why we’re here.

I noticed something about the radio edit of the song that I should have caught a lot earlier than I did. Whoever did the censorship on this thing must have been on crack. They cut out the word shit, but leave in fuck and bitch. What sense does that make? When did fuck become more acceptable than shit? I always thought it was the other way around. But whatever, my popcorn is getting cold so I’ll let somebody else worry about it, I just thought it was sort of strange.

In Case You Didn’t Know

I just got an email from someone who I thought knew better than to fall for this crap. He emails me and says, “Do you think this is real?” Below his excited message is one of these international lotto messages. Yeah, he won a million dollars and all he has to do is respond, give them all his personal information and pay some, um, well, legal fees. Yeah, right. It’s a scam. So I figured I’d explain why in case someone else reading this might have happened across one of these messages for the first time and was considering replying and handing over all their info.

Ok, let’s start breaking it down. First of all, and most importantly, if you didn’t buy an international lottery ticket, how do you expect to win an international lottery? You know how a lottery works. You buy a ticket, you enter to win. How come in this case, people throw the rules of common sense out the window? “It came to me in an email. It must be legitimate. They mention lawyers in it, it must be legal.” No no no! It’s like viruses. If it’s not expected, it’s likely trouble.

Next, how did they get your email address? If they don’t say how they got it, chances are pretty damn high that it was through illegal means or just random spamming. They didn’t find you because of some promotional technique unless they tell you what that is. For instance, “you deal with company X. We are one of company X’s affiliates, and as part of something you signed that allows company X to share information with its affiliates, we got your info.” Of course, you’d have to actually deal with company X and you would have had to have signed something that they refer to for this to be valid.

Next, how do you even know who this person is, and since you don’t know who they are, how can you just tell them all your personal information? Shouldn’t there be something a little more official or formal than, “send all your stuff here”? Doesn’t that make it way too easy for them to get enough information to, oh, say, commit identity theft?

And, don’t you find it a bit odd that you’re having to pay legal fees and they don’t even tell you how much they are or what they will entail?

Finally, this email came from the Netherlands. That is the place where a lot of these international lottery *scams* come from. So if it’s from the Netherlands saying ya won big bucks, chances are it’s big bullshit.

I was just so shocked that this person, a smart person in so many ways, fell for this. So please! Everyone! Don’t send money and personal information to people who claim you’ve one big international bucks. You haven’t, unless you actually bought a ticket. That stuff doesn’t just come for free. All that comes for free out of this crap is trouble.

No Thanks

I just learned something that I really didn’t want to know. Apparently you can rent sex toys. Yes, rent them, like you would a video or a car.

If you’re interested, and judging by some of the stuff that shows up in our search results more than a few of you probably are, have a look at
Rent-a-Dildo.com – Sex Toys Online.

Of particular interest to me is the
How It Works
section, where great pains are taken to not tell you how they clean this stuff before the next guy gets his hands and everything else on it.

Ug, I may never visit a second-hand store again.