Tax Dollars Well Spent

Federal minister apologizes for joke he’s not sure he told

Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn has apologized for a joke he’s not sure he made, responding to a complaint from a politician who didn’t hear it.

Joan Burke, Newfoundland and Labrador’s education minister, demanded Hearn apologize Wednesday for telling what she called a sexist joke at a weekend Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador convention.

However, Burke did not attend Hearn’s speech in Gander, and would not repeat what Hearn supposedly had said.

Nonetheless, Hearn said Wednesday he is sorry if anyone took offence during his speech, which he said contained about 15 jokes.

Hearn said no one seemed offended at the event, and he can’t think which of the jokes might have offended anyone.

“I have never, ever in my life intentionally said anything that would offend anybody, and if I did on the weekend, I sincerely apologize because it’s not what I do, or how I do it,” Hearn said.

I note this not only because the situation is beyond ridiculous and belongs here by default, but also because now and then it’s nice to be reminded of what exactly our elected officials *are* getting paid for and how out of whack it is with what they’re *supposed* to be getting paid for.

Would You Eat Your Buddies In A Blizzard?

There’s a 35% chance that I would,
which I’m sure by internet logic makes me some sort of fag. But to be fair, it’s kind of hard to answer honestly when you’re sitting in the comfort of your own home with a fridge full of food a short distance away. My humanity loving, vagina sporting self might just turn into a killing machine once the stomach starts growling, you never know.

I’m Drunk?

Here’s another episode of “look at how Carin and Steve spend their free time.” For some odd reason we couldn’t sleep, so we found an old rerun of Cops. Ooo! More crackheads getting halled off to jail! Fun! But in this case, they caught someone who was driving drunk. They started to do the field sobriety test, and were doing the part where they make the person stand on one foot and count to 30. I thought to myself, “Can I do that?” Apparently, I can’t. Steve and I both tried it, and although Steve did much, much better than me, there was a lot of arm-extending and hopping.

Because I’m a big loser, I looked up the parts of a field sobriety test. Here was the part we were having trouble with.

In the One-Leg Stand test, the suspect is instructed to stand with one foot approximately six inches off the ground and count aloud by thousands (One thousand-one, one thousand-two, etc.) until told to put the foot down. The officer times the subject for 30 seconds. The officer looks for four indicators of impairment, including swaying while balancing, using arms to balance, hopping to maintain balance, and putting the foot down. NHTSA research indicates that 83 percent of individuals who exhibit two or more such indicators in the performance of the test will have a BAC of 0.08 or greater (Stuster and Burns, 1998).

Uh-oh. We’re drunk and didn’t even have any booze! No fair! I think Trixie must have thought we were pretty weird, swaying, counting, hopping, putting our foot up and down, up and down.

All I can say is it’s a good thing there’s something else other than apparent drunkenness standing in the way of me driving a car.

Trixie’s Letter To Teddy

Trixie speaks
Dear Teddy, the dog who stays outside a lot near the place where I do my business:

I know you haven’t been here as long as I have, but you’ve been here a long time. I remember when you were just a wee puppy and liked to jump at me when I was out on my long long long long leash that goes in and out, in and out. Why is it that lots of times when I come out to do my business, you act like you’ve never seen me before? Why do you bellow at me? I always come out at the same times. Sure, I come out for some extra times, but the times you stand out there and go “roo rrroooo roorroorrroorrerrrooroooo!” are the times when I always come out. Why do you act so surprised to see me? Do you not remember things from day to day? It must be so confusing for you, not knowing when you get fed, when you go to sleep, when anything happens. When you were small, did you go shukh shukh shukh flop flop on the floor on your head too hard and the stuff inside there broke? Is that why you can’t remember things?

I hope at some point you will remember me, and stop screaming at me when I’m trying to pee. It’s really hard to let myself pee and poop when you’re standing over there yelling obsenities at me! I have no problem with you. Can’t we be friends?

Yours hopefully,

Trixie

He Didn’t Know His Defense Was Dead Until The Trial Was Concluded

So, we’re expected to believe that

  • Mark Dixie happened upon a woman lying in a pool of blood and covered in stab wounds in a driveway,
  • decided that this was one hot babe,
  • screwed her and didn’t realize she was dead until he was done,
  • and his DNA was found in another woman who was brutally attacked, but he had nothing to do with that one either.

Riiiiiight! Anyone who believes that should contact me to find out about some Oceanfront property in Arizona I could sell you.

Go! To Sleep Airlines

It’s never explained in this article why they think pilots fell asleep while flying and overshot their destination. Come on! It was a 45-minute flight!

Just imagine that voice recorder. Let’s hope it didn’t capture any z’s.

All I can say, in this case at least, is thank god for autopilot. Then again, maybe it was because of the autopilot that they kicked back and had a nap.

>I’d Rather Be In Jail Than In The Ground

>Here’s a piece of advice for women who have suicidal, homicidal x-boyfriends and the police tell you that if you call them one more time about him, they’ll arrest you both. If you really feel he’s going to kill you, go ahead and call. you’ll be in jail, but you’ll both be alive.

god damn this story makes me sad. I don’t know how many times Natasha Hall called police, but this sounds like a story I heard all too often when I volunteered at the women’s shelter. Not all police realize a lot of these guys are pretty deranged and don’t give a flying fuck about restraining orders. Granted, they should know this by now, it’s been demonstrated again, and again, and again, but they don’t.

I’m out of words, and tragically, so is Natasha Hall.

They’re Gonna Laugh When Everybody Hears, Your Name

This isn’t really interesting, only funny. I got a telemarketer call. It was a run of the mill call. After the regular short pause, a voice came on and said, “Hello. Is this Carin?” I answered. Then he said, “Hi Carin. My name is Sam Malone…” after that, I was a lost cause. I held it together for, hmmm, 5 seconds? Yeah. That sounds about right. After he got through about three quarters of his first sentence, I couldn’t resist. I asked him if he in fact said his name was Sam Malone. When he said yes, uproarious laughter ensued! I’m such a jerk.

I tried once again to get it together and apologize to this hapless fellow who was probably named long before Cheers was created, but Steve heard me say this and yelled “nooooorm!” This sent me into another fit of laughter. I’m sure poor Sam Malone was about ready to kill me. Me, and the other stream of callers who just laughed him off the phone today, and every day, all the damn time…

If Sam Malone has a blog, I think today it would say, “today I got laughed at for my name…again…by some blind chick who wouldn’t even take my mail literature. If I ever find either Ted Danson or the producers of cheers, they’ll rue the day they crossed the real Sam Malone!”

On the other hand, maybe it’s an effective tactic. After the caller feels bad for basically laughing in the guy’s face for having what would be a pretty ordinary name, they want to make themselves feel better by giving generously to his charity. That must be it. Otherwise, why would he keep giving out his whole name? Why not just say your name is Sam? If the policy is that you must give your full name, why not make this one guy an alias for the sake of his sanity? In any case, the Police and Firefighters’ Games Fund may be getting some money from me. Maybe I can leave a note that says “Tell Sam Malone I’m sorry.”

In The Mood For What?


Over the years I’ve heard the song In The Mood by Glenn Miller at least a few thousand times, but when it came on the radio today something occurred to me. Does anybody other than Glenn and maybe the rest of the orchestra actually know what he’s in the mood for? It’s kind of hard to tell since we don’t have any lyrics to work with. Sure we can go with the obvious and likely correct answer and say sex, but what if we’re wrong? You know what they say about assuming things, and if there’s one thing you’ll never catch me doing it’s making an ass out of myself.

“Oh Steve,” I hear you sigh. “It’s just a happy little song about sex or love or walks in the park or sunny days or maybe even fluffy kitty cats. Why can’t you just be happy and enjoy the music?”

“Well,” I hear me respond, “because I wanna know.”

Enjoying the music isn’t the issue. I love that song. I just want to know what it is I’m enjoying. Sure it might sound all happy and fun, but when you’ve been watching people for as long as I have, you tend to learn a few things. Chief among them is that things aren’t always as they appear. So what might sound like a walk in the park to you or I could be the musical equivalent of the feeling Glenn Miller gets after he’s just mugged an old woman or kicked a puppy down a flight of stairs. Call me crazy if you want, but who’s going to be laughing when you figure out that all these years you’ve been bouncing around to a song written by a guy who’s singing “baba daba daba, let’s torch a church” in his head every time he plays it? Me, that’s who. Me and perhaps Glenn Miller, wherever he is.