Stop In The Name Of The Anthem

Man, I’m all for patriotism, but having all traffic stop for the National anthem sounds like a recipe for disaster. Thank god, when someone proposed that bit of legislation in Thailand, someone else thought they should think about it for a while.

Imagine if you missed the memo? Then, after you smashed into your fellow motorist, would emergency vehicles have to stay stopped until the song was over? What if an ambulance was racing to save someone. Would they have to stay stopped? And even if they were given the ok to go ahead, they couldn’t move anyway with all the stopped motorists. Yeah, this is for the good of the country.

It’s A Real Cool Pub, And You’re Not Part Of It

Maybe I’m crazy, but the idea of a bar setting up a swipe card system to keep the crazy drunks out just sounds dumbest of dumb. But that’s what the Pelham Buckle in Britain is doing.

Here’s the first reason this just seems idiotic. How many times do people try out a new bar just for the hell of it? Isn’t it like shooting yourself in the foot to keep new people from finding your bar? Sure, some of them could be drunken fools, but some of them might become regulars. The way it’s set up now, you have to hope none of your regulars move, or die, or get pissed off at the way things are run and stop coming.

Second, what if one of your regulars becomes a crazy drunk? What if one day, he has a really shitty run of luck, he goes to your bar to drown his sorrows, and goes nuts? Are you going to have to change the card and reissue them to everyone but him? Good people can go bad.

Third, how does a customber become a regular? What if they are a perfectly good guy, but only go there sometimes? Is it *clang* no booze for them because they don’t go there more than once a week?

And here’s the final stupidity. More pubs are looking at this system as a solution to keep out the roudies. I think they’d better change their name from pub to something else, because doesn’t “pub” signify public? This isn’t so public anymore. I guess they’d be privs then?

Special Water For Woofer

Good lord this is stupid. Some people are throwing money away buying bottled water. Now, they can throw money away buying bottled water for their pets!

The company, Aquience, says that all pets, but particularly cats, aren’t getting enough liquid in their diet, and are getting urinary disorders. So they decided to sell bottled water just for the furry members of the household. What makes the water marketed to them? Aquience put what they called natural attractant in the bottled water, so the pets will drink more of it. So instead of giving them just regular water, you can give them water laced with something to make it taste like meat, so they can drink more of it, so along with the water, they can get more of this weird syntho-meat crap. Yeah, I don’t think their aim is really to get animals to drink more water for the sake of their health. They’re just trying to get in on the ridiculousness that is the bottled water market. But people will buy silly things for their pets, so I’ll bet it’ll sell like crazy.

Bad Taste Moved Here

Well, it’s official. We can get KFC failure piles in sad bowls in Canada now, but instead of “famous bowls”, they’re calling them “chicken bowls”. I still look at that and go blech! But I’m curious as to why they’re selling so well. Anybody know? I don’t think I’m brave enough to try one.

And does anyone else notice that the slogan for KFC has changed from “big taste lives here” to “taste lives here”? What? What does that even mean? It’s amazing that they managed to take a dumb slogan and turn it even dumber. What kind of taste lives here. We’ll never know. Now that I think about it, judging from these bowls, I think we do.

A Gold Medal In Huh?

I was reading some new posts on the Mercury’s
From The Editors blog
when I stumbled across
this,
which has me profoundly confused.

On the night of November 10, 2007 we slashed five tires on three dump trucks at the Reids Heritage Homes facility on Hood Street.

This was the first time we’ve ever done something like this. We did it because we want to do our part to stop the 2010 Olympic games in Vancouver, B.C. and the developments and gentrification associated with it.

Coast to coast, in every town and every city business as usual needs to be ground to a halt. As far as Guelph is concerned, we’ll do our part if you do yours!

We are everywhere.
-anonymous

We’ve made the case several times especially over the last couple of years that the activist types around here are pretty damn nuts and not all that bright, but this one might just take the out of context stupidity cake. If you want to correct me feel free, but you’ve got some work to do, mainly explaining how A the childish vandalism of a couple of trucks on a non Olympics related construction site half way across the country is going to stop one of the world’s biggest sporting events from taking place 3 years from now, and B how causing damage that can be fixed in a few minutes by a guy with a wrench is going to grind the wheels of business to a halt. I think I get the part about the gentrification of Vancouver, but is that a real problem where the Olympics are concerned? I’d love it if somebody who has lived or does live in a city that’s hosted them could enlighten me.

I often read things like this and wonder if these people are on drugs. If they aren’t, I suggest they get on some soon. Anything to make the voices stop and the clouds go away.

I’ve got no problem with people sensibly demonstrating for a cause, but a lot of what goes on here lacks any semblance of that. it’s kind of sad because even when they’re standing up for what’s right, they go about things in such a wrong headed way that it taints everything they do. Hopefully one day they’ll start wising up and realizing it. Only then will their message start being taken seriously, and only then will they perhaps start to see some of the change they’re looking for.

Thank God

NHL approves new schedule format.
And only 3 seasons too late.

Honestly, I can’t figure out why they ever bothered changing it in the first place. The reason that was always floated around was that they wanted to create new divisional rivalries and strengthen existing ones, but anybody with a clue should have been able to see that they were going about it the wrong way. If you want people to anticipate rivals squaring off, you need to give them time to anticipate it. Having the Leafs play Ottawa seemingly every second or third game doesn’t make it special, it makes it routine, and if there’s one thing a rivalry should never be, it’s routine.

I’m also glad to hear that they have once again figured out that with 30 teams and 82 games there’s more than enough time for everyone to play everyone else at least once a season, rather than every couple of years like we get under the current system. Why this was ever changed is beyond me, but I’m glad it’s going to be made right.

Some people might argue that the current schedule has been good for business and in some respects it has, but how long could it have lasted? You can only see the same thing so many times before you burn out on it and don’t care anymore. I can’t speak for everybody, but whenever I look at Toronto’s schedule and see another game against Ottawa or Boston or what have you, I cringe and just think christ, not again! Everything needs variety, and no matter how good the games between certain teams are, hockey is no different.

So bring on next season, I can’t wait. it’ll be awesome to see different things again, like the Leafs crumbling in the third against a greater number of teams in front of new fans in different buildings. Woo!

Love And Marriage…And Plugs And Whining

Well, long time, no chat. I’d apologize for not being around a whole lot over the last little while, but to be honest, I doubt any of you really missed me all that much if you missed me at all.

So where have I been? Well for starters, my sleep has gone to hell in a handbasket lately to the point where it’s been all I can do to carry on conversations or even remember things I just heard. I managed to send a few things to Carin for posting and leave a comment here and there, but that’s about it.

Besides that, I managed to find enough energy to do some family visiting and watch part of a concert over the weekend.
Band.Zero,
who I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned here a time or 2 before, have done some recording and now have shiny new CD’s to give away. That’s right, give away. I got mine on Saturday at their release party but if you missed out, and judging from the turnout you probably did, why not head over to the MySpace linked above and ask for one? Whether or not they’ll stop being assholes for a few minutes and drop one in the mail for you is anybody’s guess, but hey, it’s worth a try. If you do, tell ’em Steve sent ya. it won’t make your odds of getting one any better, but why not?

I finally listened to my copy this morning, and I have to say that it’s pretty decent for a first effort from a bunch of guys who know fuck all about recording and were learning as they went. My biggest problem with it is that there’s too much compression on everything which makes the music sound way too processed. When you’re listening to loud punk rock it should sound fun and loud, not digitally held down. But that aside, I enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to the next one.

That’s all for now. Wow, hell of a post this was. Sorry for wasting everybody’s time. In an effort to make it up to you, please accept this
video of Al Bundy making fun of fat chicks
as a token of my appreciation for you all…even the fat ones. And note to the blind people: You’ll have to press the pause button to get it to start, just so you know.

Ok, bye for now.

Yep, That’s Definitely A Disaster

Here I go again, ragging on Britain. But in this case, I think they deserve a whole hell of a lot more.

A junior official decided that the best way to send two computer disks full of the bank account and personal info of every British citizen receiving the child benefit, i.e. every family in Britain, i.e. 25 million British people, between government departments would be to a. not encrypt the data, b. not track it, and c. hand it over to a bike courier. Anybody see where this is going?

Those disks have now mysteriously disappeared, some British officials are resigning, and the Prime Minister is “profoundly regretting and apologizing for the inconvenience and worries this has caused millions of families.” Uh, inconvenience and worries? That’s kind of like saying that a few people died when the Titanic went down.

They say the police are involved, and there’s no sign of criminal activity…yet. But that’s a big yet. Let’s hope and pray, for the sake of all those families, that the disks are lost in a dumpster somewhere, now unusable, keeping all that info out of the wrong hands.

The Most Horriblest Song Of My Life

Ug. I heard a horrid song on the radio. This wouldn’t be all that special, there are lots of horrid songs on the radio. But this song made me want to kill its author. It was called Lonely Day, and System of a Down unleashed this attrocity on us. So why was this song so unbelievably horrid? There was one line that kept repeating. The line was “The most loneliest day of my life.”

Pardon me? I know all about poetic license, but even if they did that on purpose, it still sounds completely stupid! It’s one of those things that makes me jump when I hear it, the same way hearing someone saying “I seen” is like a fingernail going down a chalkboard for me. I keep picturing this tiny little kid saying “This is the most yummiest chocolate bar ever!”

I mustn’t be the only one who thinks it sounds dumb dumb dumb. There’s a whole forum thread on the subject.

I don’t know what it was, but this song really bugged me today. Am I nuts? Oh yeah, I am. this has already been established.

And Now, Back To Your Regularly Scheduled USB Absurdity

Did you really think that there would be two useful USB products in a row? Not a friggin chance!

Now, if the USB scented oil burner isn’t enough risk for you, its makers have created a USB greenhouse!

It comes with some seeds, some soil, a grow light, and a program that will tell you how your plants are doing, or remind you to water them. Yeah, because watering something near your computer is a smart, smart idea. I have this sneaking suspicion that Brando, the company making these things, is trying to thin the herd.

If you really don’t have faith in your ability to keep a plant, I think a safer option would be the Botanicalls service.