Somebody Please Set Me Straight on This!

I’m feeling kind of dumb in the money sense department right now as I read this, so I hope someone who knows all about stocks and mutual funds can tell me that I’m not reading this correctly. From what I understand, it sounds like CNIB has sunk to a brand new low and is asking people if they’d like to hand over their investments to the CNIB so they can get some kind of tax break. And they’re not asking for part of it, it sounds like they’re asking for it all! But…but…but…isn’t the purpose of mutual funds and investments to save for retirement? Why would a charity ask for a big chunk of what is supposed to be someone’s retirement income? Are they really getting that desperate?

I hope I am thoroughly confused. I really hope I am. I hope someone reading this can explain this to me.

The TD bank machines talk…sort of!

Jen sent me a news story saying that the new TD green machines are supposed to talk! This made me have a sudden, unexplainable need to get out $20, so off I went to the bank with a headset in my pocket.

And I found that the machines do in fact have a headphone jack, which means the only reason for that jack is so you can plug in a headset and get speech! So I plugged in!

I still don’t know if it was just a glitch or not, but the machine I was using refused to talk until I selected a language. hey great designer of the audio guideance system. If I need the audio guidance system, no! visual! only! prompts! please! You try completing that first step blindfolded and see how far you get.

Then, when the voice came to life, it was a little too quiet, especially if you’re in a room full of beeping, booping, shrieking bank machines. I even had a set of headphones with volume control, and I couldn’t make it louder! Please please please make that voice a wee bit louder.

Most of the process was pretty cool though. The only other thing was, when I was entering the amount to withdraw, there was a decimal point that I had to enter. If I didn’t, I thought it might try to withdraw 20 cents and protest, or $2000! Since the second was not an option, I had to ask where the decimal point was because it didn’t tell me in the audio system whether or not one was needed.

So, to anyone who has TD. If you can shove headphones in your pocket and try the audio out, tell me whether your machine tells you to select a language before it will speak, or whether it will speak right away. I want to know if it was just a glitch or not. Thank youTD for making your machines talk. Now, just tweak those few things and I will be a very very happy camper.

Whatever the hell comes Out.

I just felt like writing a random post. It sucks, because I can’t remember one of the things I was going to write about as I sit here. Hopefully it’ll come to me.

So it’s less than two weeks until Christmas. So why in hell do I not feel in the Christmas spirit? The Christmas commercials are on, I’ve bought some Christmas presents, the Christmas music is in the stores and the offices. Why do I not feel like singing along? These past few years, I haven’t felt like I’m in the Christmas mood until it’s like Christmas Eve, and then it’s all over and there’s nothing to savour! I don’t even want to watch A Christmas Carol anymore because I’ve seen so many versions and I know how it ends, as much as that part is kind of fun to watch. What is wrong with me? I liked all that Christmas fun. Why can’t I find it now? But I know if there was no Christmas stuff, December would feel so empty.

*bell goes off in my head, or should I say, ding…dong…ding* Now I remember what I was going to talk about. At last, Canadian tire has found a commercial that doesn’t annoy the living hell out of me. No more fiow-plathe kids, no more gift-sniffing dogs. At least this one’s mercifully brief. Maybe this one’s annoying to sighties, but at least I’m not ready to kill any of the characters. Hell I didn’t even know it was for Canadian Tire at first.

I saw Last Laugh 06 on the Comedy Network, and one of the comedians brought up something that had already been swirling around in my head, but I couldn’t exactly put my finger on it until he did. Does anyone else, when they hear about KFC famous bowls, want to hurl?

Ok, they’ve decided to throw popcorn chicken, potatos and corn in a bowl and then, on top of that, slather some kind of gravy and cheese sauce! How did the comedian put it? “Can you pile it all in a bowl so I can eat it like some kind of death row prisoner on suicide watch?” What was his new name for it? The failure pile in a sad bowl? I think I agree!

For a while there, their bowl thing sounded like a nice stew. And then it started to go south. Starting with the, um, popcorn chicken! Why in hell would you put popcorn chicken in a stew? Why not some pieces of chicken that haven’t been KFC’d to death? Then the potatos and corn don’t sound too bad…until you throw a gravy and cheese sauce on top! At that point, the famous bowl starts to sound like dogfood! But apparently, these things are best selling items! Has anyone tried one? Do they actually taste good? Is it me, or should KFC just stick to what they already know? I guess they never will, since these failure piles in sad bowls are doing so well.

Well I think I’m done for now. Maybe I’ll have something else later.

For the Terminally Lazy

Wow. The USB gadgets just keep on comin’. Now we have a USB ashtray! It looks like a little car, but when you open it, a fan comes on to suck the smoke up into a filter so, in theory, others won’t smell it. If I ever saw one of these suckers in an office near me, I just might have to launch a USB missile attack in retaliation for their pollution of the air with their toxic gases. Dude, go outside! How hard is that?

Here’s One For The Hockey Fans

Somebody sent this to me years ago and I always thought it was funny, but for some reason I never got around to putting it up. If you’re not a hockey person there’s a chance that you might be about to get totally lost, and if you’re blind and using a screen reader, the best advice I can give you is to check the spelling on some of these if they don’t make sense right away, because JAWS has a helluva time with hockey player’s names sometimes.

So our day begins at the golf course where I have been battling in the Lindy Ruff all day. We call it quits and head into the club house for some Bob Beers and Some Kelly Buchburgers. After crushing many drinks we decided to hit the local night club to check out some Carl Dykhaus and some Joe Nieuwendykes. So I noticed that I was getting eyeballed by some Neil Shehe and she had a bit of a Doug Weight problem. I thought to myself “I can’t stoop this Patrick Marleau”. She wanted to take off, and I wasn’t sticking around for the ugly lights to come on, so I paid the Rick Tabaracci and we hopped in a Tomas Kaberle.

I took her back to my Phil Housley where things got a little hot and steamy. She geared down and not to my surprise her Keri Taco was a bit Joe Reekie and Jason Wooley. I decided she needed a Bill Barber, pulled out my Donald Brashears and shaved her hair diaper down to the Randy Wood. She then proceeded to trim my Harry Snepts and the bush around my Pekka Rautakeileo. I then reacted quickly and popped her Don Cherry but she was too Ken Dryden, so I flipped her over, grabbed my Haken Loob and threw it in her Curtis Brown with no Tie Domi. After a few pumps she started to complain that she was too Marty Mcsorley to go on. So I snapped and quickly showed her to the Daryl Sydor and told her that maybe I would call her Brendon Morrow. Needless to say, she was Grant Fuhrious. The next morning I had the worst Darren Puppa and I was Valeri Zelepukin all day.

Anyways 2 weeks later I noticed a Travis Green drip oozing from my Mike Babcock. So I booked an appointment with Dr. Randy Greg and got a Corey Schwab. But that isn’t the end of the story!

A month later I woke up and saw Garth Snow outside. The weather man said that there was going to be a 30% chance of a Theo Fleury. My car wouldn’t start so I had to borrow my roommate’s car. It’s not as Chris Osgood as mine and it takes a Robert Luongo time to start, but I was stuck. When I went in his room to get the keys, there was that same Rick Brodsky with my roommate!

She was sucking on his Mike Pecca while Esa Tikkinen his temperature with her finger. I said “buddy, don’t do it! That Butch Goring has the fans clapping! I think she picked it up in Paul Kariya!” But he wouldn’t listen to Marty Reasoner. Finally I just said “keep up the Manny Legace”, and ran out.

Eeewww! and eeewww! Definitely Not a Fan!

Well here goes Jen, giving me more blog ammo. She just told me about something that almost made me hurl. If you’ve just eaten, you may not want to read on.

She apparently saw the commercial for those Mapleleaf precooked sausages that you put in the microwave “for those days when you don’t have time to make breakfast sausages but still want them.” So she thought she’d try them. She doesn’t recommend them, and after this description, neither do I.

They are so greasy that they taste like rubber. They are hard and don’t taste much like saussages. I could squeeze the grease right out of the fuckers. It says that you can cook them in the pan but they don’t taste any better than in the microwave.

Quite the, um, ringing endorsement right there. What is this world coming too? If you don’t have time for breakfast sausages, then I guess you’re not having them that day. I think you have time for some cereal or toast. The solution isn’t to get some pre-made sausages! Eeeww! I wish I had the big long list of adjectives that George Carlin uses to describe himself at the beginning of the album “Life is Worth Losing” because some of them just speak to the laziness of our whole society. At least they did for me. If this keeps going, we’re doomed!

Cool! and Cheap! I’m a Fan!

Jen, who used to comment here and sends me stuff, some of which ends up on here, sent me an email the other day that caught my eye. Someone has set up the coolest website. It’s called Blind Bargains.com!

Remember back a little while ago, when I raged venomously about vendors of access technology trying to overcharge? Well, things have come around! Someone has put together a site where they compile the best deals on anything blindness-related from vendors, auctions, anywhere they can find stuff that we blinks might use. Of course, when you go look at a product, you have to make sure that the seller does ship to wherever you’re from, but the idea is still rockin’ cool! They even have a section where you can ask a guy they call Bargain Bob to look for the best deal on a given product. Damn I wish this had been here a long time ago! Happy shopping!

I think We’ve Found Our Losers!

I think we found the people who just might need the Christmas dinner guests DVD. They’re also likely soon to be the proud owners of a USB Secret Base Emergency Button! Let me let the article explain what this thing does, because frankly, I couldn’t make it sound any more geeky.

Plug it in, press the top to open the shutter and reveal the red emergency key, hit that and… your PC shuts down. Yes, but it’s the way it shuts down that matters.

Up pops an incoming message from your comrades informing you your hidden facility has been targetted by a “suicide bomber” and the only thing to do is to go into lock-down mode. Across your screen the blast-proof steel doors slam, guarding your base from the terrorist’s self-immolation, all presented in a lively on-screen animation.

And then your PC shuts down.

All of this geekery can be yours for only $35 US, which, if you’re geeking out to this level, is probably a pittance since you’re probably a computer scientist or an engineer somewhere. At least I hope you are. Hopefully you’re not still living in your parents’ basement at the age of 41, currently a virgin, and expecting to remain so for…approximately…the rest of your natural life. If I’m lucky, 3 people will get that and laugh histerically.

Another Quick Plug

And this time it isn’t even for something I’m a part of.

This is True author and publisher Randy Cassingham, whose writing I’m a big fan of, has started his own blog, and he’s kicking it off with something that I think is pretty interesting.

Starting from 1994 when True was launched, he’s posting, in chronological order, historical information about how he grew the business from a crazy idea he had one night into what it is today, one of, if not the longest running moneymaking email publications in the entire world. Along with that, he’s also throwing in what he feels are some of the most important things he’s written in True, whether they’re important from a history standpoint or a contextual one.

Once all of this is done he’s not sure what he’s going to do with the thing, but I’m sure he’ll come up with something good, he always does. For now though, it’s a great read for anybody who has ever thought about doing their own thing, or even anybody who’s ever been curious about how somebody can make a small business work.