Aaaaa! Not Yet!

I was sitting with a friend yesterday when she suddenly turned to me and said, “You have a big patch of grey hair!” This freaked me out, because I’m only 27! What the hell am I doing with a big spot of grey hair? I know I stress out a lot, maybe I gave them to myself! What a thought?

This started a whole cascade of thoughts. I wondered what it looks like, since I can’t really stand in front of a mirror and check. Ug!

Then I thought, how long until my whole head of hair is grey? What if it happens soon? I always said I wouldn’t rinse my hair, after seeing my mom’s hair destroyed by hair-colouring solution that always smelled more like urine than anything else. I’d watch her walk around with that thing on her head and think, “Why would you willingly wear piss on your head?” I knew it was to look good, but it still seemed wrong. Now her hair is all dry, like straw, and brittle. I don’t want mine to feel that way.

But I don’t want to look like an old hag either! I mean, some people can pull off the dignified grey hair thing, but I think they have to be actually older first. I don’t think I’m that old yet.

Then I thought, god I’m vain. I never wanted to be that way. I’m not the girl who likes to dress up. Hell I hate dressing up. I always feel like I can’t do what I feel comfortable doing because I’ll rip something or dirty something. Ug. Too much work. Plus it doesn’t feel like it suits me.

Then I thought, I think I’m thinking too much, probably adding to my stupid grey hairs.

I wonder how big the patch is now? Maybe after a while, if I get enough of them, people won’t think of me as the lost little kid anymore. Maybe this has its advantages.

Arg….Government!

It just never stops. The government’s quest for more ways to get tax money out of the people. Here’s the latest twist. Get this. There are internet gaming environments like Second Life and World of Warcraft, in which you can play these games and interact with other users. One of the things you can do withother users is buy and sell things. But this is all within the virtual world. This virtual economy is booming, and some of these communities have a virtual GDP rivaling the real GDP’s of some small countries. Apparently, there is now a U.S. congressional committee investigating how to tax these virtual assets. Sure, if user a and user b exchange real money, they know how to tax that, but now they want to tax the virtual stuff, the stuff that never leaves the server on which the game is played.

Hey buds, do you not grasp the difference between virtual and real? If the assets are *virtual*, they don’t actually exist outside the fantasy land of these servers. Therefore, there is no earthly way you can tax them! What’s next? You’re going to tax the assets gained in monopoly games? But they’re still ploughing ahead, wanting to have a report drafted up on this by the end of the year.

All I can say is, stupid government pricks! Do they not know when to stop? Of course they don’t! Why do I bother to ask?

Do I Dare Call it a Debate?

I kind of feel bad not having this up sooner, but time got away from me. Then this whole thing came back to me, and with all the other talk of the municipal election, I felt this had to be posted.

I’m really glad they have debates before an election, not just so you can hear what the politicians’ stances are on issues, but so you can get a feel for who they are. But this debate, which had our five candidates for the two councillors in our part of the city, on top of all of that, was just entertaining. I think some of these people should have had a little more practice.

Let’s get a look at how our candidates did, or at least how I felt they did. First off, there were the two who were already on council, trying to keep their seats. Maggie Laidlaw was cool. She said things that made sense, was able to joke, and you really felt she was comfortable. I guess other people agreed, she’s still here, and got the highest number of votes.

Dan Schnurr, on the other hand, seemed more than a bit nervous. Whenever anyone asked him a hard question, he would sit squarely on the fense and say nothing of any consequence. He confused me, because just when I thought I’d gotten a read on where he stood, he would surprise me. He seemed very conservative, and then he’d talk about his push for social housing. I felt sorry for poor Dan in a way, because as much as I tried to listen to him, his voice bugged the shit out of me. It sounded like he had swallowed one of those king-sized marbles and it was stuck in his vocal chords. I kept calling him Pee-wee Schnurrman.

But oh when you got to the people trying to get on council, that’s where the fun began. I guess I can understand it, since they probably haven’t had much practice with this stuff. First, there was Craig Chamberlain. You could tell he was obviously reading from his notes whenever they asked him a question. In his opening statement, he said something about “this is not about me and how bad I am at public speaking.” I think it was supposed to be a joke, but it was more like a nail in the coffin for me. I don’t remember a thing he said. Sometimes because whatever he spewed out didn’t relate to the question at all, and sometimes because his delivery was so unbelievably distracting. Not only would he stutter and stammer long enough to run out of time, but sometimes he would drastically change his pace of speech from really slow to almost as fast as that guy in the Expedia.ca commercial. Ok not quite that fast, but you know what I mean. I do remember that his campaign was called the common ground campaign. He only said that a zilion times.

Next, there was June Hofland. She went from making perfect sense, like when she talked about things needing to be in walking distance because we need to do less driving, to being kind of funny, like when she talked about how she would meet with her neighbours to discuss things over butter tarts, to looking absolutely positively stupid! Note: when you’re in a debate that could decide whether or not people vote for you, it’s never good to get that deer in the headlights look and go “I … don’t … knooooow!” on several questions. Maybe that just bugged me because it reminded me of other stupid dopes we met in a certain apartment hunt. Come on, show that you know something. Show that you’ve done some research into what you’re going to do for the next four years. At the end, it was like she was pleading for people to give her a chance. “I really want to get onto council so I can learn these things…” Well I guess the pleading worked, she edged out poor old Pee-wee Schnurrman.

But the funniest one of all was Charlie Whittaker, who came in last. Where do I begin? Well, I guess I’ll begin by telling him to turn on his microphone. This guy could not grasp the idea that in order for a microphone to work, you have to turn it on, and in order for it to not feed back when it was time for the next councillor to speak, you have to turn it off when you were done, and could not grasp the concept over the course of a two-hour debate. Steve thought that if we’d listened to the debate later, we should have played the “your microphone please, Charlie” drinking game, where you do a shot whenever the poor moderator had to tell dear old Charlie to turn on or off his microphone. But maybe it’s a good idea we didn’t, because by the end, we would have been completely smashed and unable to understand what they were saying anyway.

But the strangeness wasn’t over once Charlie did get his microphone on and started to talk. When asked what his top issue was, all he could come up with was the beautification of Edinburgh Road. That’s the best he could do? Make one road in the whole ward look better? There wasn’t mention of affordable housing, families, jobs, the garbage situation. Just the beautification of one road.

The best was his complete arrogance. I think he thought he had his seat in the bag already. He must have, because he proclaimed to everyone that he has spent $250 to install a second phone, or “telly phone” as he pronounced it, in his house exclusively for calls from constituents. Well, there’s $250 he’ll be wishing he never spent. How about waiting until you get elected, and then installing your telly phone? Maybe you should also master the micro phone.

Now I just feel like a big meany. I know I would probably suck heartily if I tried to run for council. But I figure if I’m putting myself on public display, I’m opening myself up to be roasted if I don’t at least prepare a little. So I guess they deserved it. But I never knew a debate could be that entertaining!

What’s He Going To Do When They Make Another Movie?

Right now, somewhere in Britain, there is a man walking around named James Dr No From Russia With Love Goldfinger Thunderball You Only Live Twice On Her Majesty’s Secret Service Diamonds Are Forever Live And Let Die The Man With The Golden Gun The Spy Who Loved Me Moonraker For Your Eyes Only Octopussy A View To A Kill The Living Daylights Licence To Kill Golden Eye Tomorrow Never Dies The World Is Not Enough Die Another Day Casino Royale Bond. But the difference between him and the poor kids with names like Superman and Harry Potter [those are their first names] in
this story
is that at least the Bond guy got to make the choice for himself. the others are poor kids who had those names given to them at birth.

I guess the point of this post, other than to point out the complete absurdity of something like this, is to show
Carin
that no matter how bad names get, things can always get worse.

Vote Early, Vote Often?

In a comment under my talking voting machine post, I mentioned Scott Gilbert and voting multiple times. I figure I should explain that, since nobody would get the joke unless they lived in Guelph. Plus, I think he’s a bit of a fool. So since I can’t miss an opportunity to make fun of a fool, off we go.

Scott Gilbert, who ran in the federal election for the communist party, noticed there’s a large loophole in at least the municipal election system. Anybody can show up at a polling station, say they’re someone and that they live on a street that allows them to vote there, and then vote, without showing any ID or proof of address. Then they can go across town and do the same at another polling station, allowing one person to vote multiple times. *If* they are discovered, it’s already too late, the damage has been done, the anonymous ballot has already been cast, and you have no way of tracing it and fixing the count. He thinks anyone who doesn’t have ID should only be able to vote once in a central location. This still allows the homeless, people living in women’s shelters, and anyone who doesn’t have updated ID, to vote and such. It is a well-thought-out solution.

I have to admit, I brought ID and proof of address when I went to vote, since I wasn’t properly on the voter’s list, and they didn’t ask for either. They just took my form with the signature that says yes I am who I say I am. Luckily, for them, that is the truth.

So our young friend decided to call attention to this loophole. By doing what? Voting at five different polling stations. Don’t worry, he spoiled four of the ballots. He was caught, and charged with voting more than once, using false information, and doing so in a place where you are not entitled to vote, or whatever the technical names for those offenses would be. They could carry fines of up to $5000.

Ok, I’m glad he’s trying to seal a loophole. That’s good. If he’d tried everything else, and that was the only way left for him to do it, good on him for wanting to go the extra mile for the public good at his own expense. At least there was a point to his activism, unlike our author of eco-satire from a couple months ago. But here is where he starts becoming a fool. Well, it was actually his girlfriend who made the quote, so maybe she’s the fool, but she was speaking to the media for him, so they’re probably both fools. She said, and I quote, “He would gladly fight this in court to show that he was not in the wrong. He did it solely for the purpose of exposing this loophole in the legislation.”

You’re going to fight this? You’re actually going to try and get off? Are you stupid? Bone stupid? Even if what you did was to prove a point, your point has been made. Now, you have to suck up the fine because point or not, you broke the law, and not fighting the law is the only way your point will stick.

Yup, I can see the confusion. But let me explain. If he actually convinces a judge that he is not in the wrong, and gets off, that sets a dangerous precedent. Now, anyone who commits any kind of voter fraud can point to the Gilbert case and say, “Well, like him, I was proving a point!” Unless the prosecution can prove that the new fraudster was in fact not proving a point, they may get off too. Now, he’s opened up a legal can of worms, and shot his own idea in the foot! If he wants, after the court case is over, he can try and sue the government to get the law changed. But he shouldn’t fight the actual fine. That’s at least the way I see it. But I’m not a lawyer, what the hell do I know?

My thought is if he wasn’t prepared to pay up when he got caught, he shouldn’t have gone out on a limb like that. He did enough research using google maps and postal code lookups to get the fraudulent addresses in order to get ballots at four different polling stations. Maybe he should have done some research on the consequences before he marked his multiple x’s. I hope he doesn’t get off, and really, he should be hoping for the same thing if he has any brains.

Please Press the Thumb Switch.

Now everybody’s staring at me, confused. I can explain!

On Monday, we had our municipal election, and for the first time, because of a cool new talking voting machine, I could vote independently.

Voting has always made me a bit nervous because I’ve always needed some help from the staff at the polling station or, if I was lucky, whoever I could round up to come with me. You see, they thought they had an accessible voting solution that they called a braille ballot. Ya wanna know what it actually was? They would hand me a print ballot and a piece of braille paper with a bunch of round holes. Not so coincidentally, the holes coincided with the number of candidates available to vote for. Then they would have to line the ballot up with the piece of paper with holes and tell me, “If you mark inside the first hole, you’re voting for NDP. If you mark in the second hole, you’re voting conservative.” and on and on it went. Anybody see any problems with this? First, it’s easy for the ballot to go out of alignment when they’re not looking, and bang! I’ve spoiled my ballot.

Second, there’s room for them to either intentionally or unintentionally screw up the order of the holes. I’m not going to accuse them of trying to get me to vote for the wrong person right off the bat because, let’s face it, the number of people who need assistance voting is pretty small, so the chances of changing who wins by tricking them is pretty slim. But there is also the possibility that they would screw up because they have a lot of things to distract them from helping me vote. They always look so busy with books, keeping everything straight, all that good stuff. So they could accidentally tell me that the first hole was conservative when it was NDP or something.

Finally, there’s the prick factor. Some of these people don’t like doing any extra work, and make it very evident. I’ll never forget the 2003 provincial elections. I never felt so much like a third class citizen in my life. I walked in, and they immediately spoke to the girl who was with me. “Will she need help voting?” “Will you be helping her?” This didn’t stop when I spoke right to them. It was as if I was speaking a foreign language that noone understood. I felt like someone must feel when they have aphasia. They speak, sound comes out, but they are completely and utterly ignored and it seems to make no sense to anyone.

Then the staff had the nerve to try and tell me that these holes were braille because they had spoken to someone at the school for the blind and they said it was a workable solution. I don’t care if you spoke to the head of that school, that *isn’t* braille and you’re fooling yourself to think it is.

But at long last, I’ve seen a perfectly workable solution, and audible voting machine! What they do is get you a paper ballot that says audio ballot. Yea, a paper trail! That made me feel better, because the machine can’t just have a glitch and gobble up your vote, leaving no trace. Then they give you a set of headphones and a little wand-like thing with a button on the top. These are connected to the machine that will serve up the audio, and also serves as their ballot-scanner. . So yea! The machine serves another purpose, so might be kept around even if lots of people don’t use the audio function! Then the machine starts talking in the headset. It explains the whole process, and then gives you a practice session. When you want to vote, you press the little button on the top of the wand with your thumb, so I guess that’s why they call it a “thumb switch.” At this point, it beeps to tell you that the vote went through. Then, it confirms that that’s who you want to vote for, and if it is, you hit the button again, and on it goes. Then at the end, it goes over your choices and confirms everything. If something goes wrong, *flinch*, the whole process will start again.

The only goofy thing it does is it explains everything the first time, does the practice session, and then when it comes to voting, it explains! it! all! again! No wonder it takes about 15 minutes to vote this way! They could probably sheer a good five minutes off by explaining everything once. I mean, you get an explanation *and* a practice voting session! How much explanation do you need? But if that’s the way it has to be, I’ll take the extra five minutes to have total control over who I’m voting for.

But other than that, that was a completely awesome voting experience! And, even better, I have the contact info for the company who makes these things, so when it comes time for provincial elections, I can give the info to elections Ontario so we can have them again! No more dealing with pricks at the polls! Hopefully not!

Karen Solves her Problems with a Chainsaw!

Ok, it’s weird dream time again. I had this weird dream the night before last, but I didn’t get a chance to put it up yesterday. Where the hell did this come from?

I dreamed I was down to see Barbie, and I was in her room. Then, she went somewhere and in walked her room-mate Karen. Karen and I were sitting and talking and Karen was telling me she was fascinated with brains. I didn’t think much of it, said I went to school for psych and the brain is fascinating. We talked a while longer and then she said, “Wanna see something scary and neat?” I said sure. She left for a second, and came back with a chainsaw! She started it up and came after me with it! Completely dumbfounded, I asked her why she was after me with a chainsaw, shielding myself with tables, chairs, whatever I could. She just said, “You asked to see something scary.” I tried to run for the door, but she was there first with the chainsaw. I ran the other way, and huddled under Barbie’s desk. She stood over me, slowly cutting through the desk with the blades. It was then that she explained that she wanted my brain. She said she was going to make a copy of it and put it in a robot. She said she would carefully cut through my skull so as not to damage my brain and take it. It seemed there was nowhere to go, the blades were getting closer to my head and there was nothing I could do. Then, I woke up!

What in hell was that? Karen is the last person I’d see wielding a chainsaw. Was that the message? Expect the unexpected? Or was there a message?

Then last night I dreamed Barbie was mad at me for dreaming that. Wow, a sequel to a dream! At least she didn’t whip out a chainsaw too.

Say Hello to an Angry Customer!

God! Damn! It! Do they not think I know that fucking rogers fucking home fucking phone exists? Do they not plaster my TV with that spoiled little brat who has to talk to three people at once, that father who spoils that spoiled brat rotten, that grandma who sounds like a man, and whoever else they can dream up and then make you want to kill them as much as the Canadian Tire family? Oh that is not enough for Rogers executives. Now, they have decided that phoning me twice a day to tell me about Rogers Home Phone is absolutely positively necessary. And, they have decided to *fill* my mailbox with their junkmail. My junk mail over the past week has consisted of pizza fliars, Rogers Home Phone ads, municipal election material, Rogers Home Phone ads, random environmental literature, which cracks me up, and, Rogers Home Phone ads!

But this, in fact, is not enough for these fuckers. Now, they have employed, or otherwise commissioned, a dude to walk around our building slipping more Rogers Home Phone ads through our door. But our special friend here cannot grasp the concept that there is a mail slot in the door, so he slipped the ads through the crack in the door closest to the doorknob. Gaaaaaaa! Enough!

Rogers! You can stop this barrage immediately! Is it not enough that I already have cable, internet, and wireless services with you price-gouging, monopolizing, rate-raising sacks of shit? Do you honestly think I’m going to have phone service with you guys too? If there were better options, and the startup fees didn’t suck, I’d switch everything I had away from you assholes just to teach you a goddamn lesson!

Thought Avalanche!

This monster of a post has been building for a while, and there’s so many different things I want to say that I’m afraid it might get away from me. So try and stay ahead of the thought avalanch if you can! Now that I’ve said that, whatever I could produce will look like nothing at all.

I got thinking the other day about that old song “A Boy Named Sue” by Johnny Cash, and a strange thought entered my head. With the direction names are going, based on the names we have nowadays, that song won’t make any sense anymore! Who knows, we could have a bunch of boys named Sue and people would go, “So he was named Sue! What’s the big deal?” I mean look at all the unisex names out there now. Don’t even get me started on Kyle! This led me to some other strange thoughts. Does anyone remember that Raffi song called Willoughby Wallaby woo where they use a whole bunch of kids’ names, so it would go something like willoughby wallaby warin, an elephant sat on Carin, and willoughby wallaby weve, an elephant sat on Steve? Well with the names we’re getting into now, it’ll never be the same. We’ll have to sing things like willoughby wallaby warter, an elephant sat on Carter, and wiloughby wallaby wuri, and elephant sat on Suri. The names people are coming up with for their kids.

I ended up down another path of thinking about things that will lose their meaning as time goes on. For some odd reason, Steve and I got talking about Sesame Street and Hooper’s General Store, which got me thinking about how no one will know what a general store is. They’ll hear general store and think, “So Hooper had a Walmart?” They won’t get that whole idea of community that came with the idea of a general store. Man our world is getting sad.

Speaking of old things getting lost, I have a weird question for anyone who might know the answer. Anyone who knows me personally will know that my dad can be a weird man. He’s very smart and he has a memory for quotes and famous sayings and song lyrics like no one else. Note I didn’t say he has a good memory. He can only remember small pieces of them, enough to heighten your interest, and then he can’t remember the rest and then he just repeats that piece on an infinite loop. Over the years, I’ve found out the roots to a few of those infinite loops, and have realized that no, dad isn’t crazy, he got these gems from somewhere. But there is one loop that still puzzles me. Often times, dad would randomly sing, “And there was grandma, swingin’ on the outhouse door, without her nighty, with grandpa yellin’ more more more.” Where in the good christ is that from? I’ve punched it into google, and I think there’s some reference to it being in a swing song, but that’s all I can find. Please, someone, solve this mystery for me. I might have to break down and ask dad before it disappears forever!

Some people should just realize that maybe they’re not meant for certain jobs. Like, men who can’t say temperature and insist on saying it like “tempature” should realize that announcing is not their thing. Same goes for the guy who says pokerroom.tv like pokeroo.tv. Say the m! Maybe they should go check their addict for ass-pest-tose. Come on people, you are being paid to speak, presumably clearly, and some people are modeling their speech after you!

Maybe it’s guys like that that made me go get my hearing tested, where I learned a disturbing fact. Did you know that, when you’re an embryo, the same type of cells that make up your kidneys go to form your ears? That’s what the audiologist says, so who am I to question? Makes ya wonder what’s in your ear wax!

Am I the only one who thought, as a kid, that Buddy Holly had a horrible case of the hickups? I kept thinking, “come on dude, get a glass of water or something!”

Every day I find more and more examples of people with enormous gall. I’ve already complained about nosey people so I won’t go into that. But people are always finding new and exciting ways to show that they have big balls. One lady walked up to me and decided that she was going to walk with me to the drugstore where I was going, which was ok. Then she said to me, “You’re so young and pretty, what a waste that you’re blind.” Um, what? I wish I had had the guts to say to her, “I beg your pardon? What makes me such a waste?” But I just waited for her to disappear. Sometimes I wish I had more guts.

Then another woman, after I held the elevator for her because she had a shopping cart, just flat out asked me, “so are you working?” Come on! Most people, when they find themselves with strangers in an elevator, find it brave to talk about the weather, let alone ask each other what their source of income is. Like, where does she get off, besides the fourth floor? Would she ask anyone else that question out of the blue like that? Again, I wish I’d been quicker on my feet and said, “No, but are you offering?” Ah, so many missed opportunities.

I saw the strangest thing in the grocery store. It really speaks to our laziness. I was walking through the grocery store with one of the girls who works there. When we got to a shelf full of toothpaste and shampoo, she said, “Wait a minute. I don’t think this half-drunk milkshake belongs here.” Then she took it a couple aisles over and through it in the trash. I asked her if she finds half-finished milkshakes around the store a lot, since she didn’t seem too shocked by this occurrence, and she said yes! Ok, the only reasonable scenario I can see for that is if you have kids, you set it down so you can fish something out of the other stuff, then your kids distract you and you accidentally leave it behind. But this shouldn’t be happening all the time. Do they think the people who stock shelves should clean up after their lazy asses too? The garbage can wasn’t that far away! Just take it there and be done with it!

And with that, I think I’m out of ideas, and I don’t know if that avalanch could bury a baby. Hope you enjoyed the ride.