Ok, this morning, after I got off the bus, I realized that I was kind of hungry. Since the place where I was going to answer the phones doesn’t have a lot of food, I thought I’d nip into this cute little restaurant nearby and grab some takeout. So up the street I came, not sure if they would be open or not. As I crossed the street, I could smell the wonderful aroma of hope! It smelled like they were open! So I walked up to the door, and damn it, they were still closed! Damn those bastards, teasing me like that.
I Drank Tea, Look Out, World!
Oh boy. This morning, I woke up and decided I felt like having a cup of tea. Sometimes, I can have tea, and nothing will happen. But sometimes, sometimes, … the sheer tornado of energy created by having a tea rivals the cuppa soup craze! And that’s what I feel right now. So I’m going to try and harness it and write a post before I have to go somewhere and answer phones for 4 hours. It’s random rampage time!
Sorry for being suckily inconsistent at posting lately. The sad thing is I have ideas, but I never seem to have the time or energy to write them down. Remember that horrible anti-smoking ad where this beautiful woman turns into this ugly hag who is hacking up a lung and all it says is, “Smoking! It’ll suck the life…right out of you.” Well, sub in job-searching, and change the hag from hacking up a lung to, hmmm, what can we do to her? Maybe she has an ulcer and a heart attack. Some days last week, I felt like that old hag. God damn it I hate scouring postings hoping something will come through. It especially sucks when I have to go the extra mile just to complete their minimum requirements sometimes. I bust my ass and most times, I get a big fat nooo! Oh well, somehow, some way, some day I will find something, and I will have earned it, god damn it! So that’s my lame excuse for having no energy to post what few ideas I have. Ok I’ll stop complaining like a snivelling baby and move on.
Wouldn’t you agree that sending me junk mail about conservation is…well…not very conservation-minded? It would be one thing if they had pamphlets available for those who *wanted* them. But if you’re going to force it on me, I’m only going to throw it away! Way to waste another few trees, environmentalist jackass!
After years of making envelopes, you’d think they’d make the crap you have to lick to seal them taste a little less gross. Ug. I just thought about that, well, actually Steve thought about it, when he was sealing an envelope, and he’s right. It’s nasty. Ok, maybe we’re both just weird.
Holy crap the weather sucked yesterday. I saw rain, snow and hail! What the hell? At least the snow didn’t stay, but snow in October sucks! If winter comes early, I’ll cry. As much as I don’t want our part of the world to sizzle on the grill of global warming, I would like to have winter stick to the months where it’s supposed to be cold! Looks like it’s time for me to start whistling First of May so I can make myself think happy thoughts, about, uh, the end of winter, not the rest of it. Yes, I said whistling.
I saw something that always makes me laugh a little. I was walking down a nearly deserted street with a friend, and a man was walking on the other side of the street, ranting as if he’s standing before a church congregation. But there is no one there. As we continued walking, he came over to the other side. He was ranting away, and then when he got really close to us, he stopped ranting and said to us, “hello, ladies, have a good day.” Then he stayed silent until we were a fair distance away and then started ranting again. I know these people have problems, but they’re aware that they shouldn’t be ranting in front of people, so why do they do it? It baffles me. It kind of reminds me of the dude who was yelling at no one in particular, and then took notice of dad’s truck, a Dodge Dakota, and said, “…and Dakotas suck!” Ok, chief.
And shit I gotta run! Gotta go answer those phones I was talking about! Hope I don’t miss the bus!
Brownie Camp? Try Boot Camp!
I get some interesting responses when I tell people I’ll be heading away to guide dog school. Some people are just shocked that I have to go away for a month, some people want to know what happens there. And some people think I’m going away for a month for a vacation. I mention where it is, and they go “Ooo! You’re going to California! That’ll be nice, lounging on the beach and all. I hope you get a nice tan…” or “So, since you’re living with these people, is it like Brownie camp? Are you going to sit around a campfire and make smores and sing songs?”
No! I’m going to school! Sure there is going to be some fun, but it’s going to be primarily work, and I’m going to be exhausted at the end. There will be very little lounging. I will be up at 6-ish in the morning so that I can feed my dog and let it do its morning business and then I have to get ready and eat, and stuff starts at 8 or so! It is a full day, and there’s a ton to learn. It is going to be draining. It is not going to be a fucking walk in the park.
Sure, I’m looking forward to it, and sure I hope I meet some cool people, but I’m sick of people making me feel like I’m using guide dog school as an excuse to sip drinks and lounge on the beach for a month.
Before you Say you Comply with the ADA, You Might Want to Know What a Disability is.
Excuse me while I vent a little. Boy am I ever pissed off. I think this will rival my rabbid rage-fest about Bell. Oh no, that one will win hands down just for length and complete lack of clarity, oh and number of hahahaha’s. Ok, so this post gets one of those now. Let’s go.
I get really good news today, so why does it turn into a piss-fest you say? Well I’ll explain. I got a follow-up call on a job I applied for. I just about jumped through the roof. She’s like ok well I just want you to complete these tests and then we’ll see how you do. I’m like ok, are these tests all text and do they have any time-limits? She said I think they’re all text and there are no time limits. So I run off like a good little potential client services assistant to do my test. I se that she has sent me a full battery of tests, 8 of them. I just about shit myself, but I set off to do them. I open the website and they say that there is no overall time-limit, except that there is a time-limit of a half-hour per question so as not to be discriminatory, and comply with the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act). I just about jump through the roof with happiness. A web-designer that understands people with disabilities might have trouble with a website. That means they probably get the blindness thing. I completed a basic math test, and as far as I can tell, I aced it. I moved on to the next test. About four questions in, I get to a question on interpreting tables. The question reads: “Please compare the following list with the order form below.” There! is! no! order! form! below! If there is, it is in a bloody, fucking, blasted, son of a bitch, motherfucking, cocksucking, everloving, piece of shit picture! I! don’t! do! pictures!
raaaaaar!
Oh that felt good. I’m gonna have to do that again.
Raaaaaaar!
Process that for a while. In order to be compliant with the ADA, I would think you’d have to do some fucking research. And it would not take you very long to come to the conclusion that pictures don’t work, folks. Hey webmasters. Here’s some help. How about starting here That would be a fine start. Then keep going. Ya know? Live up to the commitment of actual compliance with ADA? I don’t give a rat’s ass on most websites if the pictures aren’t labelled super well. As long as I can fight my way through, it’s cool. But if you’re a testing website, whose results may decide someone’s fate when it comes to employment, do it right, folks!
And that would be the place where I usually would stop. But there’s more. In trying to do this test, they mentioned a tech support line and said you could phone it 24 hours a day from Monday to Friday. So I do. I am greeted by a heavily-accented voice that can barely say the name of the company followed by, “howcanihelpyou?” You know the way mumbly accents sound? Like it’s all one word? I tell him that I’m blind, and half of the question is in picture form, so can he please log in and read me the contents of the picture so that I can complete the question if I give him my session ID? He responds with, “Uh…so what is the problem?” Keep in mind that, although I have a half-hour per question, the clock *is* ticking. I explain it again, very…slowly. He tries to deny that it has a picture. I tell him, dude, if my screen-reader isn’t reading it, it’s probably a picture. JAWS doesn’t make a routine out of reading only half the screen. He puts me on hold, and then comes back and says, “Yes. It’s a picture. I can read this question to you, but there will be other ones later on.” I shoot back, “Well then I know where to phone when I run into another question with a picture, don’t I now?” He says, “Well no. Get someone with sight to read it to you.” And that’s when every bloody part of me raises up in absolute rage. Newsflash, asscrap, if you want to be ADA-compliant, that doesn’t mean the blinks have to call over sighties. It means that I can complete the test, and if I can’t, you fuckers deal with the consequences. Oh my oh my oh my oh my I was mad. I told him that this was obviously not compliant with the ADA, as the site stated. He told me I had to tell this to the person who gave me the test. I told him I would have no problem doing that, but I expected that he would tell his superiors as well. He’s like, well maybe I could. Maybe? It’s their damn site! Really, me telling the person who told me to go do this test will do exactly nothing. If he tells the people in charge of the site, something might actually happen. It would be like someone recommending that I try out this new MP3-player, the MP3-player being broken when I bought it, and then when I told the company that it was broken, they would tell me I should really address my concerns to Bill Jones over there who told me to go give their product a try. Wouldn’t that be ridiculous? I couldn’t believe he made me feel like it was primarily my responsibility to deal with this, and that he had no obligation to pass the message along, even when he realized that yes, there were pictures, and no, they wouldn’t work for me.
I hung up the phone, and had to tell this person offering me a job that I couldn’t complete the test because of, gulp, issues between the screen-reader, gulp, the thing that makes my computer, gulp, talk, because I’m, gulp, blind, and pray that didn’t send my resume and cover letter straight to file 13. Of course when I spoke to them, there were no gulps, but I hate telling people who have any sort of control over whether or not I get a chance at something about the whole blindness thing any sooner than I have to, because people hear the word blind and shut down. So thank you very much, Prove it, for perhaps jeopardizing a job opportunity. Thank you ever so much. And now would be a wonderful time to head back to the drawing board on your accessibility plan, fucknuts! Raaaaar!
Pet Look-Alike? How About Pet-Think-Alike!
Steve sent me this story a few days ago, but I’ve either been too busy, too tired or not here at all so it didn’t get posted until now, which is a tragedy! Ok, let’s start roasting!
Owners sue LA agency for not turning pets into stars
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Stage mothers for a Rottweiler and other dogs have sued a company called Hollywood Paws for failing to turn their pooches into stars.
More than a dozen pet owners contend the company collected tens of thousands of dollars but never delivered on promises to get film and television auditions for their pets.
I was sympathetic to them, until I read…
“I lost a lot of money,” said Rachel Armstrong, owner of Goliath the Rottweiler.
Armstrong said she believed her dog had the “cool” factor that would get him into music videos and paid nearly US$2,000 to Hollywood Paws LLC for training.
All she got was a rejection from “The Tyra Banks Show.”
First of all, cool factor? He’s a dog! I love dogs, but this is over the top! And if she even got a letter from any show, they did what they could. Maybe he’s meant to be, um, a dog?
Lawyer Cynthia Mulvihill filed the suit in Superior Court earlier this month.
How much do you want to bet that *when* this case flops, these same people sue this lawyer for not getting them a win as promised?
“Who wouldn’t want to be told, ‘Hey your member of the family is beautiful and should be in the movies’?” she asked.
And what did that even have to do with whether or not this thing even belongs in a court?
Hollywood Paws offers training in such media skills as getting a pooch or cat to crawl, freeze or scratch on command.
On its Web site, the company warns: “Completing these courses won’t guarantee that your house pet will become a screen pet.”
What’s that sound? Your case evapourating?
The business also has a talent agency and bills itself as “a way to effectively link animal actors and studio trainers with professionals in the entertainment industry looking for new talent.”
Hollywood Paws owner Larry Lionetti contends he never promised acting jobs, although he said several animals had won spots in commercials.
“Everybody knows down in your town that there are actors and actresses waiting on tables until a part comes along,” he said. “Who in L.A. doesn’t know this?”
This concludes another episode of wow, we’re stupid! What’s going to become of us?
Is Evolution Eliminating our Spines?
Wow. If this crap continues, there is no hope for us. My comments are in bold.
Ban ‘evil’ Harry Potter, board told
Oct. 4, 2006. 09:02 AM
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ATLANTA – A suburban county that sparked a public outcry when its libraries temporarily eliminated funding for Spanish-language fiction is now being asked to ban Harry Potter books from its schools.
Laura Mallory, a mother of four, told a hearing officer for the Gwinnett County Board of Education on Tuesday that the popular fiction series is an “evil” attempt to indoctrinate children in the Wicca religion.
and they’re bothering to have this hearing because? Are we to extend this logic and say that Alice in Wonderland indoctrinated children in the taking of acid? Come the fuck on! It’s fiction!
Board of Education attorney Victoria Sweeny said that if schools were to remove all books containing reference to witches, they would have to ban “Macbeth” and “Cinderella.”
Stands up and cheers. But who knos? She was probably fired because she possessed far too high a level of critical thinking skills to be trusted and considered safe.
“There’s a mountain of evidence for keeping Harry Potter,” she said, adding that the books don’t support any particular religion but present instead universal themes of friendship and overcoming adversity.
Duh!
In June, the county’s library board eliminated the $3,000 that had been set aside to buy Spanish-language fiction in the coming fiscal year. One board member said the move came after some residents objected to using taxpayer dollars to entertain readers who might be illegal immigrants.
Oh yeah, this is Georgia. Oh excuse me. That was very bigoted and evil. And probably unfair. It seems attitudes like these are running fucking rampent.
Days later, the board reversed its decision amid accusations that the move was anti-Hispanic.
Again, duh!
This is the point where I wonder if we humans even have a spine anymore. Do we just give in to one whiny bitch who cries loud enough? Does a person only have to use magic buzz words to get their way, not a logical brain and some common sense? It seems to be the way to go, because somewhere else in Georgia, another loud and whiny bitch shrieked that bananas were offensive, and now they are. What the fuck? Somebody save the spine before it goes extinct!
Uh, the Helmet was the problem?
Just read this and let it settle in.
Nude motorcyclist ticketed for wearing wrong helmet
GUELPH (Oct 4, 2006)
A motorcyclist wearing nothing but a football helmet was ticketed Monday evening after Guelph Police received several calls about the nude rider.
Sergeant Cate Welsh said police got a number of calls about the bareback rider making his way through the downtown area about 11:20 p.m. An officer stopped the man on Elizabeth Street and found the unusual ride to be a prank.
“He was being filmed by a local car enthusiast club,” Welsh said.
The rider got a ticket for not wearing an approved motorcycle helmet.
So what can we take from this? It’s ok to go nude, just wear the right helmet?
They got Sick! Real Quick!
Ok, this just pisses me off because I thought people knew better.
Taken from the story in Google News
A five-year-old boy needed a liver transplant after he and his family were severely poisoned by wild mushrooms they picked in Waterloo and ate for dinner last week.
Ok, how did a whole family miss the infamous don’t put it in your mouth ad? Those certainly weren’t muffins or beets, and they sure got sick, real quick.
Failing that, did this family miss the six zillion warnings I’ve heard to not eat wild mushrooms? The ones that say that they could kill you? How’d they manage it? It never said in the article anywhere that these mushrooms looked exactly the same as some mushrooms that this family knew were eddible. It just sounded like the family decided to go for a stroll and get close to nature and pick some mushrooms they saw along the way that looked yummy. Now, because of their stupididy, their little boy will probably never be the same. He’s damn lucky to be alive, that’s for sure. But it makes me mad that something so stupidly preventable wasn’t prevented.
Mommy, it’s Over!
Well, I can’t believe it. Friday will come around again, and there will be one less thing to do, and that is check Jonathan Coulton’s website for the Thing a Week! Sniff sniff! He has decided that, after writing 52 things a week, he deserves a break, and rightly so. He says he will continue to write music, just not on such a strict schedule, and who can blame him? Christ I couldn’t put out anything of any quality once a week for a year if my life depended on it. So I hope he enjoys his break, and I’m sure I will enjoy whatever he puts out next.
The Pedestrians on the Street go Squish Squish Squish?
If some day I’m no longer posting on here and I mysteriously disappear, you can probably guess that I was hit by an insane driver. What is with the drivers up in this part of town? It’s like they don’t bother to look at traffic lights and just barge on through. I know we live on a street that merges with a highway, but here’s a tip. When you’re at a traffic light, it’s not the highway anymore! People do cross there. I have almost been hit by a city bus and several cars, and most times, someone has come by right about then and said yes, it was my time to cross. One day, an older lady who always wants to look out for me walked up to one of these cars, managed to knock on his window without getting ploughed down, and basically told him he should learn to drive better because he almost hit a blind lady. I wished she hadn’t made a scene and was glad she told the driver off and nothing happened to her, all at the same time.
I don’t know how more people don’t die at this intersection. Several times a day, I hear long stretches of squealing tires, but miraculously, I’ve never heard the smash that should follow. Honestly, I see more and more reasons why everyone who drives a car should be tested every few years to see if it’s safe for humanity to let them drive, and some people’s driving privileges should be revoked immediately!