It's Bigfoot! Not...

Hey, do you like my blog? Maybe others would like it too. Spread the word!

Some random thoughts and news from the past few days...

• Two people hold a news conference to explain they have a frozen Bigfoot in a box. A couple of "experts" vouch for their claim. The other day, these experts discover upon further examination the Bigfoot is just a costume. Another story to file under DUH!
• A few days ago, a report came out saying the U.S. is vulnerable to cyberattacks which personally I thinkaer345ysdf SATAN RULES SATAN RULES asdgnaernio is total crap and would never happen.
• Any time I see an "Out of Order" sign on a public toilet I wonder what the hell did the last guy do to cause the toilet to break.
• The Thetford Chicken Massacre -- an actual event held in a small town in Quebec -- is where they take live chickens, cut off their heads and throw them in the air and wager on where the chickens will end up on the ground once they stop convulsing. Seriously. The organizers response to criticism is that chickens raised on farms for slaughter are treated far worse than what they do. I hate that sort of argument! What they're basically saying is "Yes, we're doing something bad, but not as bad as that over there!" You know what? You're doing something wrong, and something that's even more wrong doesn't justify what you're doing. "Yes, I stabbed a guy to death, but it's not as bad as that guy over there who used a gun." Make any sense to you?
• A female prisoner in Florida is complaining through her lawyer that she's "uncomfortable" in prison and wants to be let out. Yeah, we'll get right on that, right after we take care of Olympic judging.
• A study apparently is looking into the association between people who have "wide faces" and aggression. How about we focus on the connection between people who actually kill others and violence. Might be more fruitful.
• Three professions where you never want to hear the word "Oops": Your surgeon, a pilot, and your barber.
• If you get pissed off at the Better Business Bureau, who do you complain to?

Random Thoughts for Friday

It's been awhile since I've done some random thoughts. That's partially because I really haven't been thinking randomly for awhile. Actually, I don't think I've been thinking at all. Hmmmmm...

• I was reading how scientists "revealed" an invisibility cloak. Ironic choice of words. What did they do? Point at an empty desk and say: "See the computer monitor on the desk? Good! See how well it's working already?" Isn't this something too easy to fake?
• You know you've become domesticated as a man when you start to leave the toilet seat down in the men's washroom.
• I love how the word "homemade" is used by restaurants. I saw a sign the other day that said "Try our homemade pasta sauce!" In other words, you take individual ingredients and mix them together in your own recipe as opposed to using a pre-made sauce from a jar?! I should sure as hell hope so, otherwise why am I paying you!
• Similarly, I love how "homemade" is used with pre-made sauces and other prepared foods you see in the supermarket. Do me a favour: Don't flatter yourself by calling it "homemade" unless there's a little old lady in your factory mixing the ingredients together herself and pouring it into one jar at a time.
• One last point about restaurants...a general rule of thumb: If I'm going to a place where I'm going to pay someone to make me food, the food they make should not be something I could've easily made at home for 1/2 the cost.
• So it now turns out the some of the olympic fireworks was faked and the little girl who was supposedly singing was actually lip-synching to a pre-recorded version. I wouldn't be surprised if the gymnastics scores weren't "pre-recorded" too, ahem.
• There's a news story that just broke about how a security document from Environment Canada was found on a street corner and how there's concern about it. I'm not sure what the concern is. What's going to happen? Someone going to break into the computer systems and make all the weather forecasts accurate?
• Apparently the regulatory commission in Canada has approved it's own adult channel with -- as newspapers report it, "homegrown talent". No comment.

Plane Stories

I just recently came from from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The flight back actually involved a stop-over in Newark, New Jersey, so I actually did Fort Lauderdale to Newark to Toronto.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm a nervous flyer. I'm not scared, per se, but nervous. I don't like turbulence or anything else out-of-the-ordinary. Unfortunately, both flights home had out-of-the-ordinary moments...

While on the ground at the airport in Fort Lauderdale, the captain launched into his spiel about the upcoming flight -- you know, the stuff no one cares about? "We'll be at 39,000 feet," he says. "We expect it to be a smooth flight." Do you ever hear the pilot say, "You're going to be shitting bricks, folks. This flight's gonna be a rollercoaster!" Of course not.

In the middle of his speech, something happened. "...we'll be in Newark in about 2 hours 32 minutes. The temperature there is about ---" Suddenly the entire plane goes dead! The lights went out. The air flow stopped. The engines shut down. We're on the ground, remember, but still, this eerie silence followed. After about 5 seconds, the pilot said over the intercom: "Oops."

Seriously.

After about another minute, the plane started up again, but it left me thinking the pilot just accidentally turned off the plane! I didn't even realize that was possible! Was there a key he turned the wrong way? Did he blow a fuse? Was there a big, red Off button he accidentally pressed? How does a pilot accidentally turn off a plane?

The rest of the flight to Newark was uneventful, but more than a few of us on the plane were awaiting his next "Oops." *SLAM* "Oops! Forgot to put the landing gear down. Let me make a note of that for next time..."

I thought the short, one hour flight from Newark to Toronto would be easier. Nope! The flight from Newark to Toronto was on a small, 50-person propeller plane. I hate these planes as they bounce around all over the place with the slightest breeze. And is it only me, or do the propellers look like they're going to just fly right off the wings?

In any case, we managed to taxi onto the runway without incident. (Sidenote: Why does a plane "taxi" anywhere, but taxis never "plane"?) The engines revved for take off, and we started moving forward at quite a clip. About halfway down the runway to take off, suddenly the plane lurched, like we were losing speed. It was obvious the propellers were being powered down and the brakes were being applied hard. The takeoff was being aborted.

It's not like we were losing control, but the first question that came to mind was will we stop before the end of the runway? The second question was why did he abort take off? Of course, the second question was only possible to ask because the answer to the first question was "yes".

After successfully slowing down, he pulled off the runway to a secluded corner of the airport away from everything. Everyone was trying to figure out what was happening? Is there a bomb threat against a prop-plane? Was there debris on the runway -- such as another plane?

After waiting for about 5 minutes, the pilot finally came on the intercom: "Ladies and gentleman, unfortunately, we've had to abort the takeoff."

Ummmm, no shit.

"During takeoff, an indicator light came on indicating the rear cargo door was open, so we had to investigate that."

Gee, thanks. Good idea. Someone in the plane mimicked the pilots voice: "...and will the guy who packed please go pick up his luggage that's on runway 29..." Everyone laughed. Better than "Oops."

A few minutes later, the pilot announced they actually couldn't find a problem with the cargo door and perhaps the indicator light wasn't correct. Oh good! We'll just have to test that out, won't we. I can see it now: We're in the air and the pilot comes on the intercom. "Ladies and gentleman. Yeah, that cargo light. It was actually correct! Look at that! Oh and your luggage is in Lake Ontario. In compensation, we'd like to offer you an extra bag of complimentary peanuts."

Finally, we make it back to the runway and just before we takeoff, the pilot announced he hoped to "make up time in the air" due to the delay. But there was a problem with that. The flight is an hour long. We'd been delayed an hour. We were supposed to be in Toronto at 1pm. We were taking off at 1pm! So unless he found some sort of wormhole to take us back in time, I don't think he was going to make up any time at all in the air.

Ultimately, I survived. The luggage survived. And this is why I hate to fly.

In the news for Thursday

Wow, a whole rash of interesting headlines today. I've been asked if I'm making these headlines up. No, the headlines are quite real, usually taken from the Toronto Star and CNN websites. Of course, the comments are my own.

• A Baby Elephant was born at the African Lion Safari yesterday. It promptly rammed a car.
• A South Korean company actually cloned a dog 5 times and sent them to the owner who ordered them. Because they're exact copies, only one of the dogs has to be walked and trained.
• 125,000 gorillas were found in a remote part of Africa, increasing their numbers dramatically. The gorrilas have been there all along, but they had fake id.
• Scientists announced a toxin was found on Mars that suggests life isn't possible on Mars. The specific toxin is still being analyzed, but it appears to be associated with McDonald's Secret Sauce.
• A man agreed to plead guilty to murder in exchange for a bucket of KFC. His lawyers plan on appealing his conviction on the grounds of him suffering cruel and unusual punishment.
• Detroit's mayor is being sent to jail for perjury. He allegedly perjured himself when he was previously in court and swore to tell the truth.

Miami Heat

I've been quiet for the past couple of weeks -- which is a new record for me. Previously, my record for being quiet was about 3 minutes, 20 seconds.

I'm currently in Miami at the moment, on vacation for another few days. I've been gathering some random thoughts, but given the exchange rate, my 10 random Canadian. thoughts are only equal to 3 U.S. thoughts...

• True story: The suntan lotion I bought advertises on the bottle it's "very waterproof -- up to 80 minutes in the water." But the instructions on the back of the bottle say, "to remove lotion, wash off with water." Hmmmmm...does that mean I need to take an 81 minute shower?
• Why is it dog food but chicken feed? Apparently we never actually feed our poor dogs. They know we have the food -- we just never seem to give it to them.
• True story: The weather forecast in Miami for my entire 10-day vacation has been a high of 88F, feeling like about 101F with a chance of scattered thundershowers. There has been no other variation.
• When I take my dog to the pet store, I sometimes wonder if it looks around the shelves and thinks, "Heyyyyy! You've been holding back on me!"
• Little-known fact: Most bittersweet chocolate enters a 12-step program to feel better about itself. About 15% finish the program as semi-sweet and 45% as sweet.
• They now sell suntan lotion with an SPF of 70!! This means once sprayed on your body, you'll be protected from the sun until the year 2013.
• Light mayonnaise is not really mayonnaise. I don't care what anyone says. It's not the same thing and should be banished from store shelves. If you're going to have mayo, have mayo! It's like trying to buy a light doughnut -- it makes no sense to me.
• Does an infant insult another infant by calling it a cry adult?
• Here's a way to solve the world's garbage problems: You know those magician's hats that magicians seem to pull out endless random objects? Just start piling garbage into these things and we should be fine.
• It's amazing how the Tardis on Doctor Who has the entire country of England in it.

In the news...for Wednesday

Wow, it's going to be a hot week. I love the heat -- I feel like I'm in a sauna...but for the entire day. I noticed a few interesting news headlines over the past few days:

• Barack Obama today was quoted as calling the war in Iraq a "dangerous distraction." Therefore he's asked all Iraqis to stop waving their arms in the air and hooting "Over here! Over here!"
• A Hungarian Olympic canoe champion died during training today. While authorities are still investigating the cause, their initial guess was it may have had something to do with the fact the canoe was under water.
• A report in today's newspaper is pointing out how many food companies are "shunning the use of sludge" in growing their food. How do you get into the sludge industry to begin-with? Man, you must be an amazing salesperson to go to a food producer and actually convince them to buy what's essentially the crap found in sewers. "Hey, you know, we've been lacking that one last ingredient in our corn -- maybe we need to add a little sludge..."
• The longest All-Star game in Major League Baseball history was played last night. Additionally, the record for the longest amount of time people didn't care the All-Star Game was being played was set last night.
• Reports are indicating the Chinese government is trying to control the weather for the Olympics, such as preventing rain from occurring during the opening ceremonies. Their strategy is to get all 1 billion people to blow at the clouds all at the same time.
• Steven Page of the Barenaked Ladies was allegedly found to have cocaine on him and was arrested. To capitalize on the arrest, a new lyric was immediately added to the song "If I had a million dollars...I'd post bail."
• The Canadian and US governments announced today that they're proclaiming the economy to be doing "just fine" with "just fine" as being defined as "it really sucks."
• A small town in the US is reporting that dozens of Catfish are actually leaving the water and "walk" -- as Catfish have the ability to do. Scientists investigating the matter found they're fleeing some aggressive Dogfish left off-leash

News...and thoughts

Wow. It's been so long since I wrote in my blog. But I've been busy. Sometimes I actually have a life, though I'm not sure whose life it is...hmmmm. In any case, enough about that.

Some random thoughts on the news and everything else in life...

• My life was going by in such a blur. Then I realized, all I needed was glasses


• The US has the largest number of lawyers per capita in the entire world. Canada has the largest number of doughnut shops in the entire world. Priorities, eh?


• Difference between a nerd and a geek: A nerd is someone who wears glasses and has a pocket protector. A geek is someone who'll decide to build a robot that looks like a nerd.

More in the news...

I'm liking this "In the news" stuff. I can't help it. There's so much to comment on.

• Republican Presidential nominee, John McCain overhauls team to stop 'unforced errors'. It's nice to know that the possible president of the United States views this as a tennis match. In my mind, he's already tripped on the net as he walked out onto the court.
• A report came out from researches in Texas saying that eating a large quantity of watermelon can have a similar effect on the body as Viagra. Apparently, there's a chemical in watermelon that relaxes the blood vessels in a similar way as the pill. Researchers held a brief news conference to announce their findings in between orgies.
• Officials are trying to figure out how to get 15 dolphins trapped in a New Jersey river back out to sea. Apparently ideas range from using really big nets to playing sounds of Orca whales to scare them off. My suggestion is drop a TV into the water and play reruns of Montel Williams. That should scare them off before the first commercial break.
• A "computer glitch" this morning caused some traffic lights in Toronto to remain stuck on red for a period of 2 hours. Not surprisingly, traffic flow was totally unaffected.
• A new study released today reported that Canada was "second last" when it came to climate policies and controls. Without missing a beat, Prime Minister Stephen Harper chimed in, "That report is totally unacceptable to us. We must work harder to be first last."
• A US report indicates 62,000 jobs were lost in June. Luckily, 11,000 of them were recovered when they were found wandering lost in a nearby forest.

In the news...

Well my shingles are finally going away (see previous post), so I'm able to focus again on the news and other interesting stories floating around the internet and in my mind. What a mess!

• From CNN.com: 6 hospital workers disciplined in ER death. Nice. They've been disciplined. "Don't you ever let someone die in your ER again! No dinner for you tonight!" Actually, I believe a few were fired and a few were suspended. Good! Among the reforms agreed to in court Tuesday by the hospital are additional staffing; checking of patients every 15 minutes; and limiting to 25 the number of patients in the psychiatric emergency ward. Ummmm, how about one of the reforms being: Patients in the ER ward shouldn't die! That might be a good reform! Geez.
• From the thestar.ca website regarding why some people liked to watch a fireworks display from a particular vantage point: "The view is better, there's more space and there are no cops," said Joel Duff, who came with four friends to watch the fireworks. "So you can drink beer," he said, "and smoke some weed." Joel Duff is now discovering the consequences of forgetting to ask, "Is this off the record?"
• A truck hauling 12 million bees overturned over the weekend spilling bees all over the road. They were all returned to a new truck the following day. Luckily, they were all easily identified by the "Hi, my name is..." stickers they were wearing.
• General Walter Natynczyk takes over the Canadian armed forces as of July 2nd, 2008. He was hired due to his experience, leadership, and his last name was worth the most points in Scrabble.
• A flour mill burned to the ground yesterday. Hundreds of firefighters rushed to the scene to douse the flames with water. During the intense heat, a second call was made for eggs, sugar, butter and baking powder. The bad news is, the firefighters could not save the mill. The good news is a bakery will be opening up in the same spot within a week.

Shingles

As you may have noticed, I haven't posted to my blog since Monday. Or perhaps you didn't notice it, but I'd like to think my blog is about as important as world politics, so you know, I'm pretending that "people" noticed.

The reason for my disappearance is on Tuesday, I was diagnosed as having shingles. Now what are shingles, you might ask? How is it contracted? Is it contagious? What does it feel like?

My detailed answer is as follows: How the fuck should I know? Do I look like a doctor to you?

All I know is the symptoms are:
1) Forgetfulness
2) Extreme irritability
3) Forgetfulness

Ok, ok, settle down, I'm not that bad. Shingles are basically an adult version of the chicken pox. For some people, when they get the chicken pox, the virus doesn't truly leave the body. Instead it kinda hangs out in the spinal cord and sometimes puts in an appearance later on in life -- for many it doesn't.

The problem is, when it comes back, it's a lot more painful than the chicken pox, but it has some cool features too. Because the virus comes back by travelling along one nerve coming out from the spinal cord, the little spots and splotches are localized to one area of the body depending on what nerve the virus came from. Even cooler, it only affects one side of the body, since it's just the one nerve.

In my case, I have spots on the right side of my scalp and neck. So when I brush my hair, I can feel all these lumps on one side of my head, but not the other. How cool is that?!

Ok, it's actually kind of disgusting, but I'm on codeine right now for the pain and another med for the virus itself, so I'm feeling kind of good and in a sharing mood.

I'll be resting up over the next few days, so I likely won't have much to say (like I had a lot to say now) over the next few days. Next week should be exciting, though, with lots of interesting things going to -- to be revealed next week.

*Gasp* Did I just offer a teaser in my blog? I believe I did. Deal with it! Damn, there's that irritability again!