So, hi, haven’t been blogging much at all.  I might move to video blogging.  Anyway.

My family and I came to Niagara Falls yesterday.  We’re staying for two nights.  My wife and I have come to the Falls almost every year that we’ve been together.

Last night, we did lots of cool stuff for the kids.  The children each had a wax replica made of a hand, we had a great ride on a gigantic ferris wheel, we went on a horse drawn carriage ride and saw the wonderful light display, and visited the Hershey’s Store and got some lovely chocolate.

Today is full of promise, and lots of good stuff to do.  Tonight, we see a play, and I know we’ll all love that.  The kids, however, don’t know we’re doing that yet.  It’s a secret.  Sshhh!!!

Not sure if I like this show yet.  It has promise.  Apparently, it’s based on a same-titled, same-premise show from Australia from 2001 that was very popular.  But you know what I note most about this show?

Does anyone else find Selma Blair doable in this role?  Not relationship-doable, mind, but doable-doable.

Just an observation.

So for lunch on Saturday, my wife made grilled cheese sandwiches.  But not just grilled cheese sandwiches.  She added cooked bacon.

Oh holy schmengies, how it added to a grilled cheese sandwich!  I’ve had it with ham before, but never bacon.

As cornfed put it in an IM, “No way!  Salty pork products, cheese, and buttery, toasted bread GOOD?” *whiffs* Mmm, smell that sarcasm.

So, next time you’ve got a hankerin’ for grilled cheese (or hanker for a hunk of cheese, and fans of 1970’s kids tv?  You’re welcome) or you just don’t know what the hell to make for lunch or dinner, or breakfast I suppose, cook up some bacon and make yourself a grilled cheese DELUXE!

Hi!  Haven’t posted in a while.  Haven’t much felt like I had anything terribly interesting to say.

Well, that’s all changed, at least for tonight.  A little back story:

My mother and I do the crossword puzzle in the local paper.  We were doing so one night last week, when she mentions to me that there’s something she wants me to read on page 3.  Turns out, a guy who’s a fitness trainer and health coach was looking for someone in the Stratford area to go into a program, free of charge, for 4 months.  There’ll be a competition in this, in that 2 other people in nearby towns will be doing the same, and they’re going to see which of the 3 people from the 3 towns loses the most weight.

Anyway, so I go to the local YMCA and pick up a form to fill out.  I fill it out, hand it back in, and get an interview time for the next day.  The fitness dude wants to meet the people who want to try out for this, to find the right “fit” for the position (ironic wording is no extra charge.  You’re welcome.).  A sensible precaution.

So, I go to the interview, and tell him what’s what with my life, and that I can have a flexible schedule, and so forth and so on.  He tells me about himself (he was once out of shape, and had the same thing happen to him as what he’s offering now, and it changed his life, etc.).  It all goes well, but there were at least 25 people on the list that he was interviewing.

I get a call tonight, 3 days after the interview.

Long story made slightly less long: I’m the one he picked!  Yay me!

Now, this is both a dietary and exercise regimen.  I will have dietary requirements that must be met, and I have to email him every single thing that I eat.  During our interview, I told him that I lost 50 pounds on the Atkins diet, and his reaction was “Well, Atkins got it *mostly* right.  You can’t eat any old protein you want, though, it has to be lean, dense protein.” So, there’s that.  Plus, it’s 4 workouts a week, at an hour and a half per workout.  No, you read that correctly: an hour and a half.  Specifically, an half an hour of cardiovascular workout, and an hour of weight (or “resistance”, he said) training.

6 hours of serious exercise a week. 

On the other hand, at the end of the 4 months, I’ll either be dead, or WAY more buff than I am now.  And if the results are going well, I’ll keep y’all updated on this blog.  If they’re going REALLY well, I might post pictures.  I haven’t decided that yet.

*flexes*

Just watched a little bit of the movie Ultraviolet.  I learned a few things from watching it for a half hour:

1) With a bad plot, it doesn’t matter how much money you throw at a movie, you can’t prevent it from sucking ass.

2) Regardless of how bad a movie sucks, you throw the right money at the computer graphics, it’ll have some kick ass chase scenes.

3) I would give my left nut to be Milla Jovovich’s ass slave.

And you will notice, each of those three points has the word “ass” in them.  Make of that what you will.

You associate sunshine with summer.  At least, I do.  Say the word “summer” near me, and I think of sunshine and shorts and sandals and a bunch of other words that begin with S.

Fall (or autumn, for the more snooty reader) brings about different imagery.  Leaves changing colour, cooler weather. sweaters (not coats, but maybe jackets), and more dreary skies.

Well, the leaves haven’t changed yet.  And, yeah, strictly speaking we haven’t hit fall yet.  But this sure as hell ain’t summer anymore.  And it kinda sucks.

If you’re reading this, comment please, and tell me 3 things you enjoy about fall, so I can improve my mood about the inevitable.  I’m not following the wisdom of the serenity prayer very well right now.

Know what I miss from the time when I coded my own content management software?  The language option, where you could select Pig Latin or Scooby Doo or Swedish Chef or the ever-controversial Tourette’s Syndrome, and it would convert the blog entries to that “language” for you.  Even the comments.

I think I’m going to code that for EE as a plugin, and have languages on my blog again.  I’ve even got a couple of ideas for new languages, like Schizophrenia, wihch wloud samrbcle wrods tlhsuy.

What do you think?  Fun addition, or waste of my time?

Know what’d be funny?  If DVD sales for Olympic footage coming out of China was adversely affected by rampant piracy in the rest of the world.

I’m just sayin’.

The other day I was sitting contemplating the meaning of it all.  From the macroscopic to the microscopic.  Non-locality, dimensionality just being different directions going from one point to the same point, regardless of which dimension it is.  Even to how it applies to information theory, that if all points are one, then how can there even be information.  And then I was struck with a revelation: I was really very hungry.  So, I went and got a sandwich.  Man, was it ever tasty.

They have spam (not unwanted email, but rather the canned “meat"), but do they have diet spam or spam lite?  You know, for when someone says to themselves, “Boy, I sure could go for a spam sammich, but I really don’t need all those calories.”

If infamous is a way of saying “really famous”, why isn’t inflammable a way of saying “really flammable”?

Why do steroid junky workout freaks wear the tiniest Speedos when doing a pose down, and make their shrunken genitalia (you know, from taking all those steroids) so much more obvious to the crowd?

The perceived devoutness of a religious fundamentalist is inversely proportional to how open-minded they are.  And yet, some of the views they hold took a great deal of imagination to come up with.  I cannot figure out if rigid religious conviction requires imagination or eschews it.  Anyway, my point is, religious fundamentalists are assholes, that’s what I’m driving at.

So, they did a story on me in the Wednesday, July 9, 2008 edition of The Beacon Herald in Stratford, page 3.  I’ve copied the text here.  The photographer guy was here this morning and took lots of photos of me, but oddly, they didn’t run a photo of me with the story.  I’m guessing I was just too pretty in the photos, and the sex appeal would have washed out everything on the page…

Anyway, the story (I’ve removed my last name from here, just to keep the damned search engines from allowing people to find me):

Freecycle website encourages exchange of used items
Posted By Paul Cluff, Staff Reporter

One’s person’s trash is another’s treasure.

The old saying holds true for a website up and running in Stratford that encourages people to recycle items by giving them away or taking them from others.

“The idea is to keep this stuff out of the dump,” said Bob [last name removed], administrator of the Stratford version of Freecycle.org.

The popular website operates in locations just about everywhere, including London, Kitchener and Woodstock, so it was time for Stratford to get involved in the eco-friendly site, Mr. [last name removed] said. The idea is simple: members either post items they no longer need or place a request for required items.

Everything is free and no money is involved, keeping with the spirit of the freecycle philosophy.

“Anyone can join and I’m sure there will be people who try to sell stuff. But I will moderate things.”

Mr. [last name removed] came up with the idea after a friend mentioned having used the site. He started the Stratford site and has more than 30 members signed up. Currently there are posts for household items and bikes, among other things.

“I was jazzed by the idea.”

Those interested can go to the freecycle.org site and follow the prompts to the Stratford page.

Mr. [last name removed] likes the environmental angle to the site.

“You have an inner voice that says sign up for this.”

I’ve had an interesting and amusing email conversation (and I use that word rather loosely, as you’ll see) with someone who sent a post to a list of which I am the owner and moderator.

The list’s purpose is to allow people to give away items they no longer want, and ask if anyone has any items for free that they would need, all within a fairly close geographic location.  It’s a great idea.  My group does, however, have a few rules.

Subject lines for emails for the list, in order to be accepted, have to have one of (OFFER, WANTED, TAKEN, RECEIVED), followed by a brief description of the item, followed by your location.  I don’t care about punctuation or capitalization, and will even allow poor spelling as long at the action word is spelled correctly and the subject itself is reasonably understandable to the average joe.  I also don’t correct the posts for them, preferring for them to send a corrected post.  Sort of a “teach a man to fish” rather than a “give a man a fish” approach, is how I view it.

So, I got a couple of entries from this person, Cassie Barbosa, and the subject lines were formatted incorrectly.  I responded to both, informing her of how to correct the formatting of her subject lines so that her posts would be acceptable.  The 2nd email, which had a subject line of “wanted...chairs” (note the missing location), was what she responded to.

The email trail follows, in chronological order.

First, Cassie writes to the list, as she needs chairs:

From: Cassie Barbosa
To: [name redacted]
Subject: wanted...chairs

i have a kitchen table that has benches and they are starting to break so if anyone has a couple chairs (small)that i can use i would LOVE IT!!!! thanks in advanced

I respond back, telling her how to get her post into acceptable form:

From: Me
To: Cassie Barbosa
Subject: RE: wanted...chairs

Again, your post is fine except the Subject line has to have a verb, the item, and a location.  Like this:

WANTED: chairs (Stratford)

Thanks!

Apparently, she has authority issues:

From: Cassie Barbosa
To: Me
Subject: RE: wanted...chairs

ummm i will type it however i want to thanks

im leaving your group anyway

I write back, trying to tell her that’s it’s not personal, but the list has rules:

From: Me
To: Cassie Barbosa
Subject: RE: wanted...chairs

You’re certainly welcome to type it however you wish (in fact, you could even grab the sample that I sent to you).  However, per the list rules, they only get posted if it says (offer or wanted or taken or received), the item description, and the location.  I don’t even care about capitalization or punctuation.  That’s not too much to ask, is it?

Anyway, best of luck to you in your travels though.  You’re always welcome back, I’d love for you to get the chairs you need.  And keep on [name redacted]!

Now she continues the unprovoked (and I might add, sloppy) rudeness:

From: Cassie Barbosa
To: Me
Subject: RE: wanted...chairs

um.....i belong to milford and bridgeport ct and went into your site by accident and i dont know how you do things in canada but over here we can do it however we want so keep making up your little rules n stuff peace

At this point, I’m having some fun.  After all, what good is having an animal in a cage if you don’t poke it with a stick:

From: Me
To: Cassie Barbosa
Subject: RE: wanted...chairs

Did you not receive emails when you signed up for Stratford [name redacted]?  Those emails should have informed you as to:

- location (Stratford, Ontario, Canada and the surrounding area)
- posting rules (already been covered)

There you would have seen, or at least should have seen, that the rules for the Subject line aren’t being made up as we go along, but rather were in place before you even got here.

Mind you, the posting rules for this group aren’t the same across all of Canada, so I cannot really speak to “how [we] do things in Canada”.

I find it to be a little strange, though, as to how you could have accidentally signed up for this group.  You did read either the welcome page on YahooGroups, or the welcome emails if you signed up strictly via email, didn’t you?  That would seem to be prudent.

Have a pleasant day, Cassie.

Her writing and communication skills really shine through on this one:

From: Cassie Barbosa
To: Me
Subject: RE: wanted...chairs

omg get the fuck over it man i dont belong to your site anymore..i dont even live in Canada, so peace homie

Now I decide to poke with an even bigger, sharper stick, just to see if I can get a real reaction:

From: Me
To: Cassie Barbosa
Subject: RE: wanted...chairs

Very interesting juxtaposition, being crass and rude (to someone you don’t even know, I might add) and then ending it with a thoughtless “peace homie”.  I wonder, do you end your emails thus to try to assuage yourself of being completely callous, as if to undo the carelessness of your opening?  Or is it more just an automatic response, like saying, “Fine.” when someone inquires how you are, without regard for who’s asking or how you actually feel at the time?

I would add that you didn’t answer my questions.  Did you read the group introductions (web or email), or did you give them the same thoughtful consideration you seem to afford your email message composition?

Her piece de resistance:

From: Cassie Barbosa
To: Me
Subject: RE: wanted...chairs

NOOOOO i dont read gay info sorry and by the fucking way “peace homie” is how i end my shit because where im from thats how we say bye dummy so maybe all the shit you just wrote to me you should read over and ask your self the same questions PEACE HOMIE!!!!

My response to this?  This blog entry you’re now reading, the URL of which I sent to her, for her clicking and reading enjoyment.  With any luck, we’ll get some further examples of her fine acumen in the comments.  Hope does spring eternal.

*** UPDATE ***

I have a couple of more emails to report.  First, my email to her letting her in on my blogging fun:

From: Me
To: Cassie Barbosa
Subject: RE: wanted...chairs

Thought you might find this of interest:

[url of this post here]

And again, pleasant day to you.

And then Cassie plays the “I’m going to turn my public humiliation into a victory” card:

From: Cassie Barbosa
To: Me
Subject: RE: wanted...chairs

ok so you just proved to me that an even BIGGER LOSER then i thought making a blog about it hahahahahhaahhahahahahhaha what a fcking DOUCHE you are have a great one

Honestly?  I’m a little disappointed she didn’t grace me with another “peace homie”.  I guess the extended irony would have been lost on her though.  I’m still holding out hope for some blog comments from her.  *crosses fingers*

Forgot to wish you all a Happy Canada Day yesterday.  Sorry, I was busy enjoying my Canada Day.

We cleaned up the entire bloody house this past weekend.  And we’ve managed to maintain the order we created, mostly.  Yesterday started out for me with making sure the outside of the house matched the inside.  I trimmed, I clipped, I weeded, I raked, I swept, and I mowed.  The lawn is immaculate.

Then, we had friends over for dinner.  Chicken wings with my special, bona fide Buffalo wing sauce, and burgers and hot dogs done on the barbeque.  Mmm mmm good.

After that, we watched the Canada Day Parade here in town.  So so parade.  Nothing great, but not bad.

To cap off the evening, FIREWORKS!  I must say, for a town of 30,000 people, ours puts on a heck of a good 15-minute show.  I do loves me some ‘splosions.

So how did YOU spend your Canada Day?  (question not just for Canadians)

We’re spending the weekend tooling around the Collingwood, ON area.  Having a smashing time thus far.  We spent the day at the Scenic Caves (worth the money, if you’re ever in the area), and ate dinner at this village they created for timeshare condo people but figured they could use some public money inflow too.  Firehall Pizza Company.  Actually, superb thin crust pizza.  I’m a difficult man to please when it comes to pizza, so when props is in order, you really know the pizza is good.

Don’t know what we’re going to do tomorrow.  Maybe a boat tour, maybe a slide ride down Blue Mountain.  We’re playing this by ear.