Too Much Crazy Shit Going On in the World

Normally, when I decide that its time to update ye old blog, I scour news articles and surf the net for a good couple of hours before I find a good piece of interesting news or a website worth commenting on. But today there's just too much stuff I feel must be commented on:

Too make some broad generalizations, a great deal of African nations find themselves struggling to hold on to shreds of democracy each and every day. In some of those nations, the power seized by militia groups is protected and enforced through violent oppression and often genocide. You don't have to look very far or read much to find out what is happening in Darfur, Sudan, Somalia, and a decade ago in Rwanda. However, one of the most disturbing reports I have read in a long time has come out of the DRC. It involves the raping and "mutilating" of woman of a specific ethnicity by soldiers of a different race, so that they will not procreate. I can not even begin to fathom the horror of this. The kicker? The soldiers are that of the "democratic" government's own army and police forces. The current Congolese president says there will be a crack down if elected in the next national election (July). How timely!

Ok, that was pretty heavy...let's try to lighten the mood again. Have you read about my game show below? If not, do it now and come back for the next paragraph.

...deep breath..and out...

Closer to home, Nova Scotia teachers are being asked to fill out a questionnaire handed to them by their government employer which would indicate what sexual orientation they are. The government claims that this is in the interest of maintaining a balance in workforce and maintaining a database of its particular workforce. I struggle with affirmative action in most instances, but sometimes I have to bow to the fact that its helpful in a short-term-fix type of way... but this is ridiculous. Since when do we model our workforce around sexual orientation? Does doing such a thing suggests that there is a place for open sexual expression in the everyday workplace.

I've Invented a Game Show...Just Hear Me Out

First, picture one of those glass cases they put people in on game shows that have money blowing around in them. Got it? Good, now enlarge it 2-3 times. Now replace the money, with 1,000 lettered ping pong balls and crank up the blowing speed of the air by about 10 times the force.

Ok, now picture a really pissed off peacock. One who has not been fed for 5 days and has just been shocked with a cattle prod a few times. (you can give it rabies too if you want...whatever helps for effect). Now put that peacock in a small antechamber inside the big glass case.

There you have the set up....

now then...

Contestant #1 please enter the case...contestants can only wear a bikini and a small satchel to hold the balls they collect.

'RELEASE THE COCK' the announcer shouts. The peacock is set free and goes nuts! balls are bouncing everywhere...off the contestant...off the peacock (pissing it off even further)...the peacock attacks the contestant...blood and excrement everywhere...until the contestant (a) taps the glass for mercy (b) passes out from blood loss or pain or (c) collects the letters to spell the words "Help Me"

I call the game "Cock and Balls".

I actually started with title and developed the rest of the game in 5 mins....but once you can get past the potential animal and human right violations that are involved (the game might have to be played in Guam or Puerto Rico) I think its golden.

I figure at least NBC would give it a try, it can't be any worse than their current game shows.

UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME: Computer Speak for HP is Garbage!!

I have been mainly computerless for 9 1/2 days...let me tell you the story of why.....

Friday May 12- I get a call at work from my wife. I'm told that the computer 'froze' and that she coudln't get anything to work, and that the machine couldn't even be turned off. So to effectively hard boot it, she unplugged it. What she didn't know was that you can't just hit the power buttom to turn it off and on if it has froze, you have to hold it in for several seconds. The result of the unplugging is a system failure which will haunt me for the rest of my natural life....3 words on one blue screen taunting me: UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME.

This same night I arrive home thinking that this will be a simple restore and we'll be up and running again pretty quickly. I try every little trick I know form the restore screen to see the same 3 word message appear over and over again after every restart.

Saturday May 13th- Getting impatient to find out what the hell is going on with the pc, I pack up the wife and baby and head to work, where I can connect to the internet and research what my next steps are. I only find a couple metions of the error. Its cause is mentioned as probably resulting from an "Abonormal Shutdown". (I print this off, highlight that section and make sure to give it to my wife when I leave work) Basically, the microsoft site said to use the O/S boot disks to restart the computer. That's great, if you have a boot disk. HP did not provide me with one, nor provide instructions as to where to locate one for XP Home edition disks I would apparently require. This is part of my issue with HP.

Sat May 13th- Mon May 15th- I ask everyone I know that has a XP O/S if they have a boot disk. No one even remembers ever having one...I get a few tips on where to look but no actual disk.

Tues May 16th- Found downloadable start-up disks on a Microsoft windows update site. It requires 3.5" floppy disks, of which I have none. I buy some at a local Zellers department store; electronics section....the only thing I've bought at Zellers in the last 22 years...and quite fittingly, probably the last time I used a 3.5" disk....I'm suprised the disks don't headline their electronics section actualy...while i was in the store the cashier tried to get me to sign up for a Zellers credit/points card with club Z points. I was really surprised they still had these. After I said 'no' to the intial request, and the subsequent offer of 10% discount off my intial purchase, the cashier tried for the hard close with this line: "..aw come on, why won't ya get one?...". To which I replied, "with a sales pitch like that how could I say 'no'?". Cashier: "So you want one then?". Me: "No." I'm going to start eating my lunch down there from now on. I think it could be very entertaining.

This same day I try to download the start-up disks form work before i head home. The security at work won't allow me to download these. I'll have to find someone to do it for me. I e-mail my buddyMike to see if he can do it for me. We meet for coffee that night I give him the disks. Kudos to Mike for being a sport about this.

Thurs May 18th- E-mail Mike to see if he successfully downloaded the boot disks. He said he didn't have a chance and would try to do it today.

Fri May 19th- Mike e-mails me, says everything seemed to have worked and he could give me the disks tonight. We catch a movie that night (MI3- not bad...once you get past how fucking crazy Tom Cruise is in real life...which pretty much took me the first hour or so..)

Sat May 20th- Insert first of 6 boot disks, and restart computer...20 seconds later: "DISK I/O ERROR". What!?!?!?!? Was the disk corrupt? It obviously recognized it as a system disk, otherwise I would have gotten that stupid "non-system disk" error. I want to kill...the weekend of rage officially starts.

Later this morning I go to my inlaw's place and use their computer to research what could give me this error. All I get are instructions to check my BIOS settings. My what settings??? How do I get to that? There is my second beef with HP: Apparently, you can change the way you boot up and what runs on boot-up etc through your BIOS seettings...and apparently you can get to this by hitting F1 while you are starting up. Another thing HP never tells you anywhere when you buy one of their computers. (and I'm sure any computer savy person out there knows this...but I do not proclaim to be computer savy...but at the same time, its not like I'm a complete moron...I can read, if you just give me the damn instructions, I can figure it from there) Anyway, I go home, check all the settings...they're all still fine. The only other tip I could find was to "partition" my hard drive to accept the boot disk by typing a certain command at the a: prompt. Again, probably a wonderful idea, if you know where to go to get to the A: prompt...I was hoping it would be linked through the BIOS settings...no such luck. I missed Cops tonight...one of the worst days of my life!

Sun May 21st (today)- I went back to my inlaw's place first thing in the morning to look for a way to get to my A:prompt. I couldn't find these instructions anywhere, but I did stumble upon another shortcut. If you hit F10 while you start up with most HP pcs, there is a built-in Windows o/s system recovery...effectively a built-in boot disk...again that was never put in any of the manuals that came with the computer. Upon finding it, I simply had to hit one button that said start recovery...and 5 mins later I was good to go. Of course I had to spend most of the morning getting my internet, e-mail, office suite etc set up...and I have lost all files that weren't backed-up...but I am so furious at HP right now that none of that really matters.

My computer is almost 4 years old. I will be buying a new one in a year or two, and I can gurantee it will not be HP. The only good thing they make is steak sauce!

Cecilia Zhang R.I.P.

One of the things I remember about my last few months living in Toronto in early 2004, is not being able to step into a coffee shop without seeing a missing/reward poster for the young Ms. Zhang. Yesterday, an "emotionless" Min Chen pleaded guilty to second degree murder in the case of an apparent abduction/ransom plan gone wrong. It really pains me that this man could be granted parole in 12 years. I know thousands of children go missing every day, some never to be seen again, and I don't want to discount any of those cases which don't get the media treatment this one did. However, I do hope that the judge in this case uses the media attention to hand down what the Crown is seeking....life in prison with no eligibility for parole until 20 years in!

Just Give Me My $1200 So I Can Get On With My Beer and Popcorn Binging...

Prepare to be poor for the next 20 years Canada. Stephen Harper's Tory government has introduced the budget that will be tabled for 2006-07 tax year and has started the ball rolling on what will sure be the next recessionary period in Canadian history. For those of you who are interested (which really should be any voter who doesn't own an oil field in Alberta) here are the budget details. For everyone else here's the 20 second version...

Stephen Harper when faced with budgetary issues: "Problem?.... Don't we have money to throw at it in the short term?.... No?.... Just take it from the aboriginals...still not enough?...Tax that lower bracket a few more % I personally don't know anyone in that bracket anyway.....oh screw it, just drop the GST a point, everyone knows what that is, that should seem significant...can someone fetch me another baby, I'm famished...."

I do like the budget presentation though if nothing else....its fancy!

I'm condensing this topic into just a few lines for time and space purposes...but trust me, there are serious issues that I could go on forever about, and there's just not enough time and/or space in this forum.

Other Flotsam and Jetsam:

My chip run is over. Doritos introduced a new flavour and I had to try: Sweet Chili Heat. They weren't worth falling off the wagon for. It lasted 44 days. I lost 15 lbs. I'm going to try to keep off them for the remainder of what would have been the 100 days.

Gonzaga: I now it was like a month and a half ago now...Zags lost...I was wrong... I know. That's why I don't throw money into bracket pools anymore! Morrison choked in a big game..down the stretch...that and poor shot clock management screwed them in the end...UCLA made on of the classic comebacks in college basketball history to beat them in the sweet 16 and deserved the win. Let's move on.

Did anyone see Lost last night? I've just recently started reading some theory websites about the show. I think I'm going to stop...they're way too involved. It looks like each of these geeks tapes the show and spends half their lives breaking it down. Looks like the show is going to pick up again for the May sweeps and finish strong going into its 3rd season. Good TV!

Bad TV: American Idol. Can't stand Elliot, why do people think he's so good? I'm rooting for Taylor, but realistically, it has to be the last female singer remaining that wins: Katherine McPhee. Not my favourite, but think about it...based on who America has votes as winners in the past, can you see any of the others winning? Exactly!

Lastly, have you seen this? It looks so bad, its got to be good! My buddy King Bee sent me a description about this movie a couple of months ago when they finished filming...I laughed. I'm still laughing after seeing the trailer...."Enough is enough, I've had with these snakes..." hahahahahahaha....

(Quick shout out to Graeme MacKay...great political cartoonist, whomed I borrowed from above).