I found a perfect new .wav file to use for an error notification.

Some heavy hitters are now in town for the G8. From our lofty perch in the Treehouse, we just saw Air Force One land at the Calgary International and shortly after 12 army helecopters flew out towards Kananaskis.

One of the dumbest ideas in marketing has to be the Collectible Food Package gimmick. I'm guessing it started with Wheaties boxes back in the forties. A few others have tried to make collectible items inside packaging, but very few have been able to pull off making the package itself the item to hang onto.

I was in a convenience store this morning when I saw bags of Doritos in collectable Star Wars bags. "Collect all 6" it proclaimed. Doritos are relatively non-biodegradable, but wouldn't one expect food to eventually go bad? Do you really want to clutter up your living space with bags of food you have no intention of eating?

It must be summer - hardly anybody's blogging.

If I end up dying in my sleep tonight and no one can figure out why, it was the rice.

Chatrooms are a gathering of the loneliest of the lonely, socially-awkward types. Many people are there because they want to hide behind the anonymity of an Internet connection and converse without social restraint and courtesy. That's why most people have come to hear of strange relationships that go on in chatrooms where two people use words to sexually excite each other. Cybersex.

One of my regularly-read blogs put me onto a cybersex tarbaby that a darkly sarcastic and witty writer put up - a false persona of a 14-year-old girl (complete with picture stolen from somewhere). This poor ficticious girl (with the chatroom name AmberForever) has all sorts of Jerry Springer-like nuttiness going on in her life. She sits, electronically, in wait for some unsuspecting pedophile or nutcase to come along and strike up a conversation with her, hoping to use her to get their jollies. What happens is they're pulled down into a hilarious (but foul-mouthed) dialogue that shows how totally wacked-out some these guys are.

The writer pulls no punches and uses all kinds of language and subject matter that may offend or amuse. So, if you dare, be a fly on the wall as AmberForever has a few chat sessions. You better not be at work or have a mouth full of coffee while you are reading some of the funnier ones.

So, What's New?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I was watching the news tonight and nothing is new. Medicines are discovered, epidemic diseases spread. Fanatical partisans continue to feud and war with each other and end up killing many innocent bystanders. Government continues to thwart those who oppose it. Business encourages consumerism through the media which is fed by business.

Although nouns change in this long stream of journalism, it seems the same as it was 10, 50, 100 years ago. I find keeping up with the news a very onerous task. It weighs heavy on the hearts of those who care about humanity. I am glad that some of my friends take matters (that seem so much bigger than my existence) into their hands and act for or against them. When I stop doing the things that provide for myself and my kids, I just want to revel in victories and tragedies in my more immediate circle of acquaintances.

My sympathies go out to the farmers in New Brunswick who's crops were killed by a late and heavy frost, but I fail to see how this affects me, or even KNOWING about it does me any benefit. I'd much rather hear about how the older couple (one of whom has ALS) across the road are getting on now that their son has moved out. Or about how Banana felt when one of the boys in her class (who's parents just divorced) started to cry because they were making Father's Day cards during Art. To me, these are events that hold more meaning and can be impacted more by my effort of caring.

I didn't go. As I stood in the shower at 6 am, I decided that I deserved my attention that day more than Sprint Canada did. Instead of schmoozing I read, cleaned out the garden shed, listened to some music, then went to a driving range and hit eight dollars worth of golf balls into the wild blue yonder.

I'll not be a corporate whore for a coffee mug and a poorly cooked steak.

Hurrah hurrah.

Tomorrow I've been invited to a corporate schmoozefest - a catered and beveraged all-day golfing event at a yet-to-be-disclosed golf course and I'm really struggling with whether or not I should go. The invite was on short notice - our Sprint Canada sales rep called me last Wednesday and asked if I was still interested in going. Not one to pass up freebees ir responded in the affirmative. As the day goes closer, I'm thinking ahead to what the day holds.

Cons
• an early morning, starting with a bus from a far-from-home-meeting-place to the golf course at 7:15 am.
  
• a day of heavy drinking, starting (most likely) on the bus trip to the course and lasting into the evening
  
• a day of golf, which I neither particularly enjoy or am good at
  
• I'll be in the company of people I don't know, all of which will be eventually drunk and likely obnoxious
  
• some sort of sales pitch and rah-rah speech for Sprint Canada - after all they *are* paying the bill
  
• lots of hokey Sprint Canada trinkets and gee gaws
  
• arrive back home, tired and late, to a grumpy and feeling-left-out family
  
• potential football head the next day from drinking
  
• a whole day of things to do backed up in the pipes at work
  
  Pros
  
• a day spent outside, walking in the sun (so says Darr Maqbool) occasionally interrupted by golf
  
• the knowledge that I've gone on vendor-sponsored junkets before and had a great time

So, what would you do?

This evening I feel like giving out advice and making bullet-point lists.

813,000 Canadians no longer have a connection to the Internet in their homes, or so says a report in the National Post.

Could you live without an Internet connection?

I've decided what I want for Fathers Day - I want Banana and McMonkey to do a blog entry each. I feel guilty for not having written for so long.

All home renovators secretly want to use a reciprocating saw on a wall. I'm lucky enough to know someone who owns one of these little babies and is going to help me finish the a job I started on an exterior wall. Garden doors are going in and a picture window is coming out.

Reciprocating saws are a thing of awesome power, slicing through metal, plaster, wood and carelessly-placed flesh with equal grace. I used one to take out a built-in bookcase last year and can't remember when I had more fun doing home demolition. Hmmmm ... actually, yes, I DO remember having more fun. It was using a 15 pound sledgehammer on the basement floor of a previous house to relocate some bathroom plumbing prior to renovations.

What is it that's so appealing about these actions? Power? Irreversible change? Noise?

I'm not sure.

Breakfast.
Travel.
Work.
Travel.
Dinner.
Clean up.
Sleep.
Repeat.

Be agnostic no more. He's got a blog.

Happy Happy Birthday. A weekend without electronics, spent in the company of friends.

This weekend was a weekend of ghosts: phantom contrails tracing southward in the sky as I jetted up to Edmonton on a sunny Friday afternoon; demons of guilt banished as I caught up with pals I'd lost touch with; spooky feelings of unfamiliarity as I drove through once-familiar neighborhoods and haunts; dates, times, names and faces of shared acquaintances levitating just out of reach as locations of importance slipped by as I did a (bike) road ride on a route I hadn't travelled in 12 years; tales of actual poltergeists at places where I had worked; scary lifeguard stories traded back and forth - it was all a little unnerving.

During the last two days, I toured the city that I used to live in. I've changed so, so much since my days as a high school student, a University student, and then finally a Edmonton Parks and Rec employee. I've only been gone for six years, but it seems like a full existence ago since I knew the streets, the businesses, where things were, what people were like .... I am now fully a visitor in Edmonton and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Is the Sean that once lived here now a ghost?

Veer.com has just been released into the wild. Looks like they picked up my color scheme, seamlessly tying into nuther.com.

Now, let's go do some business.

Work caused me to miss a swim team barbeque on Saturday and it's still bumming me out.

Bubba de bum bum bum,
bum de bum de bum,
BUBBA DE BUM Bum bum,
bum de bum.

Because we never get to hear enough good marches - that's why.

Cornets, indeed.

Oooo! Wait! Not yet! Almost! Just about! Just a nip here and a tuck there and then we can nearly ...

... uh, can you come back tomorrow?

Things are getting better. We've got a phone system.