No wonder

Misadventures in technology land

Ah, technology. I do so love it. But I am, in the words of that master of the English language, Bugs Bunny, a maroon. In fact, he might go so far as to say I am an ultramaroon. Not only can I not manage what little technology I have within my grasp, I can't manage to keep my mouth shut about it when I do screw up.

Picture it. (No, not Sicily.) I'm leaving a meeting. I climb into my car, don my cell phone headset, connect it to my cell and dial a friend's number. I get her voice mail. I leave my usual clever, witty and erudite message. Something along the lines of, "Hi you, it's me." (See? Always with the clever. And the witty. We'll get to the erudite later.) I continue to tell her that we're finished the meeting, we're heading to the pub for supper and would she like to join us. I then end the call.

Or so I think.

I drive out of the parking lot, encounter another meeting attendee, who flags me down, we have a brief conversation, it concludes, I drive away, turn on the car CD player, mumble some vaguely road rage-ish comment at some prat or other... and then my cell lets out a "Beep!"

Now. My cell is nothing if not informative whilst in headset mode. When a call comes in, you hear the headset go "live," there are two beeps, and the phone rings twice before automatically answering the call. Very nice arrangement. It gives you time to turn down any music, stop singing loudly off-key, stop swearing at the other drivers - whatever you might be doing that you might not want to broadcast via satellite to whomever is calling. Notice I said two beeps. Today I heard one beep, then nothing. "Hmmm..." thought I to myself. "That's different." Then I heard the lovely voice of the voice mail lady say, "Your message has finished recording. If you would like to listen to the message, press 1... " and she proceeded to give me several options.

It was then I realized that not only had I recorded the message I intended my friend to hear, but also everything that had transpired for 3 or 4 minutes after that. It was nothing I wouldn't have wanted her to hear, except possibly the sweary bits at other drivers, although come to think of it, I wouldn't even care about that because she knows more swear words than you and me put together - and I mean ALL of you - but I still would have felt a bit foolish had I sent her a voice mail message that included about 4 minutes of obviously not intentional content. I mean, just how stunned am I?

One of the options offered, thanks be to all the gods of compassion, was to delete the message and start again. I erased it and left a second message which said what I had intended to tell her. I was about to get away with it scott free. And then I did it. I switched to maroon mode and told her about the message I erased. And now I've told you. So I think I got away with that one pretty neatly, don't you?

What a maroon. In fact, an ultramaroon.

Weebl's Stuff

YOU WHAT NOW?
A look at the signs of Britain













Lost - The episode you didn't see...

My bad

So, I'm supposed to be reading scripts. Three of 'em. In time for a meeting tomorrow. Which is why I'm posting here. In the meantime, you can go to Aunty Marianne's and watch this: Revenge of the Granny. Sah-weeet!

One of these days, Alice, to the moon!

Alice at Finslippy had a darned interesting post the other day, by golly. Go have a read, including the comments, if you can get through them all, and then come back and tell me what your favourite old-time word is. And don't be lollygagging. I'm very persnickety about my comments and I like 'em to come in thick and fast. Now, skedaddle, you whippersnappers. And git right back here sharpish like. Before I have a conniption.

Time, gentlemen, please...

A new sign in my local.

It's almost as bad as airport security. No restrictions on rubber ducks, though. Yet.

Happy Turkey Day!

To all my Canuck buddies.

Am I on Candid Blog Camera?

Okay, two things happened over the last 24 hours that made me want to immediately run home and blog so you'd all know about it. They are small, but still.

Picture it. Yesterday evening, sitting in Wendy's chatting with D1, enjoying my baked potato with cream cheese and (far too many) chives and suddenly I realized I recognize the noise coming out of the loud speakers overhead. Something I never, ever expected to hear on the radio here but found on the internets a while back and, in fact, posted about it. A tune the knowledge of which I share only with my online buddies. It was this -

The JCB Song! How cool! But sadly, no longer available on line... UPDATE! Thanks to Andy Ramblings we now have a link to the JCB Song again. Thanks, Andy!

Then at the gym today, whilst "enjoying" my 6 mile stationary bike ride, I notice an ad for an item on the TV overhead. An item, despite the fact that I live in Canada, I never, ever recall seeing advertised on TV before. An item both Ricardipus and I, being Canucks, are reputed to own. An item he actually does own, but luckily for two little vandals in my neighbourhood, I don't. An item that is in fact owned by Scaryduck, which he has named, appropriately, Dr. Teeth.

What? Oh... This.

Très cool, n'est ça pas? And if you buy one now, you get a free carrying case (for ease of travelling to all those tree-cutting parties, presumably), widgets and gadgets for sharpening and such AND (brace yourself) A.FREE.HUSQVARNA.BALL.CAP. 'Cause nuthin' says Canuck like a ball cap with a power tool brand name on it. Nothin', eh? Don't be such a hoser.

And that's the excitement for me folks. Yup. It's come down to this.

Here, Nessie!

There's a good sea monster.

Well! It appears scientists in Norway have found 'The remains of a prehistoric reptile that was “as long as a bus, with teeth larger than cucumbers ... in a head that could swallow an adult human whole... '

Click to read the whole article on the Globe & Mail site.

Monkeyshines

Well. Here we are, then. In the midst, seemingly, of somewhat of a writer's block, if I may be so bold as to call myself a writer.

I sit here racking my brain, trying to think of something that has happened or that I have heard of worth a blog post, feeling about as productive as that there monkey up above.

There are the usual pedestrian daily things. In addition to doing the layout for the print version of the work newsletter, I have been re-enlisted to do some of the posting to the work website, so the webmaster will have back-up. Makes my job slightly more interesting, but hardly worthy of a whole post to itself.

The webmaster and I have concocted a scheme wherein we (mostly me) will take our own stock photos to use on our website and in publications. Cool. But no post.

Fall is here. Blech. I'm back at choir. Yay! But no post. Now that the fall production is over and I have my life back, I'm back into a work-out routine at the gym. Excellent, but woo and hoo.

Well. Here we are, then. Clearly, there is only one sensible topic to address here. Monkeys. Click here to browse the source of the cute sock monkey above (link provided by Kat). Or here to play a little game. (Hint: speed counts). And it should come as no surprise that I was born in the year of the monkey.

Let's face it. The posts can only get better from here on in.