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  • Things to keep in mind if you’re a politician: accessible does not mean blame the other guys.

    written by

    james

    When it’s brought to your attention that your office is somewhat less than accessible, particularly when you happen to be the member of parliament in charge of things to do with people with disabilities, the appropriate response would be to:
    A: Appologise and work towards fixing it where possible, such as possibly looking for a more accessible location to have your riding office moved to.
    B: Propose alternative locations to meet with people who have difficulty actually getting to the offending riding office.
    C: Issue a fluff press release about how much your government’s doing for people with disabilities, then move on.
    D: Blame the liberals.

    Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, decided to pick option D.

    “Bob Speller is simply trying to distract from the dismal Liberal record on helping person with disabilities,” said a statement from Finley’s office. “In fact, Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals are constantly voting against support for persons with disabilities such as when they voted against the creation of the historic Registered Disabilities Saving Plan and the Enabling Accessibility Fund.”

    That’s cold comfort to her constituents who must make an appointment with Finley and meet her off-site, perhaps at Tim Horton’s.

    I’m not sure what to be more irritated with. The fact this chick’s got a visual impairment and should therefore know better than to make a statement like that, or that statements like that are the norm when folks get called out for crap like this–at just about all levels of government. Or both, in equal proportions.

    Small note to Minister Finley. You’re in charge of things to do with people finding employment. You’re also in charge of things to do with people with disabilities. You are, therefore, in charge of things to do with people with disabilities finding employment. Please stop being a tool and actually try removing a barrier that keeps certain individuals in your constituency away from you. And please, for God’s sake, stop with the making it all about the liberals. I’m sure they didn’t put you in an inaccessible office. Nor, I’m sure, are they making it difficult for you to move, should you decide to do so.

    Note to Stephen Harper. I think you need a new minister.

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  • Comments, 2.0.

    written by

    james

    I’ve just made a little tiny change to the way comments are handled on the site, in an attempt to cut down on the somewhat insane amount of spam I get to watch filter through the system and get forgotten about until it’s eventually automatically deleted. It also, conveniently enough, comes with an extra side benefit. To encourage discussion on here, on those rare occasions where that happens, I implemented the ability to have replies to your comments sent to you via email. That, naturally, required that the email address you give me be valid. Spammers, while not necessarily expecting replies to their comments to be emailed to them, don’t necessarily provide you with a valid email address. And, in the rare instances where they actually do, they’re easy enough to be delt with. So, as of about 5 minutes ago, folks commenting here must provide not just an email address, but a valid email address. Sorry jokers, blah@blah.blah doesn’t work anymore (I tested it). If you’re an actual commenter with an actual email address, you won’t see a difference. If you’re a spammer with an invalid email address, you’re probably not actually reading this entry and I don’t particularly care. And if you’re a spammer with a valid email address, you probably aren’t getting posted here anyway. Happy discussing, and hopefully I come up with the occasional thing that doesn’t bore you folks to death.

    Thanks to Shane for the idea, and the halfway decent method of implementing it. Now here’s hoping it doesn’t break.

  • Windows 7: All of Vista’s cool, and only one of Vista’s sucks.

    written by

    james

    Sadly, Microsoft doesn’t see the user account control system as a bug. Sigh. Still, having done tech support for Vista, and then set up and rather extensively either used or seen used the system afterwards, if that’s the only thing I have to complain about–and so far, it is–it can’t be too terribly annoying. Particularly considering I’ve already found the off switch. I’ll take it. Now, if Microsoft wouldn’t mind too terribly not breaking what, at least for right now, is a pretty damn good Windows experience, that’d be really super extremely awesome. Since it’s Microsoft, and it’s Windows, and we all know both their histories, I’ll go ahead and start queuing up technically related rants. In the meantime, this is making me want to upgrade *my* machine. That… could get problematic.

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  • At least I only threaten to sell you for a cup of coffee.

    written by

    james

    The below did not involve any member of my family. Though it has been threatened.

    Mom, grandma, and grandma’s boyfriend just lost a kid. Not that any of them will be overly concerned about it where they’re going. Seems the three of them thought it’d be a wicked good idea to sell the kid for roughly $30000, 9000 of which was going straight towards mommy dearest’s new car. Except not so much. Instead, they sold the kid to an undercover cop, and now the only thing they’re going straight towards is their very own jail cell. On the bright side, they get three square and a bed for free. Too bad it won’t help them save money. Next time, folks, just apply at Macdonalds already.

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  • He’s a little under age, so what?

    written by

    james

    Clearly, that does not make 10-year-old Kyle Roberts immune from being considered for jurry duty. At least, not according to the Ontario Government, who sent the automated notice to him, complete with mandatory form to determine qualification/eligibility to actually serve as a jurrer. Fortunately, two things worked in Kyle’s favour in this case–the kid has absolutely no interest whatsoever in the whole jurry duty thing, for obvious reasons, and the second question on that form asks if he’s over the age of 18. Strike two, you’re out. Now here’s hoping the kid doesn’t turn 18 before the government gets around to taking his name off that list. Let’s hear it for burocratic oopsies.

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  • The things you’ll do to make others happy.

    written by

    james

    That was probably exactly what went through Chen Wei-Yih’s head right around the time she threw a wedding for herself and, well, herself. She says she felt pressured by the social expectation of being married and, well, didn’t exactly have a winner she could see herself with in the foreseeable future. Fortunately for her, it wasn’t actually a legal marriage, so if she ever does meet that dream guy–or at least some very good approximation of one, she won’t have to be the first person to also divorce herself. The things some people will do to make other people happy, I’m tellin’ ya.

  • Colour me educated. About chihuahuas, of all things.

    written by

    james

    Clearly, people weren’t the first to be named after states/provinces. I probably should have known this already, but I’m a little slow on things like this. Fortunately, I have statistics sites and google skills to make up for it. There is actually a Mexican state named Chihuahua. One of last week’s visitors swung in from there. Kinda nifty, in a random sort of way.

    Related: Hey, labrador lovers? Thanks for that. Can we borrow that for one of our provinces? No? Too late. Yeah, we have one of those too. That must of been a phase countries were going through. Glad that’s over.

  • Hang on a sec. Where’d November go?

    written by

    james

    The last time I looked, I swear, it was just coming up on the end of October. I seem to have misplaced the first half of the month of November. Between halloween festivities, technical issues, medical issues and the back and forth and several other directions all of the above had me going in, I’m not sure “whirlwind” would quite describe the last couple weeks. Still, it’s the best description I can come up with, so have that.

    Things have started to calm down now in most if not all areas previously of concern. Mom’s recovery’s going amazingly well–she was out with dad and I for the afternoon, which she wouldn’t have been able to do a week ago, which is a definite indicator. The computer my parents have been hanging onto for the last 10 years or so, who I’ve affectionately–okay, maybe not so much–nicknamed the frankenputer, has finally officially been declared dead, and been replaced with one that doesn’t look like it was put together from parts of a few other, less fortunate machines–and runs Windoes 7 like a dream, just for the record. Good things happen when the geek goes shopping. And life has generally stopped spinning in a hundred different directions at once. Which gives me plenty more time to get back to my regularly scheduled mockery of any and all things mockworthy.

    I loved being super busy and internet restricted for a few days. Particularly seeing as I had plenty of offline things to keep me busy during that time. But as she who is my current patient, for lack of a better way to describe her, is slowly getting back to her usual self, I’m going to gradually have less offline things to do–which means a return to that which is my normal, everyday, usual routine. As much as I loved the last couple weeks, I’m going to love the slow return to normality just about as much. Or maybe it’s the excuses I’ll invent to play with a computer that can bring Facebook up in about 5 seconds, as opposed to 15 minutes–hey, the father unit checked that out for himself. I’m still resisting. Either way, I’m going to like this very nearly, if not equally, as much. Now let’s go see if I can find the rest of November.

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  • Panthers 4, Maple Leafs 1.

    written by

    james

    We got one. Just one. That’s it. For the rest of this entry, see Leafs V. Lightning, day before. I’m going back to my pizza and coke.

    • Wins: 5
    • Losses: 10
    • Shootout Wins: 0
    • Shootout Losses: 2
    • Points: 13

  • The frankenputer, she is dead.

    written by

    james

    It wasn’t the video card after all, but rather the motherboard. Nifty. They go shopping tomorrow. Bright side: I get to play with Windows 7. Complain? Me? Nah.

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