Rejected.
When you get onto a mailing list, you're pretty much guaranteed a lifetime supply of junk mail. Once or twice a week you'll get coupons, shampoo samples, magazine offers and, best of all, credit card solicitations. It doesn't matter if you don't shop, have no hair, can't read and have declared bankruptcy 12 times in two years.
And so it came to pass that Capital One got my name from somewhere and have made it their corporate mission statement to ensure that I get their card, dammit! They've sent me at least four "you have been chosen" solicitations in the last couple of years.
So a couple of months ago I caved and sent in the form. Since I was, at least in financial terms, worse than worthless at the time, they rejected me, even though they had told me I was "pre-selected." Heartbroken at this snub, I kept the letter and waited.
As it turns out, I didn't have to wait long. I've been "pre-selected" again! Oh, happy day! As the new offer says, "[i]t's not every day that a golden opportunity presents itself." Capital One could not be more right. It was an opportunity I couldn't pass up.
NetFuture.
Every couple of weeks Steve Talbot at the Nature Institute publishes a newsletter called "NetFuture." He writes thoughtful and thought-provoking articles on the nature of our interaction with all this technology.
Talbot points out the little things that suggest that, just maybe, technology isn't the panacea the techies want us to believe it is.
Go. Read. Learn.
Grrrrr.
No commentary, just this, from the CANOE website, September 13, 2000:
Flyer 'growled like dog': Cops
By JOHN SCHMIED-- Sun Media
MISSISSAUGA -- A woman on a Paris-Toronto flight got down on all fours "growling like a dog" at fellow passengers before biting and punching three flight attendants, police say.
"She was crawling in the aisle, growling like a dog at passengers and kicking in the air," Insp. John Byrne said of the woman's antics at one point in the flight....
About halfway through the eight-hour flight, the woman started yelling and annoying fellow passengers, then struck a 37-year-old flight attendant on the arm, [police] said.
"(She) then returned to her seat and began an unprovoked attack on the male passenger seated next to her," [police] said.
When flight staff tried to calm her down, she threw newspapers and magazines around the cabin and crawled up the aisle growling at passengers, he said.
She was tied to her seat, but not before she hit another flight attendant in the face, bit the finger of a 51-year-old male steward and grabbed another flight
attendant by the throat....
Staff finally tied her arms and legs to her seat for the remaining two hours of the flight.
Fool.
I went and rented some videos tonight from one of the local megachains. (There's a whole tangential rant on why they have an infinitely vast variety of interesting videos for sale, but only a pitiful selection of movies for rent. At least I was able to avoid renting A Weekend At Bernie's I and II. But I digress.)
I got home with the movies and showed them to Louise, who seemed pleased enough. The movies I picked up were Hideous Kinky, with Kate Winslet (my wife has wanted to see it for a while), Cat Ballou (we downloaded an mp3 of Mike Mills and Peter Buck doing the theme song live on a radio show and can't get it out of our heads), and Henry Fool, a Hal Hartley film I've wanted to see since it was released in '97.
Then she said, "I think I've seen Henry Fool before." She described it a little and it sounded familiar. We popped it in the VCR and within seconds I knew I'd seen it too. I don't remember renting it, but I must have - and I liked it. I just watched it again and I still like it - it's funny, smart, and typical Hal all the way.
But I can't remember when I saw it first. My mind is going.
Hubris.
There seems to be a shortage of humility these days...
Madonna wants the madonna.com domain for herself, and as her publicist explains it, "she happens to be the most famous Madonna in the world, so I think she certainly has every right to try to protect a Web site called Madonna."
The most famous? Maybe we should wait until Lourdes has a holiday in honour of her birthday celebrated more-or-less around the world before we start slinging around phrases like "the most famous."
And then there's Franklin Sullivan III, founder of the band Survivor, who's suing (natch) the TV show. His lawyer sez that "after 23 years of selling and performing music in the
marketplace, Mr. Sullivan has rights to the famous trademark." Geez, I don't remember Richard or Kelly singing "Eye Of The Tiger" at any point.
You know, it's true what they say. It's not easy being famous.
Eejits.
So, tonight on "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" this guy who'd burned up all his lifelines by the $8000 question was asked which cartoon strip was drawn by the late, great Jeff MacNelly (the choices were Sherman's Lagoon, Over The Hedge, Shoe and B.C.).
The guy went on (and on) as he stalled for time, and at one point said, "I used to work in the newspaper business."
NEWSFLASH! Having a paper route is not "working in the newspaper business."
Car.
Living in Toronto is one long battle with traffic - it doesn't matter whether you drive, take public transit, bike or walk - cars are everywhere. They're out there, slowing you down, cutting you off, choking you up, getting you to and keeping you from where you want to go. Here's the thing - I drive 100km every day and I hate my car. I hate that I can't walk to work, that I can't bike to work, that public transit would take 2 hours each way to get me there. But you don't see me moving closer to work to cut down the time in my car... no, that's too simple.
Purge.
I hadda clean up around the place. I took a page outta Stalin's book and had everything taken out and shot.
I don't know what I will put up next, but it will probably be more of the same old stuff.
