Woman googles her fiancée, finds him on America’s Most Wanted; turns him in

A five-year hunt for a man accused of killing a police informant in Phoenix ended in Toronto’s west end this weekend thanks to a “courageous” young woman who turned in her boyfriend.

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Upgrading Ubuntu From Edgy to Feisty (6.10 to 7.04) :: the How-To Geek

Ubuntu Feisty (7.04) is the latest version of Ubuntu. Here
’s the quick list of new features for your enjoyment, but you should really upgrade to see everything for yourself

I didn’t have a very pleasant experience this upgrade. I’m not happy about it.

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A quickie

Sorry, I have to try to spit this out as fast as I can. I just received an email from Pandora, an online music listening site that is way more than just “radio”. They are being subjected to some outlandish government policy which may end in their demise. The email they sent asked for my assistance in doing something against this new policy (please goto this link and sign their petition here, if you can) but, and thats what this entry is about, I can’t help in any way shape or form, simply because it is an American policy and I’m not American.

So whats bothering me about this is that a global, worldwide enterprise, “the Internet”, in this case is being put under the “protection” of the American government only and not by the entire world who has access to, and uses Pandora over the internet. How did this occur? Why should what I listen to be subjected to policies by the government of the United States? What if those policies don’t agree with what is common in my country or any other country in the world? Its wrong.

Owwch

OWCH!

National Geographic Article here

Crocodile 1, zoo keeper 0.

Yet another “good” driver

Yesterday while traversing the MacKay bridge here in Halifax, which is a four lane highway like road (two lanes going in each direction), I encountered yet another asshole driver. I was in the passing (left) lane. I was leaving myself a good car length or three between me and the car ahead of me, yet I was also maintaining the posted speed (plus some) and this guy behind me was exhibiting behavior of someone who was in a hurry. A woman in a car started to surpass me on the right so this guy thinks she’s going to pass me and thus he would be able to pass me so he switches to the right lane behind her. Remember of course that I’m not driving slow. So with the traffic in front of her she was forced to slow down and not get ahead of me, so this guy jumps lanes to be behind me once again. He stays there for a bit and realizes that I’m not going any faster than this woman beside me so he jumps back to the lane behind her. A short few seconds later he switches lanes once again so that he’s behind me. This is not necessary, especially while crossing the damn bridge so I decide then and there that this f**k-brain was not going to get past me.

As we approach the tolls, the two lanes fan out to the seven or eight toll booths that they have, I choose the third one from the left, this asshole speeds over to the left most one which is a MacPass only lane, which I also own, so there was no stopping to drop a coin into the machine for him or me. I had less traffic in front of me so after the toll booths I was able to speed ahead of him and get into the left lane. Thats where I stayed, with him behind me until I came to the exit I take off of that highway, in which I have to get over to the right where there is a long exit lane. I get bogged down behind this lady who appeared to be afraid of merging from the right lane where she was entering onto this highway from, to the left lane over. She finally moves over and I speed past her on the right in my exit lane up to where this asshole was ahead of me, only to see him with his middle finger stuck out pointing at me. I blew him a kiss. Asshole!

Like I’ve always said here, I know I’m not the best driver out there, but dammit this is yet more proof that even though I freely admit that I can be an asshole on the road, I am a much better driver than most assholes out on the road. I hate that people like this asshole in the Hyundai SUV (Oh if I’d had thought to take down this assholes license plate, I’d be posting it right now) thinks its ok for them to act how ever the hell they want, intimidating people out on the roads and otherwise just being obnoxious, unruly and out to prove how poor of a driver they actually are. This is why I take it as my civil duty to smack these assholes down as much as I can without breaking any laws or rules of the road (see I told ya I know I can be an asshole too). I don’t mind if the asshole was just in a hurry, as a matter of fact I would normally just get the hell out of his way and let him be on his way, but what pissed me off was that we were crossing the damn bridge and its rush hour, so there was no place for anyone to move to, to be out of his way for him to pass, yet he was being an asshole anyways. The poor woman who ended up driving beside me across the bridge was scared shitless that this asshole was jumping from her lane to my lane intimidating her to want to move out of his way, which she couldn’t do anything about it.

Its situations like this that my true to form, Toronto-bred-asshole-driving habits take over and I want to make it my lifes ambition to keep this asshole from attaining whatever the hell it is he is trying to accomplish by acting like such an asshole on the roads. He wanted to get past me, well I made it as difficult as possible for him to do that. As a matter of fact he didn’t do that until I let him do that. Owned…Asshole!

Music

I think I remember reading a quote that suggested that music is truly the soundtrack of our lives. Is that the case for those that work in the industry, or ones that work with the music? I just recently got back into contact with a long lost friend, and he works in the music industry, specifically as an owner of a “DJ” business. I hate labelling what he does as something as nondescript as that (a DJ) as he does much much more than just spin records. In any case, in his Facebook profile he describes himself as liking “Classic Rock”, which is fine but strikes me as a little strange when you consider that every night that he works, he’s listening to pop music so I would think that listening to all of that, all of the time, would somehow rub off and taint the kind of music that he likes, but I guess not. I think its great that he likes classic rock as that is yet something else that we have in common, which brings me to something that occurred to me the other day. I was listening to the Max Webster Block Heads CD when the song Toronto Tontos” came on. The song has a kinda weird beat to it and is very goofy but for some reason hearing that song reminded me of this friend. Not because he too is goofy or weird (he isn’t) but because I recalled a time that we were spending together, doing something and that song was playing. It was the music that triggered the memory. For some reason I’ve been feeling that this is occurring more and more to me. Maybe the older you get, the more there is to lose track of, memory-wise, and thus requiring something to trigger those memories to come back to the forefront of your thinking and thats what music does. So it truly is the soundtrack of our lives.

A day at the tattoo parlour

We showed up about 45 minutes after they opened and already there was someone in getting a tattoo on their ankle. The shop was otherwise filled with people looking around and thinking about getting a tattoo. We had been there earlier in the week and had already decided upon the tattoos we all wanted. I emailed mine to them a few days before, my son settled on a gargoyle and my wife a flower. Merchant Marie’s is a small little shop located in Dartmouth Nova Scotia, run by, of course Marie and her husband Rick.

When you walk in the place is all showroom, pictures on the wall of images that people have had tattooed on, a few display cases of piercing stuff, fish tanks filled with odd/rare fish and skulls of every kind all over the walls. The black and white checkerboard floor completely offsets the colourful pictures on the walls.

We queued up and told them what we all wanted, and paid, then the waiting began. It was decided that I would go first, as my son had to take his antibiotics an hour before he could have his tattoo done, so he took his pills and we waited. After waiting for about an hour, we waited some more. Marie finally finished the girls ankle tattoo so by then we decided my son would go first as his antibiotics had more than enough time to kick in. While they prepared for my son, Marie and Rick wasted alot of time yakking with another tattoo artist that had showed up at the store to just shoot the shit. I guess Marie was the only one that was open on Good Friday. Anyways, while we waited my son decided that he was going to pay to have his nipple pierced, and while we waited some more, he bought a freezing patch and put that on. Finally he sat down, arranged himself so that Marie could work on his upper left arm and she got to work on him. My wife an I were very curious as we’ve never had anything like this done to us before, so we were talking to her and my son while it was being done. Of course we forgot our camera, so we were trying to take pictures with our cell phones. Some of them turned out ok, but the camera would’ve been better. My sons’ gargoyle took her about 45 minutes to complete then it was piercing time. During our waiting period, two girls came in and also wanted to have their nipples pierced, so after my son had his done, they had theirs done. My son did pretty well, he didn’t scream all that much compared to the two girls even though the pressure on him not to scream was intense (because of the two girls of course).

After some more waiting, and more yakking with yet even more other tattoo artists who just showed up I finally took to the chair and she started her work on my bear-paw tattoo. Anyone who tells you getting a tattoo doesn’t hurt is just plain telling ya a fib. It hurts like hell, well maybe not that bad. Its endurable, but it does hurt. As we’re chatting while she’s working, she’s telling us all about her dogs, her fish, the other tattoo artists in the area and why they’re all bad and she’s better than them, etc, she asked me why I was getting this bear-paw tattoo. It was a very “Miami Ink” type of moment. I think she was expecting some profound explanation about why this particular tattoo was of interest to me, like on the TV show. I suppose I could have teared up and described how the bear-paw represented my native tribal instincts and how my long lost great grand mother had fought a bear with her bare hands, killed it, skinned it and had the bear skin in her house until someone broke in and stole it and how after 30 years was found, but that would be a big lie. My reply was that I like bears and this bear-paw, aside from it being my moniker on the web is my subtle way of demonstrating that. Thats it, nothing too exciting. Anyways about an hour later I was done. We then went into yet another waiting bought where more yakking ensued and finally my wife got to sit down for her tattoo. My wife’s tattoo was one chosen from the stock photos that they have on display, but that likely they’ve never drawn themselves, which was ok. It was of an Orchid, purple in colour. It’s nice. She got it done on her back-right-shoulder. It was worthy of a picture taken by Marie, whereas mine and my sons wasn’t.

All in all we were very pleased with the work done on us but I think it was a little eclipsed by the amount of time we waited. We were there at about 12:45 and didn’t get home until well after 19:30. The reason we went through all of this was that it was my sons birthday, and for quite a few years we told him that because of his heart surgery, he was not allowed to get a tattoo until he was old enough to make that decision for himself, so this being his 18th birthday was that time. My wife and I had always thought about getting a tattoo but had really never had any impetus to actually do so until now, so for his birthday we made a day of it.

Tattoo Day

Doooh’s Picture Of The Day

Top Gear

Top Gear is a BBC TV show. North America needs shows like this. I always get a laugh at the videos posted on YouTube. Some of the things they do is just plain stuipid, but funny as hell. Check out this sample video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrk6vsb77xk

(sorry the ability to embed this video has been disabled, but goto the link, its worth it!)

Crosswalks

Ok, in the last week here in Halifax, three people have been hit while crossing at a crosswalk (see this article). What the f**K people! Don’t you know how to drive? There is not excuse for this! I’m starting to beleive there should be bigger more harsh penalties for this. Right now there is I beleive a $300 fine levied, but that is not enough. A 14 year old girl just died from her injuries and to think that was inflicted by an 82 year old man. I’m surprised calls didn’t go out then to want to force old people to have their licenses retested as they always seem to whenever an older person gets into any kind of an accident. Hitting someone in the crosswalk should be a major offense, especially if that person dies. I for one wouldn’t want my 82 year old grandfather thrown into jail for something obviously he didn’t do on purpose, but regardless of age, you just have to be paying better attention. I’ve seen countless people almost get hit many many times while on my way into work. The people crossing at the crosswalk don’t seen to be paying attention either, but they’re the ones who seem to be putting their lives on the line just for wanting to cross the road. Its those impatient, ignorant, stuipid drivers, yes the stuipid-few who seem to screw it all up for the rest of us.

You know what, I’m sick of it. I’m sick of being nice about it all. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say this: If you were born here in Halifax, and learned to drive here in Halifax, then I think I can safely say that based on several reasons (not just safety at crosswalks) that I am a better driver than you. Without a doubt! Oh I know, there’s bad drivers everywhere, ya ya ya, blah blah blah. Well, just in the last week, three of them have been highlighted. How many more by the end of the year, and we’re only talking about hitting people at corsswalks. What about the idiots who don’t know how to merge? What about the idiots who don’t know how to signal a lane change? What about the morons who are too busy yakking on their cell phones, or choking back their daily Tim Horton’s, or who are lighting their cigarettes (all at the same time)? They’re just lucky. I mean the rest of us are just lucky that YOU haven’t killed us yet.

Learn how to drive people!