Ever notice how it's the little things in life that amuse us so much? More to the point, ever notice how it's the silly little idiocies in life that amuse us more than anything else? Well, this is not as much ''the little blog that could'' as it is ''the blog that enjoys going up the down escalator in your local mall.'' Will it have anything of real importance? No, probably not. But enjoy the ride never the less!

 


There are times I swear I've got Pulsifier blood lurking somewhere in my family tree. And if that name holds no relevance for you, then it's a sad, obvious fact that you have yet to read Gaiman & Pratchett's "Good Omens" and must remedy this by immediately going out, buying the book and reading it before continuing through this little bit of nowhere.

Go on. We'll wait for you.


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...See, wasn't that worthwhile now? But yes, I think I've got a built-in, genetic technology scrambler because things really do seem to malfunction around me more that they really should--DVD players, TVs, remote controls, computers and most impressively: cash machines. I've regaled you before about how I managed to break a Walmart cash machine with a simple Mariokart Wii purchase. Likewise, you've been briefed about the time I bought a stackload of manga and took out 2 different cash tills at the local Chapters bookstore.

Behold the latest edition of me frakking up technology!

Yesterday I took Mel out to dinner at the nearby Montana's restaurant, half because Mel had a craving for barbeque and half because I wanted to cheer Mel up (as she's been a little down with some worrying about her grandmother's health). After an enjoyable dinner, it was time to pay the bill.

I was paying with a credit card, and this particular Montana's had those new, swanky portable debit/credit card machines that connect to the banks via WiFi. So the waitress swiped my card and I did the usual button-punching "Verify? Tip?" bit. The machine beeped in agreement and displayed the "Connecting" message. Under the impression that all was well, the waitress momentarily scuttled off to help out a few other customers.

Two minutes later, she returned and examined the card machine, which now happily displayed the caption: "Unable to Connect." Perplexed, the waitress looked over to where the WiFi connection port sat. "Well, the light on it's green. Everything should have worked fine," she mused.

So she tried to bring our meal order up again. Only this time, the machine wouldn't even let her get to the main menu. Now even more perplexed, she grabbed a different portable card reader and tried that. Again, this one couldn't even get to the main menu.

Finally she brought one of the floor managers, who gave each reader a swipe with his employee ID card and had both of them print up the meal orders for the night. And guess who's meal was no longer on either of them? This translates to: as far as the computer was concerned, we had paid our bills & our dues, and were free to go...despite that same computer having told me not five minutes prior that my credit card payment had not gone through. Somehow I had become pure Zen and paid my bill by not paying it.

That, or else I subconsciously managed to pull a Jedi Mind Trick on a machine.

In the end the floor manager scratched his head before finally shrugging and saying, "The last thing I want to do is double-bill your account if it did actually go through. But if it didn't...well, I hope you enjoyed your free meal."

Now there will be no real way to find out whether the transaction did indeed go through until I get my bill at the end April. But thanks to my innate ability to frak up computer systems around me, Mel and I might have just scored a free $50 meal.

Hoo-rah!


Now if you'll excuse me, there are sinister things that need doing in sinister fashions. So while Mel spends her night playing Lego Star Wars for the sole purpose of destroying absolutely everything with her light sabre, I'll be plotting writing exercises for terrible horrible no-good-very-bad fanfiction.

And also reading this:

Labels: everything's better with zombies, the Zen of free meals and frakked machines

posted by Phillip at 8:04 PM

 


A few days ago, Mel sent me out to buy toilet paper, as we were starting to run low, and let’s face it, that’s not the sort of thing you want to suddenly discover you have nothing left of after the fact. This immediately, strangely brings us to Today’s Lesson: apparently there is a science to toilet paper.

I know, I was astounded by this myself.

Mel had detailed specs about the toilet paper we should bring into our home, and since I spend more time in a mall than here (which has given me a healthy loathing of your average shopping mall…unless it’s one populated by zombies and I’ve just found the Chainsaws N’ Stuff store), it was left up to me to shop around and find the better price.

I did so, and was quite pleased with myself for having stuck through the details as I relayed the information over the phone to Mel. This is almost verbatim how the conversation went:


Me: [so proud of my skills] “Okay, I checked out the brands you said. For a 24-pack of two-ply Royale, it’s $10.50, and for the same of Cashmere it’s only $10.”

Mel: “Great. Were any of these double rolls?”

Me: “…what?”

Mel: “Double rolls. You know, double rolls are bigger than standard ones. More for your money.”


It was at this point I decided to cleverly hide my confusion behind blind panic, which prompted me sputter: “I don’t know! Was I supposed to look for that? I didn’t see anything on any of the labels that said either way!”

With a sigh, Mel then talked to me in that way a parent speaks to a child who’s tried very hard at something but botched up anyways. “That’s okay,” she told me. “I’ll be stopping by on Friday to see you, so we can look then.”

I feel rather chagrined to admit that I have somehow managed to fail at toilet paper intel-gathering.


On the other hand, we also have another conversation that almost borders on mimetic mutation. It all began in Connecticut, where Mel discovered a Coach purse that her younger sister, Meaghan, had used all but once. And it was in fact a very pretty blue purse. The thing to bear in mind is this: Coach brand is expensive. Very expensive.

As in, you go to a Coach store in the States, and all thirty pieces of their entire merchandise are out on display, and if you are very, very lucky, you’ll discover that the least expensive item in there is the $150 leather watch strap.

The purse that Mel really liked was $250 USD. This translates to: ooh, I really like that purse…but holy crap, not that much! This brings us back to the paragraph starting this particular conversation: it was an expensive purse, but Mel’s sister had used it all but a single time since she had purchased it…over six months ago. (I have been informed that she has since moved on to other purses that may or may not be just as trendy and/or expensive.)

Since the purse was just sitting around collecting dust, Mel asked if she could claim ownership of the purse. Meaghan graciously agreed to exchange the purse for one single, specific request: she wanted to get some burned DVD copies of the first two seasons of Sailormoon. Here’s how the next few lines of dialogue between them went:


Mel: “Okay, can do.”

Meaghan: “But it needs to be the dubbed version of those two seasons.”

Mel: [eyebrow twitch!] “Okay…but, why?”


Never the less, a deal was struck and Mel was honour-bound to deliver the episodes to her sister in due time. But first, she relayed the details of the trade-off to me. Everything was fine until…


Mel: “Oh, there’s just one other thing.”

Me: “And that is?”

Mel: “The episodes need to be the dubbed one.”

Me: [eyebrow twitch!] “Okay…but, why?”


Fast-forward to a week after we got back from CT, where Mel contacted our friendly neighbourhood Servo-man to see if he could use his magical torrent skills and dredge up the episodes for burninating. And everything was fine until…


Mel: “Oh, there’s just one other thing.”

Kevin: ^-^ “Name it.”

Mel: “The episodes need to be the dubbed one.”

Kevin: [eyebrow twitch!] “Okay…but, why?”


So here we now are: I have toilet paper, Mel has a Coach purse, her sister will soon have burned DVDs of the DIC-dubbed Sailormoon, and Kevin has space on his computer currently being occupied by an evil force that could very well rise up and drive us insane before devouring us all (and we’re not talking about the Chibi-thulhu plushie sitting near the computer tower).

Oh, sweet circle of life. How you move in such strange, strange ways.



...and in other news, this gives me hope beyond hope: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/40492

Labels: burninating dubbed SM instead of just burning it, can the Muppets be funny again, how do you make toilet paper sound funny in a tab without resorting to dirty words?

posted by Phillip at 4:41 AM

 





So yes: Watchmen was phenomenal. Though apparently the sight of a fifty foot-tall nude Manhattan managed to haunt Mel in her dreams, as she was reportedly chased by a ten foot-tall neon blue penis last night.

First, it was the couple repositioning themselves mid-coitus in the windows. Now, giant neon penises. How is it I miss all the cool, weird stuff?



P.S.: since Mel reads my blog, it is entirely possible that she may kill me for sharing such information with you, the unwashed masses. I supposed now wouldn’t be a good time to mention to everyone that, despite her adamant declarations against me doing such a thing, I went out and bought one of those Kleenex box covers that looks like the head of an Easter Island Moai statue.

Labels: Oooh Dr Manhattan you great muscular neon Smurf you

posted by Phillip at 9:02 PM

 


Recently, a co-worker and myself got to pondering the idea of a zombie David Suzuki. Let’s be honest: a zombie apocalypse would spare no one. But we began to ask ourselves what Zombie Suzuki would be like. In the end, we decided that he would attack survivors who weren’t being energy and environment conscientious.

Your house/makeshift fortress is wasting energy and heat because the windows and walls haven’t been properly caulked and sealed? Oh, you’re so screwed now: Zombie Suzuki is coming for you. Not only will he be reacting to some innate memory buried deep within his undead psyche, but Suzuki Zombie will also be taking advantage of these weaknesses in your fortress’ defenses to breach an opening, get inside and eat your brains.

“You had the power, Bob. But you let it go to waste, and now I’m afraid I have to eat your brain. It's the nature of things.”

Labels: *Management is not responsible for blog or disco stick not meeting with expectations

posted by Phillip at 8:38 PM