I believe there are a$$holes among us

I went for a job interview the other day and was offered the job. He asked for my references and I provided them. Yesterday he called me back and told me that my reference check had fallen through and that I should rethink who I use for my references. I'm not so much mad because I got a bad reference check, although, as a hard, honest, intelligent worker it baffles me as to why I'd get a poor check. What irritates me the most is that the people I used for references are all people who either volunteered to be a reference or answered in the positive when I asked if I could use them. I with that the person had the common decency and the intestinal fortitude to say to me "you know, I'm not sure I can be a reference for you at the moment." (And preferably tell me what I need to work on). I hate cowards.
I suppose every dark cloud has a silver lining though. I'm looking into taking a course to become an animal health technician. As my old friends know my original plan when I went to college was to become an AHT but lack of funds and the impracticality of living in Olds prevented me. We'll see how this pans out and I'll keep you updated.....all none of you.

Enter Sandman

I had an interesting day yesterday....well actually it was mind numbingly boring but to anyone but me it was somewhat interesting. On the night of the 5th I went to the Canadian Sleep Institute to get tested for my sleep disorder. They wired me up (I felt like the $6,000,000 Man) I had electrodes all over my head, neck, chest, and legs, I had a nasal prong shoved up my nose, bands around my waist and chest and a pulse oximetre on my finger. The intention was to see what was going on in my poor tortured little brain when I did weird things in my sleep (talking, walking, breaking things, screaming etc etc.) so, of course, I slept like a log. Actually last night I slept like a log too. I sincerely hope I don't have to go back and do it again. Also, to add insult to injury we had to pay $1000 out of our own pockets for this because it's not covered by Alberta Health Care. This ticks me off. What the hell do I pay my freakin' health care premiums for if I don't get anything in return? Also, most private insurance companies don't cover it (we don't know about Chris' yet). Basically though, the doctor told that if I don't get it done ASAP he'll have to rescind my driver's license, I fall asleep during the day and apparently have little micro naps without knowing it, I know I have fallen asleep while driving. It's a bit of a catch-22. I'll see what I can get in the way of coverage though it seems stupid to me that a person with no choice in the matter should be black balled like that.
Our money situation what with Maya and Mush getting sick as well as our useless waste of skin for a lawyer charging us $860 and Direct Energy giving us a bill (for a house we haven't lived in for 6 months) for $720 and this stupid sleep test costing $1000 has put us in the dog house financially. I assumed I'd get a job fairly quickly but, of course here I sit, unemployed and, at the moment unemployable (how the hell would I get to work?) So, no stress at all (NOT!) Chris got a little baby of a raise so we'll see how that pans out. Knowing our luck it will be just enough to push him into a higher tax bracket thus decreasing our income. Never rains but it pours. Oh well, on the plus side, Maya is good as new, Mush is okay (still in pain but we've got it under control) and in two weeks time I'll know whether I need a padded cell or not. Happy Happy Joy Joy!

Not my video, but a favourite of mine

If I had the technical skills to make a video, I'd make one similar to this...but as I'm a techno phobe I'll allow the video maker to speak my mind for me.

When are they going to stop monsters like this?

I was reading the Calgary Herald today. City & Region section, Wed Jan 23 2008. on Page B3 There's an article titled "Child porn collector faces one year in jail" (written by David Slade)
The story goes (paraphrased here and there for convenience) "A Calgary man faces upto a year in jail after admitting to possessing 10,000 images and more than 500 movies of child pornography, many of them involving pre-pubescent girls and babies being sexually assaulted....Weighill, 39 played no role in the production of the images and videos....The offender lost his job and has attempted suicide because of the nature of the charges.....Defence lawyer Paul Brunnen, who argued for a six-month sentence, said his client did not share and never intended to share the child pornography with anyone else. "My client said he was downloading it for himself," said Brunnen....[police] were able to download a movie from the offender's folder, depicting a three-year-old girl crying as she was being sexually assaulted by a man.....A search warrant of his southwest home uncovered 2,700 imaged and 82 movies of child pornography on a portable hard drive, as well as 7000 more imaged and 100 movies on his laptop computer and 340 ore movies on 34 discs. Forensic psychologist Patrick Baillie's report categorized the man's risk to reoffend as low."

Now, aside from the blindingly obvious, what the hell is wrong with this picture? This bastard has thousands of images of children being tortured and he's a "low risk to reoffend"?!?!?!? Um, what university did this dickhead psychologist go to? Or, perhaps more relevant, what planet is he from? The bastard probably spent years downloading these images and movies masturbating to them all the while and the psychologist thinks he's a low risk to reoffend. Okay. Meanwhile, back on earth....I'm just not sure what can be said about that. My favourite is the defense attorney saying that the pedophile didn't intend to share the videos with anyone else. OH! Well that makes it all right then! Gee I guess no one was really hurt then eh? Effing moron! I honestly don't know how these defense attorney's sleep at night. I couldn't look myself in the mirror without vomiting if I defended something like him.

I think, aside from the blindingly obvious, the saddest part of this story is not that he's only going to get 10 seconds in jail, but that he was unsuccessful in killing himself. Someone should tell him to try harder next time.

I've said it before and I'm saddened to hear myself saying it again, the Canadian justice system is a farce. The laws are made my middle aged, perverts (who else would think it's okay to possess torture videos as long as you don't intend to share them) who hate women and children. god help us all. Oh wait, they wrote the laws based on biblical precepts.....um, let's just hope we get some atheists into office so we can fix this sad, sorry system.

not my dogs, cute though

It's a soap opera world in the winter...

Maya had surgery on her eye yesterday. She's got basement membrane disease. The opthalmologist fixed her yesterday in ten minutes and charged me almost $300.00 and he wants to see her in two weeks (another $100) yippee! It's a good thing money grows on trees. Anyway at least she's not in pain any more.