Phish Follow Up & iMovie Clips

An interesting thing happened after my last post. Suddenly I have a new FB format to deal with and those pesky ads I commented on has disappeared. Weird huh!

Well I didn't finish collecting all the images but here's my collection. Notice the young lady in the upper left corner. Two ads same girl. Hope she was getting a commission. Before my post each one of the other young women were in multiple ads just like the girl in the upper left corner.

Not sad to see them go.

Here's a new FB problem. Why are they so paranoid about getting sued by music copyright lawyers? I tried to post a video of some deer eating black berries and used iMovie music clips. They disallowed the video because of copyright issues.

Then they emailed me saying I could appeal. I went to the the site and filled out the form, asked questions and then tried to submit. They wanted a 'digital signature', so I typed in my email address. Didn't work. Typed in my name. Didn't work. Put in my phone number, didn't work.

And that my friend is how you the appeal process works with FB copyright issues.

YOU DON'T GET TO SUBMIT AN APPEAL AND THE THEY ARE HAPPY.
AND YOU HAVE TO WRITE YOUR OWN MUSIC.

Go Phish!

I started getting ads about football then debt reduction and who's best. Now there is nothing wrong with those subjects of interest. Lord knows I could use some debt reduction. However the busty babes in the ads were the same for all the subjects.

I know sex sells, it has for decades. But do these people think our global attention span is so short that we won't notice that they are recycling these images. How dumb do they think we are?

What I want to know is what are these people really phishing for ?

Phishing being a new word in my limited vocabulary, was brought to my attention by my bank. It was after I received an email regarding my chequing account claiming to be from the bank.

Helpful tip, if you get an email from your bank and there are no capital letters used. It's probably fraudulent and criminal. The bank will never request account information by email. They prefer the personal approach.



Are these people after our identities, money or lifestyles? If you are, you came to the wrong place. If you want to assume my debts, my payments and my health history, you're in for a surprise. As dumb as it sounds, it is my debt, my payments and my crummy health history so bugger off! I won't give it up. With out all that and friends and family my life would be too boring and easy.

Just in case 'YOU' are out there and have stumbled upon this post I'm not biting. Go PHISH!

Just one more thing. Apparently I work with a number of good looking women up here at my studio and they want to contact me through FB. They must be invisible and lazy because I seem to be the doing all the studio work.  I do work with the lovely Danish Princess and her handmaiden Molly and my sidekick 'Sir Brando Braveheart of Bruge' but other than those 3, there's nobody else here. Give your fucking heads a shake Phish, at least know your audience.

So FB & Large Search Engines somebody is getting our info so clean up your act. Screen these people and be sure they are legit before you allow them to advertise. In the meantime I'm going to try and figure out how they are targeting my FB page.

Centre of the Universe Closing.

My brother from Toronto bought a newspaper on Friday. I finally had a chance to read the paper which is now 7 days old. I really shouldn't read the paper. There is always a lot of stupid weird news between the advertising space that keeps all print papers afloat. Here's what I found.

The Centre of the Universe is closing a the end of the summer. The headline itself was funny but then I read the article. The Centre of the Universe had 10,000 visitors in 2012 generating $47,000 in sales. Which equals $4.70 per visitor. The physical operating costs are $34,000 per year or $93.15 per day. This would work out to requiring 20 visitors a day to just cover those costs. Based on standard (mind you old) business practices the Centre would have to have 3 times that number to be profitable or 60 visitors a day. This would generate $102,930 a year.


However, The Centre of the Universe has three staff (1 full time, 2 part-time)costing $245,000 a year. First off, my Danish Princess said sign me up for one of those jobs. According to the Federal Guys in charge of the money, closing down The Centre of the Universe is a cost cutting measure. It also mentioned that the Full-Time employee will be moved to another Government department. This means they are not really saving that salary. For arguments sake let's assume that this employee makes $125,000 a year which means WE the tax payer will save $120,000 a year and two lowly part-timers earning $60,000 a year are out of jobs.

Here's a question where else could you work part-time for $60,000 a year or $5,000 a month?
NO FUCKING where, that's where.

Here's another question, where am I going with this?

Closing The Centre of the Universe is nonsense. The taxpayer is still going to have to maintain the building at a cost of $34,000 a year. If The Centre of the Universe hired a new Tour co-ordinator and some students that would get a decent wage and would receive course credits for time served they should be able to come with a new budget for The Centre of the Universe.

Here's an example.

Tour Co-Ordinator     $60,000 per year
6 PT Students            $60,000 per year (25 weeks each @ $400 per week)
Hey look at all the people we put to work, 3 times the Government did. Look at all the income tax revenue we'll generate.

Staff Co             ST    $120,000
Building                      $34,000
           
                 Total        $154,000

No. of Visitors Req.    90 per day (@ $4.70 per = $154,395)

If they upped the price of admission to $6.50 (cheaper than a movie) they would require 64 visitors per day to cover the costs. This is not impossible with the promotional tools we have today. If The Centre of the Universe could find some corporate sponsors they could reduce these costs as well. SAVE-ON The Centre of the Universe or TELUS The Centre of the Universe or even BCTV The Centre of the Universe, feel the name just like they do for the BC PLACE and other venues across North America. Every time you bought a carrot or advertised The Centre of the Universe would be there, and in the Newspaper where this whole story to started.

Comes back to 'USE Some Common Sense' and we can find solutions to everything. That's all I have to say about that, at least for now.

Next Up, BC Hydro, Gro-Ops and US.

Zip It & Bullwinkle

3:45am and my sordid little brain won't shut up. I should never have increased my Wellbutrin. The only reason I did was to try and crawl my way back out of this gutter I have been inhabiting since last June. An attempt to stop my not too slow slide into complete madness. What has changed to turn this floundering ship around, nothing really other a moment of clarity and realization that I haven't been writing.

At about 1:45am I concluded that I actually had something to say and that I hadn't posted any opinions on Douche for sometime. WHY? Glad you asked. Back in June of 2012 during the Madeline RCH/Children's Hospital Disaster and Terror Fest, I came to the realization that I had to shut up. How did I come to this conclusion? Simple, everytime I tried to say something I was cut off at the pass. Now this in itself is not an unusual occurrence, as it does generally happen every day. The difference having to keep my opinions to myself slid me into this trench that I am now trying to crawl out of. The result was I shut down part of me that should not be shut down. It was like the scene from Austin Powers, where Dr. Evil repeatedly tells Scott to Zip It, Zip It, Zip It.

Now this is not say that I have not had any rants. I have, but when they have written them down and I discarded them into my documents folder. Why? Well because sometimes it is better that way, they could cause more trouble than they are worth. Hence the shut down. The kettle is screaming and here it is 4:05 am and I thank the manufacturers of Wellbutrin for the clarity. I'm not finished yet after all it is 4:05am and there has to be a reason to be awake,

I'm going to blame television again. That Damn Great Knowledge Network and CBC's Passionate Eye were the problem last evening. Passionate Eye was reviewing the work of John Gray, 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. It could have been titled 'Men have a Penis and Women Don't' or 'Figure out which Brain he's using and then Act Accordingly' . The phrase "women just want you to listen and not try to fix things" was repeated numerous times. That's not the first time or the last time I've heard that phrase. It is a weekly occurrence on the mountain top. This of course takes me back to the Madeline RCH/Children's Hospital Disaster and Terror Fest of last June. I wanted to shout at somebody about their stupidity and the fact that their actions or lack there of almost killed my granddaughter. That's all. I finally said it. Yes I am still mad and I am tired of "just listen". I don't want to FUCKING FIX IT, I just want to be mad and know that somebody else hears me. Yes, I am still mad at my mother as well, thanks for asking.

Royal Columbian Hospital, pediatrics ward almost killed my granddaughter. Here's something else, Vancouver Children's Hospital SAVED HER LIFE and saved a family. There now everybody knows.

Next up, Bullwinkle.

That Damn Great Knowledge Network unfortunately presented a National Geographic Documentary entitled 'Mysteries of the Moose'. On seeing the title, the 10 year old boy that still lives inside of me was thrilled. I need to know more about the Majestic Moose. Where else would you have found out that Moose Antlers can weigh over 45 kilos and that they can run over 30km per hour. It wasn't that NG didn't teach anything, they did, but it's how they did it. Why did they have to turn it into a horror show about blood sucking ticks and show repeated close ups of a Grizzly tearing the guts out of not just one but two Moose Calves?
It's not that I didn't want to hear about the dangers facing Moose in todays modern society but it didn't need to be so Fucking Graphic. What was the point? Why didn't they mention more about the human threat other the car accidents. Images tightly shot to show that the danger to Man was highlighted rather than the Moose. The Moose lost more than just a windshield in the collision. I noticed that they dwelled on the happy relationship Alaskans have with Moose in their yards and failed to mention how many are hunted down with assault rifles each year. Why didn't they interviewed the former Governor Palin about her love of Moose hunting and assault rifles.

Bottom line, by the time National Geographic finished with Moose, the 10 year old in me, never wanted to watch another documentary about Moose or any other animal. We know nature can be cruel, but don't shove it in our faces like that especially when you bias  the story by not covering the human factor. I am not saying we have to go back to 'Hinterland Who's Who' days but really who wants their children to see Bullwinkle's bloated tick infested body being torn open by Yogi Bear's cousin Griz?

Glad I got all that out of my head. 5am and it's almost time to go back to bed. 

Opinions expressed are mine, I am not trying to fix anything other than myself at present.

The Battle Heats Up!

In an effort to intimidate me, the Rat Army sent a Squad of two gray rats and one black on a mission in broad daylight Sunday.



I was sitting in front of the house, soaking up a rare sunny break when the Rat Squad showed up.

To my amazement the three rats converged to a single spot in the flower bed in front of the house. There was a skuffle and then they fled. A poor little field mouse lay there twitching during his last moments of life.

The Rat Squad had broken his neck.

Needless to say their tactic worked, I was intimidated for two reasons. First, I had never heard of Rats doing anything like that. I had seen Rat attacks in movies but never in real life. Secondly, it confirms my theory that these Rats are working together and that is why it is so difficult to catch them.

Could they have sacrificed the first Soldier Rat to learn how the trap actually works? That is a frightening concept.

I will not relent, these Rats have to be stopped.

The Battle Continues

I captured a foot soldier for the Rat Army on Canada Day.


Alas he battled well, but he has gone to meet the big Rat in the sky.

There is an amount of guilt associated with this but I did dispatched him in a quick and humane (or ratmane) manner.


My brother once said to me if you see one mouse, there is a minimum of six. So using this information I reset the trap. This Rat Army is amazing, they have figured out how to take the bate without setting off the trap. This has happened two or three more times.

In a meager attempt to out think the Rat Army I placed a sticky glue trap under the live trap and bated it again.

Foiled Again. I now believe I am battling a Team or Squad from the Rat Army. Last night my friend Lee mentioned that up north when facing a foe as clever as I have the locals will actually place the bate below the trigger. When the Rat approaches the bate his head sets off the trigger.

This will be my next approach.

Battlefield Driveway

"What are we going to do today Brain?" says Pinky.

Brain replies,
"Same thing we do every night, Try and Take over the World."










It's a damp overcast morning. I have returned from the trenches wounded and disheartened, my battle still rages on. For the past number of weeks I have been doing battle with a Rat. I feel like I'm stuck in a twisted version of The Secret of NIMH or Pinky and The Brain.

During one of our cold snaps earlier this spring, a local wood pile Rat decided that climbing up the right front tire and up under the hood of our Honda Element would keep him warm. In late March, I started to notice a smell in the car. At first it wasn't too bad but as the temperature outside climbed the smell became worse. Initially I could not figure out the cause.

By Mother's Day I had to drive with the windows open and before I could drive anywhere I had to air out the car. On Mother's Day, I talked with my friend Lee about the odour. Lee's son Andrew had a similar problem with his truck, he suggested that my Pollen Filters had gone mouldy. The next morning I pulled out my car manual and located the filters. They were behind the glove box. I hadn't really used the glove box since we put the insurance into it in August.

When I opened the glove box, it was filled with torn tissue paper and Rat Shit. Gross Out! After pulling the filters out I discovered that the Rat had been using them as a toilet. Needless to say I cleaned everything out and bought new filters, figuring that I had solved the problem. No smells.

About a week later, the smell started to come back. The Rat was back. Off to the hardware store for Rat Traps. I got home and painted them black so they would blend in with the shadow under the car. For the first few days I didn't set the tramps, just baited them with peanut butter and waited. The bait was taken each night. I finally set the traps. The Bloody Rat figured out how to steal the bait without setting off the trap. Just to rub it in the Rat would set off one trap and then take the bait from both traps.

I was livid, back to the hardware store. I bought Glue Traps, not the nicest method to catch vermin but effective. I set the glue trap out and waited. In the morning I discovered that HE had dragged the glue trap out of the way and climbed up the tire into the car. I formulated another plan.

I buried the traps into the gravel, set them and covered the snapper parts with top soil. Again the Rat out smarted me.

Howard my neighbour lent me a Live Trap. The bate sits in the middle of the device on a teeter table switch. When the teeter table is touched doors at each end drop and are held in place by bars. The animal can't escape.

I HAVE BEEN OUT SMARTED AGAIN. Is this bloody Rat related to The Brain? He's single handedly Taking Over My World.

More Rat stories to come.

"By Grabthar's Hammer I will be avenged!"