Another Link in the Chain

something i've been wondering lately is why people create chain letters.

there are a lot of people who pass them on. mostly it would seem that they're passed on because of promises made by the letter that they don't wanna miss out on (hell, i've even done the "microsoft will send you money if you pass this on" letter). and they do it even though previous attempts to get stuff by passing on chain letters hasn't exactly been...profitable.

but what about people who create the letters. what on earth do these people have to gain from creating a letter that says "you'll be lucky if you annoy 10 other people by sending this to them." they don't get the satisfaction of seeing that they suckered people into false hope. so why do they do it?

i would even ask the same question of some people that write virus or worm code. unless the worm causes a denial-of-service attack on some huge company's website, wouldn't writing something like that pretty much just be...masturbation?

maybe we should consider putting all of our resources to hunting them down while bin laden is still being hunted. at least we'll catch some of the hackers!...jerks.

let's not "should" this guy to death

hi! long time no rant. well, that's happened for 2 reasons. 1) it's been really busy at work lately and, yada yada, i'm really tired. 2) nothing really pissed me off enough to write about...until yesterday.

i heard someone say something that i've heard before, and i realized how much it gets to me. it strikes me as being incredibly arrogant and ridiculously exclusionary. apparently, if you don't have kids you have nothing valid to say about the institution or practice of parenting.

try to stay with me on this one. a local radio talk show host was introducing an upcoming segment and basically inserted a disclaimer before making a statement about parenting. it was something to the effect of, "now, i'm not a parent, but apparently a recent poll demonstrated that a lot of parents spend less than 10 minutes per day helping their child(ren) with homework." a co-worker, without missing a beat, quickly blurted out, "until you're a parent, you've got nothing to say."

i've heard this before. would people who say these kinds of things honestly have us believe that one day they were stupid about parenting and the next day...child is born and bada-bing they have all these valid ideas about parenting? what is it that makes people say things like that?! are they concerned that when other, non-parent, people have valid thing to say about how certain parenting tasks should be performed that the parent people will be made to look stupid?

no one's trying to "dethrone" parents. drop your pride. believe it or not, good parenting ideas can be had by people who aren't parents. in fact...yeah, i would venture to say that there are even times when better parenting ideas are had by people who aren't parents because they're removed from the emotional attachment that many parents have to their kids that affects their judgement.

so guess what? parents who spend less than 10 minutes a day with their child on their child's homework aren't spending enough time. now, some of you might say, "but johnny, some parents are too busy working and providing to spend much time with their kids at all, never mind on homework."

i have a few things to say about that (surprise!). these aren't value judgements. i'm not saying any of the offenders are "bad parents". so take the knots out of your unmentionables and listen up! 1) you should have thought about that before you had or adopted a child. 2) you can't honestly expect me to believe that, out of an evening comprised of a total of 4 hours you can't find 30 minutes-1 hour to spend with your child on homework. no, this still may not be all your child needs, but it's a start. and, finally, 3) deal with it!

my name is johnny and i am not a parent!

another bright idea

okay, this is less of a rant and more just something that i find really funny. given the recent hockey lock-out (to all you nhl fans: haw haw!), cbc is scrambling to fill saturday night after saturday night in programming. at this point, they no longer have the opportunity to show far too many hours of men on razor blades chasing a black piece of rubber with sticks. so what's their brilliant idea? movies! yep, the cbc think tank went to work and this is what they came up with. it's the most original idea since pepsi. but that's not even really the funny part. in their quest to come up with a snappy title for this slot of programming, they decide to rest on their laurels and go with old faithful. yes, that's right...they're actually calling it movie night in canada.

it's like we're giving it away

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the passion of the takers

okay, this is my first ever "rant-on-the-spot", by which i mean the first time that i've ever written a rant immediately after being enraged. but i'm so inspired that i didn't want to pass up this opportunity to comment on stupidity.

i was watching a news report this morning about the "take back the night" rally that recently took place in winnipeg. now, i'm all for taking things back, but the organizer of the rally said things that just didn't make sense.

"we're here to protest against more than just physical and sexual violence against women. there are other kinds of violence against women in society. there's economic violence for instance."

now, before i continue the quote (yes, i paraphrased, but the words "economic violence" are direct quote), let me just say this. my immediate reaction to that statement, as perhaps many of you are experiencing right now, was "what the hell is economic violence?" no, i don't think it's people throwing money or shooting money or otherwise assaulting other people with money, who would complain about that?

"for example, 60% of single, widowed, or divorced women over the age of 65 are living in poverty." (okay, i don't remember the exact percentage in the statistic, but the rest is actually what was said, emphasis mine.)

uh...what? yeah, i don't think it's just women over 65 lady! it happens to, some would say, the majority of senior citizens, male and female, black white red yellow or any other skin color. it's called the "pension plan" okay?! anyone who retires at the age of 65 that didn't invest in RRSPs (which, let's face it, didn't really become popular until the early-mid 90's and so is less common among people retiring today), any of those people are poor. there's no way that, statistically, a person would actually have the money to live on a regular pension alone and actually have all of their needs taken care of.

look, just stick to your outcry about physical and sexual violence against women, alright taker?! those things are realistically bad enough to protest, you don't need BS like "economic violence" to solicit empathy from the rest of us. actually, if i were less intelligent, i might actually be inclined to lose interest in your cause because of that statement. you're certainly not doing the fight any favors by rallying against "economic 'violence'".