From Stumble.

Long time readers of Deadrobot.com might recall that I have very little patience for tweakers and circuit boys who think a little toot every now and then isn’t a bad thing (I’m listed as “anonymous” in the comments, it’s post-B2 database purge).

This story of a man who had taken close to 25 hits of Ecstasy per day for 9 years just confirms for me that the long term effects of mind altering drugs is not a good thing (via boingboing.net).

The doctors discovered that the man was suffering from severe short-term memory problems of a type usually only seen in lifetime alcoholics. But evaluating the full extent of his condition was difficult as his concentration and attention was so impaired he was unable to follow the simple tasks involved in the test.

Apparently he was a cannibis user too, but the paranoia would abate when he stopped smoking up. While the article ends on an almost positive note that short term use is reversable, I’m still at a loss as to how taking recreational drugs is a good thing. Call me bitter, or a prude (I do have the odd drink every so often), but the risks are too great in my mind.

I’m off to my rock climbing base jumping class.

“And the dead robot would lend point to his words.”
–Issac Asimov, The Caves of Steel

Dead Robot: The lead. The head honcho. The head. The honcho. Numero uno. The one you want to kill if you want to kill all the zombie vampires. 40-something and a pop culture vulture. Gay, but not in-your-face militant, so that nervous straight guys can read this here blog with little apprehension. Stupid, but not so dumb as to post iPod play lists or memes that are months old off of MySpace. A poor speller.

Shelly: The resident movie critic. Actually a shell stolen from the sand bars off Grand Cayman, she sees movies with a cynical eye and reports them to you with short bursts.

Amy The American Sign Languaging Gorilla: Using a microchip embedded glove over her “talkin’ hand”, Amy speaks to us about the miasmatic political landscape that is Canada. You might remember her from the movie Congo.

I’ve been spam attacked in the last couple hours from the Ukraine. (yes I said “the” Ukraine) so I’ve added Spam Karma to my already impressive armor. If you have a problem leaving a comment, contact me above…

I recommend it for anyone using WordPress. It’s very robust and takes an extremely organic, anti-robotic (gasp!) way of looking at content spam as well as providing a heavy handed THUNK directly on offending IP addys.

Remember a while back being at a swanky house party with James H? Seems he has a blog called The Dainty Bastard. Go look at what makes him tick. He posts interesting pictures and tidbits of his work too. Great stuff!

Updated November 30, 2006

On this page I plan to prove that every customer service experience I have with Tim Hortons is a bad one. This is in no way an attack on their food or drink, it’s purely my way of showing that Tim Hortons needs to seriously revisit their training procedures before they put people out on the floor.

You may ask yourself “Why go there? Why go back if its so horrible?” I have to say it’s become “personal”. To me, Tim Hortons was the stop before hockey practice (Okay I never played but I was dragged along to many of my brother’s games and to keep me shushed, I was given hot chocolate from Tims), a nice hot drink on a cold Canadian winter day. A slice of Canadiana. I’m watching Tim Hortons mutating into a epsiode of franchised incompetence, and watching as we lose that shared patriotic experience that Canada has so little of.

Read on dear reader as I explain:

My First Encounter: Jarvis and Carlton, September, 2005. Read the whole story here.

$10.50 For a Tea and 5 Donuts: Jarvis and Carlton, March, 2005. Sharkboy orders a large tea and a half dozen donuts, but he wants one large cruller subsituted for one of the 6 donuts. The woman behind the counter rings it in. And rings it in again, and finally thinks $10.50 is a fair price to pay for her stumbling around the menu system of their touch screens. We just buy the tea (it’s been poured already).

Where Did You Put My Lunch? Lawrence and Yonge, March 2006. I order the soup and sandwich combo. After pointing out to the Counter Drone that it says right on the sign that I can have a canned pop instead of a coffee (which she wanted to charge me extra for), she charges me for the items seperately, effectively adding $3 to the final total somehow. That’s corrected and I’m shooed to the side as the Assembler Drones collect my order. Assembler Drone finishes with my order and takes it to the far end of the counter, opposite to where I was told to expect my meal. She leaves it there. When she realizes that there is no happy hungry customer at that end of the couner, she consults the great screen of order knowledge and reads that she’s at the wrong end of the counter. In whisking my tray to where I was, she’s spilled some soup onto my sandwich, now soggy with regret.

I have to pay for free? Lawrence and Yonge, March 2006. I hand the Counter Drone my winning, clean, unrolled rim for a large coffee. She punches it in. I also order a bagel and cream cheese. When I ask why the amount was twice the cost of a bagel and cream cheese, she says that I have to buy a coffee to get the rim game cup. “What? No. I won a free one,” I explain. “You just took it from me and tossed it in that bucket.” Shocked that she could forget that little tidbit of accounting she still wants to charge me the $1.55 more for the tea. “No, I won the tea,” I say. This burns her curcuits and she consults with someone if trade offs are available for tea. Supervisor straightens things out.

Giggles All Around! Lawrence and Yonge, March 2006. I order a soup and sandwich combo. The Counter Drone slowly punches in my order, reasking me all that I have just said seconds ago. Cost on Menu: $8.49. Cost on cash register: $7.29. I look up at the menu. She looks up at the menu. “Problem?” she asks? “Bit of a difference,” I point out. She giggles and takes my money without correction.

The Glare. Lawrence and Yonge, April 2006. Absolutely no problem with the order taking (hint, order the bagel first. If you order the drink, they run off before you finish placing your order). While waiting at the end, a larger Counter Drone comes up to me with a drink in hand. “This yours?” she asks curtly. “I don’t know. What is it?” I say. “A tea,” she says curtly. “I guess so. Earl Grey?” I ask. No response. She is glaring at me. Hard. She puts the tea down, eyes locked with mine. I get the feeling she’s waiting for me to say “thank you” or something. Glaaaaare.

THE COUNT: An ongoing grab bag of errors where I’ve ordered “An extra large earl grey tea, double milk, one teabag, left in, thank you” in a clear concise voice with eye contact, and I have got the following:

Wrong type of tea: 3
Wrong amount of teabags: 10
Wrong cup size: 1

Drawn.ca posts a mind-blowing news piece of an art teacher suspended for recommending life drawing art classes to his more advanced students.

In his discussions with students Mr. Panse mentioned several options for advancing their figure drawing skills; the local community college, a nearby frame shop that sponsors art classes, and the prestigious New York Academy of Art.

I would expect this from an ironic near-naked state like Florida or some freakishly religious midwest state, but no, it’s NY.

Art Renewal Center has an interesting breakdown of the situation:

He is not being accused of recommending that these students attend these classes without parental permission or without proper supervision and chaperones.

snip

Nobody is accusing him of forcing anyone to go to these sessions and indeed, neither the four students who attended the sessions last summer nor their parents have any complaints at all about the experience.

I pity the board that made this decision. It seems like a knee jerk reaction that will result in their faces being covered with egg-shelled gesso.

Please, no flooding. Comment, spam, denial of service, etc. I don’t have the time.
No mean. You want mean, go to some right-winged, left-winged political blog.

Around here, funny works as does darker humour (for me, at least). Smart works too. I encourage you to be creative. I encourage submissions. Think of this blog as a community thing you can contribute to for free. Whatever that means.

For the most part, these are my opinions and views. If you disagree with them, I encourage you to convince me I’m wrong. Again, however, mean doesn’t go far with me. And if you’re really mean…

If you comment, your IP is logged (like any blog, really). This is for spam protection. I will not use this against you unless you break one of these rules.

Man. O. Man. I am not having any luck with anything digital or computery or databasey.

Please stand by.