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June 07, 2006
A little suspicious
After a bunch of suspected terrorists were caught in Ontario, this curious story about their activities surfaced. All I have to wonder is, if they're going to conduct a terrorist training camp in the middle of Canada, you'd think they would go somewhere a little more isolated. Like where nobody's gonna see them!
WASHAGO, Ont. - Robert Clousghley's woodsman instincts warned him to be cautious last winter when a group of men dressed in camouflage fatigues and armed with paint-ball guns and high powered rifles set up camp next to his 327-acre refuge in this rural northern Ontario community.
Chris O'Donnell said she and her husband grew concerned when he stumbled across the shadowy group of men while he was out snowmobiling.
"One of the guys told [my husband] they were doing "extreme camping,' " she said.
Kim Rowe knew something was amiss because she kept hearing the sound of gunfire coming from the woods at night.
"And that was unusual," she said, "because it wasn't hunting season."
The residents of this normally bucolic hamlet on the northern end of Ontario's cottage country learned this weekend what those strange men may have been up to.
Canadian authorities say members of a suspected Toronto-based terror cell were holding a terrorist training camp - modeled after al-Qaida camps for its followers in Afghanistan - in preparation for a deadly rampage across Ontario.
Posted by oz115 at 08:41 AM | Comments (0)
June 06, 2006
What in the world?
A long long time ago, I called an apartment on Southport Avenue my home (hence this humble site's name), and below me was a children's ballet studio. I never thought much of the ballet, and they never bothered me much either.
Then I moved to another apartment, and then I moved to my current digs where I thought I would never hear about the ballet again. But guess what I am now receiving in my mail? About once a week I get a credit card application for a business platinum card addressed to me, "Ballet D'Enfant." For some reason, somebody figured that because I lived above the ballet, I must be the proprietor. Well, good sleuthing, credit card companies! Now leave me alone. And if somebody steals my identity, I'm gonna be pissed!
Posted by oz115 at 01:54 PM | Comments (0)
Get born
This is a little strange to me. Apparently a lot of mothers are undergoing C-sections and induced labor because they don't want their babies born today, June 6, aka 6/6/06. The whole thing boggles my mind because the date isn't 6/6/6, it's 6/6/06, or more accurately, 6/6/2006. It's always bothered me when people get freaked out by numbers or other combinations that are purely coincidental.
According to that link, other unpopular birthdays are September 11, Halloween and Christmas Day. I suppose Christmas is an unpopular birthday because it's highly inconvenient to go to a hospital on Christmas, and possibly because mom doesn't want to screw over Baby by combining his two main gift-receiving days into one. I mean, I used to moan that my January birthday caused me to get only presents that were too unpopular to be bought for Christmas. I bet if my birthday was ON Christmas, I would be moaning that I'm getting dicked out of presents because my birthday and Christmas are getting merged into one. And oh God, what a materialist, selfish bastard that makes me!
On the other hand, I always find it amusing that people worry that much about birthdays. Yes, it is rather unfortanate if your birthday happens to be September 11 or December 7, or you can be like my uncle who came into the world on Friday the 13th. But I think it's also a cool quirk at the same time. I mean, you're never going to forget that person's birthday. I personally thought it would be completely awesome to be born on February 29.
Posted by oz115 at 10:10 AM | Comments (0)
June 05, 2006
How's that working for you?
He didn't save them at the Colosseum, why would he do it now?
Lioness in zoo kills man who invoked God
KIEV (Reuters) - A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lioness in Kiev zoo after he crept into the animal's enclosure, a zoo official said on Monday.
"The man shouted 'God will save me, if he exists', lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions," the official said.
"A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery."
The incident, Sunday evening when the zoo was packed with visitors, was the first of its kind at the attraction. Lions and tigers are kept in an "animal island" protected by thick concrete blocks.
Posted by oz115 at 03:16 PM | Comments (1)
June 04, 2006
Dynamite
Oh how I love Wikipedia. Being the timewaster that I am, one of my favorite things to do is to read something on Wikipedia, then click on the various links. I can easily spend an hour doing this. Today I was watching the History Channel, when an ad for Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's foundation came on the TV. So, I thought, what does Wikipedia say about Michael J. Fox? Naturally, I wound up on the page for Marty McFly. There is a wealth of information, including a section on something I never even thought about:
Pre-Back to the Future
Little is known about Marty's life prior to the first Back to the Future film, except for the fact that he set the living room rug on fire when he was 8. How exactly Marty and Doc met has never been explained, although a draft script for the first film states that a couple of years ago Doc turned up at Marty's garage one day and offered him $50 a week, plus free beer and use of his record collection, to clean his garage. This explanation is not accepted by most fans however as it contradicts the characterizations of Marty and Doc we see in the finished film. Several fan fics place Doc and Marty's first meeting when he was a little kid. Co-writers Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale say they once considered expanding on their relationship, but decided against it, reasoning that children and adolescents are often attracted to eccentric or mysterious neighbors. Though one wonders if the time machine events helped deepen that friendship even more.
I mean, why do people worry about how Doc and Marty met? I mean, to be honest, I don't think I want to know. In fact, being a completely fictional movie, we sadly will never know. But, if you want to get all technical, Marty first meets Doc in 1955, when he visits him to send him back to the future, meaning there is some strange parallel thing going on because Doc knows he will meet Marty in 1985. Maybe without the 1955 meeting, Doc and Marty never meet in 1985, meaning there is no time machine trip and then Marty never exists. Or is it in 1885 when Doc goes back in time and then Marty goes to rescue him after Biff's ancestor shoots Doc in the back? What about in 2015? (I'm still waiting for my flying car, by the way.)
Good God, my head hurts.
Posted by oz115 at 09:16 PM | Comments (0)