One day last week, my dinosaur Blackberry was acting odd. It showed a screen with a battery with line through it. I took out the battery, left it to sit overnight, and when I put it back in the next day, it worked. So, I pretty much forgot about it.

This morning, when I powered it on, it did it again. No amount of battery pulling made any difference, it would just start and show the line-through-battery screen.

I have 5 bloody weeks left on my contract, and I will be damned if I am going to replace the phone. It doesn’t make sense to do so.

I assumed that the symbol showing on the screen was an indicator that there was no battery in the phone. Since the battery is virtually brand new (it and the trackball are the only things I have replaced in 3 years of ownership) and was holding a charge perfectly, I became concerned that something internal was wrong… maybe the OS was corrupted, or the contacts were bent. There is nothing visually wrong with the contacts, though… they are clean and in the positions they should be in. Unlike many BB users, I rarely do battery pulls, preferring instead to do the Ctrl-Alt-Del (well, Alt-RightShift-Del on the BB) to reboot it, so it isn’t like there has been a lot of wear-and-tear there. Still, I cleaned the connection areas with an eraser, made sure the contacts were up where they should be, poking them and lifting them with a toothpick.

Battery-with-a-line-through-it.

I’ve had 3 hours of sleep and had only noticed the phone problem because I woke up to pee. I’ve got a pounding migraine. I’m not firing on all cylinders – indeed, I’d call my condition substantially impaired right now. But, I turned on the computer and googled (and like an idiot, came here afterwards too).

The primary, most-recommended method to resolve this problem, according to BB forum users around the world? Read the rest of this entry »

It has come to pass recently that we’ve discovered that I may be a “supertaster“. I have almost all the hallmarks – cooked cabbage, brussels sprouts and kale make me gag (although I can eat raw cabbage). I dislike beer and several other forms of alcoholic beverages, eschewing them only for sweet mixed drinks. I can’t stand the taste of coffee. Soy products often give me a burning sensation in my mouth when I consume them. Although I love grapefruit juice and tonic water, it is the sheer intensity of the flavour that I like so much. I had no idea that three-quarters of the population didn’t drink grapefruit juice and go “OH YEAH… WHAT A RUSH!”

We’ve wondered if it was something that could be passed along to the kids. We thought perhaps my daughter was a supertaster, too, as she sometimes decides that a food she liked “tastes funny” and won’t eat it again. It’s hard to tell, though, as she seems to have some very mild Aspie traits she’s inherited from her mother (the discussion of mild Asperger’s/Autism probably could take a year of posts, so I won’t elaborate at the moment). So – it could be that she tastes things more intensely. Or it could be that she just simply has an internal on/off switch for certain foods when the mood strikes her.

A friend bought me a bottle of vitamin water today. I’ve had it before. I’ve never liked it. This was a different brand, so I decided to try it.

It tastes awful. HORRIBLE. It tastes like chemicals. I’m sure it tastes like the urine of someone who takes a lot of medications… that will surely be confirmed if I am ever inclined to taste urine. Read the rest of this entry »

In the last week to ten days, I’ve purchased several electronic items. Most have been very inexpensive although a couple were quite costly (that’s another blog entry altogether). Note that I said “inexpensive” – as in reasonably good quality but on sale or reduced in price, and not “cheap” which implies something completely different.

3 out of 5 have been defective.

All my life, in spite of taking very good care of my things, I have had a higher failure rate than average. If there is a faulty item on the shelf in a store, I seem to always be able to pick it at random. I’m not talking about clearance or open box items, either. I am talking about factory-sealed, unmolested, apparently untouched-by-human-hands-since-manufacture things.

Almost everything I have to return is something electrically powered. It’s like I have a dark little cloud floating over me… and the cloud is made of some kind of bizarre electromagnetic field powered by static electricity. The number of BRAND-NEW items I have had to take back to the store and exchange is ree-donk-you-luss.

Do I chalk this up to some kind of silly superstition? The wife has picked up on the trend, so when we are purchasing anything in the store, SHE selects the item and she takes it to the cash so that my “curse” doesn’t affect it. It’s to the point that when buying something, I will handle the display model, or the one the clerk takes out of the box, but I won’t buy that one – because I touched it, and now it’s cursed.

I’m sure it is strictly just a load of coincidences. I’m not, by nature, the kind of person who believes in fate or bad luck. I constantly look for scientific explanations for things; I’m a chronic analyzer. I feel like there is a rational and predictable cause of everything that happens, and there are patterns even in chaos.

Therefore, I’ve arrived at the conclusion that I’m a mutant with an intermittently-active, electricity-disrupting superpower that occasionally overloads or destroys things that have to be plugged in and/or run on batteries.

If only I could control it, it could come in very

Officials did not release the name of the manufacturer but confirmed the rat was discovered in January and tests performed indicated it had gone through the canning process, The Independent reported Friday.

The health official in charge of the inquiry said the incident revealed “severe failings somewhere in the food production process,” the British newspaper said.

From: Whole rat found in can of beans

I think it may be time for them to update their labelling. I found this can in our cupboard.

Artist's conception

This fine fellow, James Jay Lee, is dead. He was shot in the head by police while holding people hostage at Discovery Channel Headquarters.

He is EXACTLY the kind of extremist that most disturbs me: a person who believes we should sacrifice humanity for the “good of the planet”. His inspiration? “An Inconvenient Truth“.

Here are some excerpts from his “manifesto” (You can find it by clicking on his face – please click hard, and repeatedly) – a series of demands to the Discovery Channel:

Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed. Broadcast this message until the pollution in the planet is reversed and the human population goes down! This is your obligation. If you think it isn’t, then get hell off the planet!

Saving the Planet means saving what’s left of the non-human Wildlife by decreasing the Human population. That means stopping the human race from breeding any more disgusting human babies!

Humans are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are wrecking what’s left of the planet with their false morals and breeding culture.

For every human born, ACRES of wildlife forests must be turned into farmland in order to feed that new addition over the course of 60 to 100 YEARS of that new human’s lifespan! THIS IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FOREST CREATURES!!!! All human procreation and farming must cease!

Honestly, he finally did something right today. He stopped consuming resources better used by decent human beings. It’s just unfortunate that he didn’t have the courage to off himself years ago.

Good riddance.

NOTE: To “Conservative” commentators who said this guy had to be a “Liberal nutjob” – the values espoused by this freak show are more of an extreme conservatism than liberalism. You don’t get to politicize this one in your favour, it just makes you look like an even bigger asshole.