You can always count on the popular website Something Awful to take on controversial subjects and poke fun at our most sacred taboos without fear of recrimination. Who can blame them for exercising what precious little freedom they have left, this being a post-9/11 world and all? Their tagline is, after all, The Internet Makes You Stupid. They're usually funny.

But this morning's front page takes this all a little too far:


This is shocking! Shocking!!! How can they be allowed to publish such crap on the internets? They are offending the delicate sensibilities of decent people everywhere by writing y'all as ya'll. Look, an apostrophe is a substitute for one or more letters in a contraction. Like, can't is short for cannot where the apostrophe takes the place of the no. And haven't is short for have not where the apostrophe takes the place of the o. You get the idea. This is straightforward stuff you learn in grammar school, which is a school where you study grammar.

In the case of y'all, the apostrophe takes the place of the ou in you all. By writing it as ya'll who do they think they're kidding?

This misplaced apostrophe is going to curtail the education rights our forefathers and moremothers fought so hard to bring our children and greatchildren in the face of two or more world wars.

What a shame. Something Awful is something awful indeed.

I have packed away my darkroom for good. Using Adobe Photoshop, I can achieve far better results in colour and exposure balancing than I ever could under an enlarger.

Take this picture of Chicago, for example. The distant skyline was lost in a haze of blue, and was quite a bit brighter than the boats in the foreground.



Using simple adjustments such as levels and colour balance, I was able to bring out detail in all the areas of the image:



The difference may seem subtle on a computer screen, but in an 8" x 10" print the result is a far more dramatic image that is more true to life than a straight print.

This gives me a level of control over the image that was very difficult to obtain consistently in the darkroom. Combined with the advantage of instant feedback (without having to wait for the chemical baths to do their part) and no need to work in the dark, I don't see how I could ever go back to using a darkroom. Viva Photoshop!

Q: What do cockroaches and tortilla shells have in common?

A: Both of them can withstand the blast of a direct nuclear missile impact.

Long after the nuclear holocaust renders all human life extinct, the cockroaches will still be skittering around the surface of the planet. Their hard shell, known as an exoskeleton, will have allowed them to withstand the nuclear blasts. This applies even to those within mere inches of the point of impact. It does not, however, apply to turtles.

All those survivor cockroaches will require food to eat. Although cockroaches normally feast on human skin cells (the average human being will, over the course of their lifetime, unwittingly inhale up to 30 live cockroaches while sleeping), humans will be incinerated by the searing heat of a thermonuclear blast.

So what will the cockroaches eat? Tortilla shells.

This magical food lasts forever. You can leave a tortilla shell sitting out on your kitchen counter for 10 years and it will not shrivel, decompose, or grow mould. (However, it will most certainly dry out. You can revive a dry shell by sprinkling it with a few drops of water and microwaving it for 5 to 10 seconds, depending on the power of your microwave oven.) The cockroaches will survive for decades on tortilla shells. First, they will eat the ones that are left out on kitchen counters. Then, they will find their way into pantry cupboards, and tear through the plastic packaging with their razor-sharp cockroach-fangs. When all the tortilla shells are gone, they will turn on each other in a fit of rabid cockroach cannibalism. This struggle for the perpetuation of life, the survival of the fittest, will play itself out over a global scenario lasting 100 years or more. By then, the nuclear winter will have subsided and the dolphins will rise out of the sea and take over their rightful place as the species atop the evolutionary food chain. No longer subservient to their one-time human masters, the dolphins will rule the world.

And what will the dolphins eat? The cockroaches of course.

And the biological ballet goes on.

I don't know why I seem to have so much difficulty ordering food at restaurants.

I stopped at Tim Horton's on my way in to work this morning for a coffee and a muffin. Tim Horton's, for those of you who don't live in Canada, is a doughnut shop and something of a Canadian icon. (A doughnut shop, for those of you who don't live in Canada, is a donut shop.) There is approximately one franchise on every street corner and, according to the sign on the door, they are pleased to offer a non-smoking environment for their valued customers' comfort.

Anyway.

"Could I please have an extra large coffee, two cream, four sweetener, and a fruit explosion muffin?" I asked.

"Okay. That's an extra large coffee, four cream, two sweetener?" the cashier replied.

"No, two cream, four sweetener."

"Four sweetener?"

"Yes, that's how I like it."

At this point, I felt an unexplained need to apologize for the outfit I was wearing. Did my shirt even match my pants? It was the first thing I grabbed out of the closet this morning. I looked down: black pants. They go with anything. I breathed an inaudible sigh of relief.

"That will be $2.63," said the cashier.

In such situations, I employ a complex mathematical algorithm designed to minimize the PCLF of the transaction. (PCLF = Pocket Coin Load Factor.) What this means is that I want to get rid of all my smallest coins first, in order to reduce the overall weight of the change that I must carry around with me. So I counted out a toonie, three quarters, and three pennies.

"Here you go, that's $2.78," I said, handing her the coins.

Hopefully, you understand that I have given her seven coins and she will return me two coins in change: a dime and a nickel. For a net PCLF reduction of 5 coins.

(You see, had I not given her the three pennies, she would have given me a dime and two pennies in change, for a total PCLF reduction of only 1. This would be a sub-optimal outcome. Some of you are nodding vigorously in agreement. The rest of you are shaking your heads wondering who the hell cares.)

So she handed me back my $0.15 change:

A dime and five pennies.

WTF.

I don't know why I seem to have so much difficulty ordering food at restaurants.

Here on Sassan Sanei, The Blog of we run a clean, family-oriented web site. We also realize that we are listed in all the major internets, and that sometimes we use words that you may find inappropriate or offensive. The usual cause of this is a simple misunderstanding between us, the writer, and you, the reader.

For this reason, we are happy to clarify the meaning of certain obscure words for you, so as never to offend your delicate sensibilities -- or those of your impressionable children -- while you cite our serfs.

Anurous: To have no tail
"My cellmate gave me a sly, sideways glance, then turned to reveal his anurous backside."

Assay: Analysis of a sample of material to determine how much gold, silver, or other metal is in it
"That geologist won't help anyone out. He just sits on his assay all day."

Cockapoo: A variety of dog crossbred from a cocker spaniel and a miniature poodle
"Phew! Your cockapoo is stinky, isn't it time for a bath?"

Cunctation: Procrastination or a delay
"You and your cunctation. I want it now!"

Cuneiform: Wedge-shaped, especially as in certain ancient alphabets
"The Sumerians impressed their cuneiform with a stylus onto wet clay tablets, which were then dried or baked."

Farthing: A one-quarter pence coin
"There has not been any farthing in England since 1961."

Fecund: Very productive or creative intellectually
"William Shakespeare was the most fecund playwright of his time."

Felicitate: To congratulate somebody on a happy event
"You could count on her to felicitate you on every special occasion."

Felucca: A two-masted sailing vessel or fishing boat of the Mediterranean
"I'll never forget the amazing felucca from my trip to Spain."

Fucoidal: Containing impressions of fossilized seaweeds
"Goodness me, your sandstone is quite fucoidal!"

Haboob: A desert sandstorm
"Nomads in the Sahara are always on the lookout for haboob."

Idiom: An informal expression or a distinct style of language
"She keeps using these weird expressions, like 'cream of the crop' and 'flower of the flock.' What a blooming idiom!"

Masticate: To chew food
"Please don't masticate so loudly at the dinner table."

Mishit: In tennis or cricket, to hit a ball badly
"I wish those spectators would stop dumping on me for that awful mishit."

Nippy: Chilly or cold
"During my October trip to Vermont, I was thrilled to see a nippy fall."

Oratrix: A type of parrot, native to the Amazonian jungle
"The taxidermist offered to stuff her beautiful oratrix for free."

Organza: A sheer, stiff fabric
"All I had left of her in that blue dress were some happy memories of a mind-blowing organza."

Pensile: Suspended or hanging loosely
"His body parts were becoming more and more pensile with age."

Pervasion: To permeate throughout
"With the widespread availability of broadband connections, the Internet has reached shocking levels of pervasion."

Philately: Stamp collection
"His interest in philately led him to travel the world and meet many interesting people."

Pussley: A weedy, mat-forming herb with bright yellow flowers
"She led me to her secret garden and asked me to touch her soft pussley."

Rebuttal: A reply intended to show fault in an opponent's argument
"That was a handsome rebuttal you offered during the mayoral debate."

Scuttlebutt: In the navy, slang for gossip and rumours
"They were all gathered 'round, chatting excitedly about the neighbourhood scuttlebutt."

Sexagenarian: A person in their sixties
"The sexagenarian could still party like the best of them."

Sextant: An instrument used in astronomy and navigation
"The sextant was made of brass and had a beautiful polished knob."

Shittake: A kind of mushroom
"Does this shiitake smell funny to you?"

Testee: A student who is taking an academic examination
"The testee complained to the proctor that the subject was too hard."

Titivate: To spruce up
"She titivated her old dress with a more revealing neckline."

Vagile: In zoology, an animal or organism having the freedom to move about or disperse itself in its environment
"Female cats and dogs can be quite vagile when they are in heat."

Voyageur: A guide employed by Canadian fur companies to transport supplies between remote stations
"The voyageur would often gaze upon hidden sights of natural beauty."

We're all a little guilty of breaking the law from time to time, aren't we? Even when we don't get caught. Now, the great state of Texas has the answer to those who have ever driven faster than the speed limit or rolled through a stop sign: SHUN THEM. Because as we all know, traffic violations are the cause of all America's domestic problems; everything in the U.S.A. was so perfect before people learned to drive.

Proposed ban worries Dallas-area car owners

By ANABELLE GARAY
Associated Press

FARMERS BRANCH — This Dallas suburb could become the first city in Texas to adopt a sweeping ordinance intended to keep out drivers with a record of speeding and other traffic violations, a cause for concern among its large car-owning population.

More than 50 municipalities nationwide have considered, passed or rejected laws banning landlords from leasing to speeders, penalizing businesses that employ anyone with a less than spotless driving record, and making 25 MPH the local speed limit.

But until now, that trend hasn't been matched in the Lone Star State.

"This is the first town in Texas that had the guts to do what's right," Susie Hart, who grew up in Farmers Branch, said during a recent demonstration outside City Hall. "The education system is tanking, health care has gone through the roof, everybody is driving too damn fast."

Such sentiments and the proposed ordinance trouble many people in Texas, where many car-owning families can trace their roots here to the era before the horseless buggy.

"This is not just a Farmers Branch problem," Elizabeth Villafranca said of the proposal.

Villafranca, whose family owns a Ford dealership in Farmers Branch, said she worries that such laws will spread to other cities if the City Council approves the proposal. The measure is expected to be submitted to the council on Monday, but there was no indication when it might be put to a vote.

Since 1970, Farmers Branch has changed from a small bedroom community with a declining population to a city of almost 28,000 people, about 37 percent of them with at least one speeding conviction or other traffic offence on their record, according to the census.

It also is home to more than 80 corporate headquarters and more than 2,600 small and mid-size firms, many of them owned by people who drive to work every day.

The local debate over traffic regulations began in August and spawned demonstrations by both sides of the issue. Council members adopted a resolution criticizing the federal government for not aggressively addressing the issue.

A councilman has given city attorneys drafts of an ordinance that would make 25 MPH the city's official speed limit and proposals to fine companies and landlords who do business with anyone with a blemish on their driving record.

The Farmer's Branch proposal follows a vote this year in Hazleton, Pa., to fine landlords who rent to speeders, deny business permits to companies that employ them and require tenants to register and pay for a rental permit. However, a federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement of the Hazleton ordinance while he considers a lawsuit against the town by the Automobile Owners Legal Defense and Education Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups.

More than a dozen other Pennsylvania cities have taken up similar ordinances, as have several others in the South and a handful in California.

Many of the towns and counties have based their ordinances on a model provided by the Traffic Reform Law Institute, which favors limits on automobile use and is affiliated with the Federation for American Traffic Reform.

"They've all expressed a great deal of frustration with the failure of the federal government to respond" to violations of traffic laws, said Mike Hethmon, the institute's general counsel.

Critics fear the spread of anti-automobile rules will lead to sanctioned discrimination.

"It's basically saying those people are illegal in their very nature; it is all right to be against them because they are lawbreakers. Many people are assuming that all automobile owners are lawbreakers, and that people who drive differently, who break the speed limit, are to be shunned," said Cesar Perales, president and general counsel of the Automobile Owners Legal Defense and Education Fund.

What's next? Banning the wrong-number dialers?

Sassan Sanei, a longshot contender for the U.S. presidency in 2008, announced today that he will not seek the Democratic nomination for president.

"I'm sure a campaign for president would have been a great adventure and helpful in advancing a progressive agenda," Mr. Sanei said in an interview with the Associated Press. "At this time, however, I believe I can best advance that progressive agenda as an occasional blogger with both a high-speed Internet connection and significant CPU resources at my disposal, as well as numerous taped reruns of Boston Legal."

Mr. Sanei's chances of winning the presidency were widely perceived as slim by observers of all political stripes. In addition to the absence on his resume of any public office whatsoever at any level of American government, his prospects were further hampered by the U.S. constitutional requirement that the president be born in America and be at least 35 years old. Mr. Sanei does not meet either requirement, as he is a 33-year-old Canadian citizen who resides in Ontario. In the past, he has conceded that a constitutional amendment prior to 2008 allowing him to serve as president -- the so-called "Arnold Amendment" -- would be "unlikely" but he did not formally reject the idea of a campaign until today.

Mr. Sanei added that he would remain open to the possibility of serving as vice-president to Democratic front-runners Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, if asked to. He also has not publicly ruled out a 2008 run for the Senate.

I meant to write about this back in July when the G.S.T. cut went into effect, but somehow I never got around to it. Well, better late than never.

(For my blog readers outside of Canada, the Goods & Services Tax is a national sales tax. On July 1, 2006, it was reduced from 7% to 6%. It is slated to be further reduced to 5% next year. The G.S.T. is separate from the provincial sales tax, which in Ontario is currently 8%, bringing our total sales tax to 14%.)

On the same day that the G.S.T. was reduced from 7% to 6%, the federal income tax payable on the first $36,378 of taxable income was increased from 15% to 15.5%.

This means that if you make $36,378 or more a year, you are paying an additional $181.89 in federal income tax. This means that as a percentage of total income, the tax increase hits hardest those who make less than $36,378 a year.

This is equivalent to the 1% reduction in G.S.T. that you would have paid on spending of $18,189. If you spend more than that a year, you are getting a net tax reduction.

In other words, the G.S.T. reduction and income tax increase, taken together, benefit those who earn more and spend more, and hurt those who earn less and spend less.

Do we really need to be taking money from the poor to give to the rich? What happened to the idea of giving a hand up to those in society who need it most? I know we all complain about taxes being too high, bla bla bla, but when it comes down to it I'm pretty sure that I could afford to pay a lot higher taxes than I am paying now, and still afford to put food on the table and a roof over my family's head.

Sadly, the same is not true of many other people who are living in poverty, and just barely getting by on a low income. This tax change hurts them and their children. It doesn't seem right that I would get a tax cut on their backs.

Or put another way, that they should go hungry tonight so that I can save 4 cents on a hamburger.

Ten people who are statistically more likely to kill, hurt, or annoy you than a "terrorist":

1. Local hoodlum who wants to rack up his street cred wit da boyz.

2. Drug dealer.

3. Salesperson giving in-home demonstration of a vacuum cleaner costing more than $1,000. (Why do they always ask to use your phone?)

4. Wrong-number dialer.

5. Member of your household who smokes around you.

6. Driver who can't, just can't, merge and/or change lanes on the freeway.

7. Timeshare resort hawker.

8. SUV driver who doesn't understand, or care, that momentum increases as a linear function of mass. (That means a heavy vehicle has a much longer stopping distance, brainiac.)

9. Drunk driver.

10. That one guy you used to hang out with who does the really annoying Homer Simpson imitation all the time. D'oh!

Late addition:

11. A person who is not now, nor has ever been, a law-enforcement officer, yet chooses to drive a big white Ford Crown Victoria or Chevrolet Caprice Classic.

Wendy's has a couple of new "cheddar melt" hamburgers on their menu. One has jalapeno peppers and bacon, and the other has just bacon. Basically they are the same sandwich, except that the first one has jalapenos on it. (Possibly also Monterey Jack cheese instead of cheddar.) Both are available in single or double pattie versions.

I walk up the counter, eager to exchange my money for their products and/or services.

Sassan: "Hi, could I get a jalapeno cheddar melt combo, fries, diet Coke please?"
Cashier: "Sure, do you want the jalapeno or the bacon?"
Sassan: "Um, it comes with both, right?"
Cashier: "Right, but I need to know if you want jalapeno or bacon."
Sassan: "Okay, both."
Cashier: "Which one?"
Sassan: "Which what?"
Cashier: "Jalapeno or bacon??"
Sassan: "Both! Like in the picture. See, it's got both jalapeno and bacon. That's what I want."
Cashier: "I understand that, but I need to know whether you want the jalapeno or the bacon."
Sassan: "Huh. Does the jalapeno come with bacon?"
Cashier: "Yes."
Sassan: "Okay, I'll have the jalepeno. With bacon."
Cashier: "Okay. I still need to know if you want the JALEPENO or the BACON."
Sassan: (pointing at picture) "This is what I want. Whatever is in this picture, whatever it's called, that's exactly what I want. Can I order this hamburger right here?"
Cashier: "Okay, that's the jalapeno."
Sassan: "Right. Just don't forget the bacon, like it shows in the picture."
Cashier: "You got it. One jalapeno."
Sassan: "With bacon."
Cashier: "Okay. But I'm still waiting for you to tell me which version you want."
Sassan: "Pardon?"
Cashier: "Which one do you want, the 1/4 pound or the 1/2 pound?"
Sassan: "What, like one pattie or two patties?"
Cashier: "Right, that's what I keep asking you."
Sassan: "Um, 1/2 pound."
Cashier: "Okay."
Sassan: "It's just that you kept asking me whether I wanted the jalapeno or the bacon, not whether I wanted one pattie or two."
Cashier: "Oh, well it comes with both jalapeno and bacon, I guess what I meant to ask was whether you wanted the single or the double."
Sassan: "It was confusing."
Cashier: "Yes."
Sassan: "Okay."
Cashier: "Okay."
Sassan: "Okay."



If you're still reading, waiting for the punchline, there isn't one, because this isn't a joke.