2003 November | jordoncooper.com

Archives for November, 2003

Best comment ever

here by Mike O. It had me laughing all day.

11/30/2003 | Uncategorized | No Comments

They live - and die - on a traffic island in the middle of a busy downtown street, surviving by panhandling drivers or turning tricks. Part one of a five part series on the homeless situation in San Francisco.

11/30/2003 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Woman knocked unconscious by trampling shoppers

Fun at Wal-Mart

A mob of shoppers rushing for a sale on DVD players trampled the first woman in line and knocked her unconscious as they scrambled for the shelves at a Wal-Mart Supercenter.
Patricia VanLester had her eye on a $29 DVD player, but when the siren blared at 6 a.m. Friday announcing the start to the post-Thanksgiving sale, the 41-year-old was knocked to the ground by the frenzy of shoppers behind her.
“She got pushed down, and they walked over her like a herd of elephants,” said VanLester’s sister, Linda Ellzey. “I told them, ‘Stop stepping on my sister! She’s on the ground!”‘
Ellzey said some shoppers tried to help VanLester, and one employee helped Ellzey reach her sister, but most people just continued their rush for deals.
“All they cared about was a stupid DVD player,” she said Saturday.
Paramedics called to the store found VanLester unconscious on top of a DVD player, surrounded by shoppers seemingly oblivious to her, said Mark O’Keefe, a spokesman for EVAC Ambulance.
She was flown to Halifax Medical Center in Daytona Beach, where doctors told the family VanLester had a seizure after she was knocked down and would likely remain hospitalized through the weekend, Ellzey said. Hospital officials said Saturday they did not have any information on her condition.
“She’s all black and blue,” Ellzey said. “Patty doesn’t remember anything. She still can’t believe it all happened.”
Ellzey said Wal-Mart officials called later Friday to ask about her sister, and the store apologized and offered to put a DVD player on hold for her.
Wal-Mart Stores spokeswoman Karen Burk said she had never heard of a such a melee during a sale.
“We are very disappointed this happened,” Burk said. “We want her to come back as a shopper.”

Putting a DVD player on hold? I think when one almost dies in line at Wal-Mart, they should at least get a free DVD player delivered to the hospital room. via MetaFilter

11/29/2003 | Uncategorized | No Comments

I saw this coming

Mark: “I want to nap with my skates”
Jordon: “You want them in your room?”
Mark: “No, I want to wear them!”
Jordon: “umm, no, just go to bed”
Mark: [throws himself down on the bed]

Now back to writing my review for Next-Wave

11/29/2003 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Hockey Saturday in Canada

Went with Mark and Jerry Reimer today to the mecca of Saskatoon hockey, Larry’s Skate Exchange where Jerry and Gloria got Mark some skates for Christmas. It’s early but Jerry and Gloria are going to see almost all of Asia over Christmas (not quite but close). After a trying on a pair, we found a pair of Bauer Supreme’s that fit will and for not ever having on a pair of skates on before, he was able to walk around fairly well. I am starting the rink next week. After getting some consulting from Jerry on the rink, I am going with paper instead of poly for a surface. It will keep the grass from burning to a crisp in the spring when it is still cool and the sun is really bright.

To say Mark is thrilled about his skates in an understatement. He had me put them on as soon as we came home. He is watching television now while wearing skates and for him, life doesn’t get any better. He is also explaining to the dog that dog’s can’t wear skates because they would look funny. I don’t know if I agree with him. I think I would love to see my dog in skates.

It is always fun to go to Larry’s Skate Exchange. Like a lot of kids in Saskatoon, I bought almost every skate that I have ever owned while living in Saskatoon from Larry. He started selling skates from his garage in Silverwood. Over the years he is doing it full time and I think he has over 1000 pairs of skates in there, plus all sorts of other equipment, snowboards, and seemingly everything under the sun there. Larry is kind of a cheery institution in Saskatoon.

11/29/2003 | Saskatoon | No Comments

Shipbreaking

Found this via Metafilter. Greenpeace has a website and a movement against the dumping of toxic ships on poor Asian countries beaches

Every year the number of ships for scrap increases. It is estimated that by 2010, 3000 ships per year will be scrapped. Each one broken to pieces on the beaches of developing Asian countries. Polluting the environment. Threatening the health and life of the workers.
To prevent this we have put 50 ships in the spotlight. These are vessels that are likely to be scrapped in the next five years. There are several categories. We will be actively monitoring these ships to ensure they are decontaminated of all toxic and hazardous substances prior to export for scrap to Asia. We have asked the owners to declare that their ships are decontaminated before scrapping. A convincing ‘yes’ means they will be removed from the list. But other ships where owners have not declared an intention to decontaminate will replace those removed.

Here are some pictures of some ships being torn apart on Asian beaches as well as a gallery of other pictures that look fascinating and horrifying.

I also found, Stop the Rustbuckets. A site that tracks unsafe ships.

11/28/2003 | environment | No Comments

This makes up for not getting a real bonus this year

You know you work at a bad airline when…

Pleased with workers who scored top marks on customer service, Air Canada recently picked 100 at random to give them a bonus — a 2.25 pound hamburger coupon that expires in five weeks.
Employees winning the award were sent a personal letter containing the coupon, redeemable until December 31 at the Harvey’s hamburger chain, Second Cup coffee shops or other restaurant outlet owned by Cara Operations, which provides food service for the insolvent airline.
Air Canada said the awards came at no cost to the carrier, mainly because the coupons will soon expire.
Earlier this month, Cara warned its own investors that Air Canada, the dominant airline in Canada and world No. 11, may cancel its catering contract.
Some Air Canada in-flight service employees were forced to forgo a bonus earlier this year when the airline won court protection from its creditors and squeezed some 490 million pounds of concessions from its unions.
The burger bonus comes as two groups bidding to control Montreal-based Air Canada through equity infusions have offered its chief executive and top restructuring manager multimillion-dollar stock or cash bonuses to remain with the airline through its bankruptcy protection proceedings.

11/28/2003 | Uncategorized | No Comments

We soak them in chemicals, end of story

Good for the ASA

Fast food corporation McDonald’s has been rapped by the Advertising Standards Authority for a campaign that trumpeted the brilliant simplicity of their recipe for fries — the humble potato and nothing else.
Adverts showed a potato in a fries box alongside the text: “The story of our fries (end of story)”.
But the public and campaigners objected, saying that often the chips were part-fried in one country, sometimes in beef tallow; flown halfway round the world; soaked in dextrose; often contaminated with gluten and finally drenched in excessive levels of salt.
The ASA said McDonald’s argued the advert was “not intended to be a literal and comprehensive statement of all the processes involved”.
It accepted the burger giant’s case that it had not used beef tallow in Britain since 1993 and that there was no gluten contamination.
However, the ASA concluded the claim “we peel them, slice them, fry them and that’s it” was misleading and told McDonalds to stop the adverts.

11/28/2003 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Sustainable Seafood Card

It’s the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s wallet-sized Seafood Watch Card. It rates seafood consumption by how safe it is for the environment and the particular species via Mighty Girl.

11/28/2003 | environment | No Comments

Psst! Wendy, get me one of these for Christmas

Here

Tags: Wendy Cooper

11/28/2003 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Living Low in Luxury

Former Web entrepreneur remakes himself again, with a bus

The bus cannot be described as “regular.” It’s a luxury cruiser of an ungainly vintage — 1992, to be exact — and is rumored to have belonged to Don Mattingly of the New York Yankees. The carpet is teal, with an ivory dolphin carved into the weave. (To be fair, Wayne swears he’s about to tear out the carpet because, he says, it’s “silly.”) The wall lights are a peculiar construction of brass and graduated glass rods that would fit on a set for “The Sopranos.” Gilt-edged cocktail glasses nest in the glass cupboards. In the front of the bus are gray leather captain’s chairs on swivels. In the back is a bedroom lined with mirrored cabinets.
Wayne, who intends to install solar panels on the roof, somewhere near the satellite uplink for his computer, bought the bus on eBay for the bargain price of $200,000 in cash.

11/28/2003 | Uncategorized | No Comments

1. You think everyone cares about your opinions: They don’t. They care about mine.
2. You stop having normal experiences: Every event you participate following your initial blog post will be constantly interrupted as you simultaneously live the adventure and write the corresponding blog post in your head.
3. You will care what other people think: Even if you really don’t. “Stats” will become an important part of your blogging life (also self-esteem),even though you detest math. You’ll be glad your web-stalker is gone but regret losing the hits. When stats go down, you will start padding your posts with words like “naked”, “nudity”, and “clown porn”.
4. You will become more news savvy: You’ll start reading several news sources to inspire more posts. Unfortunately, you will focus on items that are weird, quirky, or bizarre, thereby eliminating your ability to discuss these items with non-bloggers in real-life (ie around the water cooler) without coming off like the freak you really are.
5. You will feel the need to post: Even when you have nothing to say. Just in case other people are reading. Sarcasmo’s Corner, I’m a slave for you.
6. You stop hearing from non-blogging friends: You’re behind on their lives, but they feel like they haven’t missed a beat with you, because they “keep up with you through your blog.” Also, they are tired of talking to you because you constantly ask them “So, when are you going to get a blog?” (You laugh, but our local blog mafia has coerced four independent, strong-willed, intelligent, people into blogging (and we’re working on a 5th). All hail the power of peer pressure!)
7. Your work habits change: Why talk to those irritating, clueless, inane people in your office, when you can sneak a quick peek at your favorite blogs for clever quips, interesting insight, and comment-based conversations?
8. You will stop having normal conversations with family and friends: Real life conversations will go like this. “Oh, hey, I saw So-And-So in concert and the weirdest thing happened…” Friend, “Yeah, I know, I read about it on your blog.” Silence. Friend, “Did I tell you that I’m…” You, “Blog.” Friend, “Yeah.”
9, You expect your friends to be witty and clever. Always.: I am lucky to surrounded by bright, witty people with bright witty blogs. I don’t know how the rest of the world survives without these for distraction. I suppose they must come here.
10. You demand that your witty and clever friends be blogging. Constantly: Why aren’t you all busy shirking your jobs and entertaining me? I need INTELLECTUAL STIMULATION. Or, barring that, something really silly and inane to peruse. Seriously. I’m bored to tears, here people. For the love of Pete, POST SOMETHING. NOW.

via Jonny Baker

11/28/2003 | blogging | No Comments