johnrobe

Dear makers of the predictive text engine on my new phone, the HTC Touch,

"Whatnot" is a word.

It is not a very commonly-used word, I admit. It is one of those words that my Mom uses frequently, like bric-a-brac, flim-flam and conniption.

Because of its relative rarity, I would understand if you decided to save a bit of memory space by having the XT9 predictive engine on your phone not know what the word was.

Clearly, you have done so.

However, when I try to type "whatnot" you helpfully suggest the following "words":

QGATBOT
QGATBOY

Now, I'm no linguist, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that "whatnot" is a more common word than "qgatboy".

Please address this issue soon, so I can seem a little less insane when I message people from my phone and want to use mom lingo.

John Design, Rants

I admire Microsoft’s commitment to putting a progress bar on the screen.

Even if the progress bar doesn’t work, they’re going to put one up, dagnabbit — but at least they’ll be nice about it and tell you that it probably won’t update.

John Design

I walked into the office tonight and Law and Order was already in progress. I then heard these quotes, in rapid succession.

How important were these pants to the case?

The pants were siezed illegally.

Wearing what they thought were the pants in question.

They couldn’t make a positive match — without the actual pants.

Are you aware that the police officers swore that they had no idea you were going to look for these pants?

The police would have inevitably discovered these pants on their own.

I have no idea what the specifics of the case were … but it just goes to show… anything is funnier when the word “pants” is included. I wonder if it was all a cut and paste April Fools prank:

find: “guns”
replace with: “pants”

John Television

Every man, even ones with a perfect wife, have dreams that go unrealized. I have been blessed with a wife who has made most of my dreams come true.

Most.

Until Thursday that is … when, well, I wouldn’t call it a fantasy, but I’d call it a long unanswered wish, was fulfilled. Timmi cut my hair.

I have no idea why, but for some reason it’s always bugged me that when I really needed a haircut that she wouldn’t give me a trim. I mean, how hard could it be really?

Apparently, it’s quite hard!

Now, I know what you’re thinking, that it was a comedy haircut of epic proportions, and now I look like a cross between Larry Fine and …

(I’d like to pause here a moment and describe a problem I’m having. I wanted to make a humourous comparison between what you might be imagining my hair looks like and 2 different famous people with bad hair. The first person I chose was Larry Fine, or "Larry" from the Three Stooges. Funny hair — no problem there. The problem was that I now needed someone with funny hair, in a non-Larry Fine sort of way, so ideally, someone mostly bald but not quite. Of course, the only person I can think of at all is Curly from the Three Stooges, and let’s be honest, if I use 2 of the Stooges in the same comparison, I’m really limiting myself and letting you down. Still, even after typing all that … I can’t think of anyone else.)

… Curly Howard, but it wasn’t! My hair looks MUCH better than it did (my head was starting to look like a cube, and that’s not a good thing). Timmi has a real talent.

Unfortunately, it’s apparently stressful to hold your spouse’s head and hair in your hands and be responsible for how they are going to look after taking a little off the back and sides. Not only that, but it took almost an hour of stressy snipping. Now for me, it wasn’t bad at all … I was in my own house, watching TV, living a dream. Timmi on the other hand, was learning a new skill and constantly dreading the consequences of any mistake. So, I don’t think I’ll do that to her again.

Instead, I think I’ll go see the movie pictured at right — $4 Haircut at Hot Docs, and see if I can pick up any pointers.

John General, Love

John Rants

Tonight I was stuck with another song in my head, but You Tube shook it out … want to know how?

Here’s the song that was stuck in my head … Da Da Da by Trio.

And here’s the song You Tube pointed me at after watching Da Da Da by Trio. I don’t know what it is, but it’s even more strange than the original video. Yet I love it. Kinda.

Once again proof that there is no limit to the weirdness (and helpfulness of the weeb).

Da da da…

John Music, The Weeb

The first of two weird photos I took downstairs at the weird but delicious Ajuker Chicken. This one is a 1-800 number for…. something.

I think I originally took it to submit to the “Quotation Mark Abuse” group on Flickr, but the more I look at it, the more amused and confused I get. Obviously, there’s some useful instruction in Korean at the bottom (or at least I hope it’s useful), but right now all I know as a Canadian round-eye is that it’s a touch touch collect call.

I guess it has something to do with numbers … there sure are a lot of them.

John Food, Photo Snarkiness

I finally started emptying the photos off my phone and here is one that I was really hoping to get up for Valentine’s day, but I missed it, from a little store on Yonge Street.

A condom (just one), some lip balm, and a mint. All you need for a successful date, all in a handy little sachet. Presumably, no directions are included, so you’re on your own in figuring out what order you need to use them. Still, for $1.99, can you go wrong?

Actually, yes you can. Very wrong.

John Love, Shameless Consumerism

I ordered a swanky new computer last week, and it’s due to be delivered today. So far, I have hit refresh on the Purolator online tracking site about 40 kajillion times so far today.

Thanks to xkcd, the best online comic for smart geeks, for capturing what’s happening to me so perfectly.

John General

John Rants, Television