Canderous and Cade's Crazy Cantina: a shiny new fanfiction social thread!

I am so glad none of you are writing episode 7

 

My church did Trunk or Treat on a regular basis as well as indoors trick-or-treating. The youth (12-18ers) would get assigned to a room and have to come up with a theme. I remember doing Aladdin with my sister's friend Ben. My friend, who is the niece of a very famous BYU football coach, did a BYU-themed room. That sort of thing.

 

I can see doing Trunk-and-Treat with a church group where you know people. My local newspaper was making a call out to random hermits living out in the sticks probably in Unibomber shacks. Okay maybe not that bad, but the public at large was invited.

So I almost got in a head on collision today. I had to slam on my brakes so hard I am sure my Plantar Plate is surely torn now. My foot really hurts. It is the same damn thing at just about every intersection. People are cutting corners. In this case it was a corner where people turning right have the right of way. I am driving up to that corner to make my right turn when some crazy lady coming in the opposite direction starts her left turn about 50 feet out by drifting into the opposing lane and then not just cutting the corner…she came into my lane like she was a Brit that forgot we drive on the right side of the road in this country.

It went down like this: I am the blue dotted line. And the red line is the preoccupied driver. I am the only person who has the right of way at this intersection. It is one of those weird intersections where right turns can go like it is just a regular curve in the road. Everybody else has to yield. So to avoid this person I have to slam on the brakes…probably injuring my foot again…and pull over onto the shoulder because she is too busy talking on the phone to even NOTICE that she almost caused an accident. She didn't even look my way! I wish I had leaned on the horn but I was too busy trying to not get killed.


Just about everyday somebody is in a car accident in the local area. I have no idea why they love cutting corners up here, but I have almost been hit a dozen times.

This is my driving pet peeve! That and people who drive through parking lots at 30 MPH and people driving through parking lots who see somebody backing up, they know there is no way that person can see them because there are giant trucks and minivans on either side, but they still take their right-of-way and then lean on the horn and cuss at the driver who is creeping out of the parking space knowing they can't see. If you see somebody backing up and you know they can't see you…stop and let them out!

Arrgghh! Thank goodness I refilled my anxiety medication today.

 

I just got back from the Instacare. Had to go in because I had a killer headache that wouldn't go away. Head would pound if I even breathed. Drove down, got shot in the butt, had a friend drive me home. I'm picking up the car in the morning. It wasn't responding to regular pain meds because of the inflammation and pressure on my spinal cord. Man, I hate this.

 

Stormed a gym, stormed Lysandre Labs, went back to Geosenge Town and kicked Team Flare's ass, saved the world, battled a Legendary, and five Ultra Balls later, became the proud owner of Xerneas, whom I named Xavier. Now I'm on a grind-fest for the eighth gym.

But first... some much-needed sleep.

 

Dantana Skywalker it sounds like all of us are falling apart. I would rather have what I have then what you have though. That sounds bad.

So I get an email today saying that my son has to be at a mandatory meeting for a football fund raiser this Friday. Talk about last minute. Maybe I plan on doing something on Friday. Also, what do they need funds for? We paid a $135 sports fee to the school for a two month season. We drive our own kids to the games. The email said the child should bring a list of at least twenty family and friends and their phone numbers to the school cafeteria and a cell phone. There they will all sit at the tables and call all twenty numbers and ask for a minimum of $20 per person in donations. First of all, I don't have twenty relatives or friends. Does anybody in this forum want to be my friend and give me their phone number so my son can call and beg for money? (That is sarcasm, not a serious inquiry). Really, I have my brothers and sisters. All of my older relatives have passed away and I have no friends. Really, I have no real life friends that I am close enough to beg for money. Fundraisers are a nightmare for me. Usually I purchase the cookies or whatever myself, but I am not handing over $400 to these people. This stuff drives me crazy.

My son didn't fund raise for his school trip to DC. I paid for it. I don't like begging for money. The stuff they sell to raise funds are usually crap unless it is Girl Scout cookies. Those Girl Scouts are smooth operators. How dare they sell a great and yummy product at a fair price!

 

Jedi_Lover: what the fish is that school on? Forcing kids to demand money from people is just wrong! If there's a genuine need for the money then they could at least send out letters to parents explaining what it's for. I don't know about anyone else but I'd gladly pay for things knowing what I'm paying for and that it's need than force a kid to call people he might not know to extort money from them. What if someone can't afford to give the $20? Would the kid be in trouble? Would the teacher then call them? Selling cookies for funds is one thing, but this is just plain wrong!

 

I know, I just don't like the telemarketer feel of this. If they provided buses to the games, then that is an expense I can understand. Maybe they pay the coach or maybe they pay the referees. I just want to know what my $135 went to and why they need another $400 per player. I think the school is private, so they may need the money. I say "Think" because my son plays on a co-op team. His school does not have a football field so they play on the football team of another school and it is a Christian school…so I assume it is private. All I know is they pray way too much. I have nothing against religion, I am religious, but I don't like touching people. After each game we would have to hold hands in a circle like the Whos from Whoville and pray for about five minutes. Usually I am cold and wet and miserable while we do this. One day I said, "No way" and I went to my car to warm it up…or that is what I told my son. "I thought you would appreciate a nice warm car. I'm not being antisocial."

I was cracking up about this World War Z spoof.

 

If they're a Christian school, then it's private; the First Amendment forbids it otherwise. Of course, it being a private school means that them forcing kids to telemarket for their sports team is hardly surprising.

 

Why, back in my day, we never did any sort of telemarketing fundraising, and if we wanted to raise money, our strategy was to give the order forms to our parents and have them take the forms to work. </fogey>

I'm such a dork when it comes to nicknaming my Pokemon. I caught a Haunter last night. I named him Nyarlathotep. He is... the Haunter of the Dark. He's the third Pokemon of mine that got a Cthulhu Mythos nickname, the first two being a Houndour named Tindalos (Hounds of Tindalos), and a Sigilyph named Yellow Sign (the glyph from The King in Yellow). I need to get me a Tentacool so I can name it Cthulhu.

I also caught a Delibird whom I named Papa John, because he delivers, durr hurr hurr... :B

 

Once, when I was in nail school, El Psycho made us call everyone in our cell phone directory and book at least 5 appointments. And if we couldn't get that many, we got marked down 10% per missing appointment. And we only got an A on assignments if we got 97% or more.

I hope he got run over by a truck.

 

Fundraising is one of my least favourite things. I hate badgering people to donate - when I was a kid, my mom practically had to lead me around my neighbourhood by hand to sell Girl Guide cookies.

My theatre group did a ton of fundraising last year to help cover the costs of our production, but between the four or five different events we held, we only managed to raise $300. (A lot of our fundraisers backfired because we're a completely new group and it was our first show). Thankfully, we had a ton of people come out for the show, so we not only covered the costs, but also ended up with over $1200 to put towards our next production.

Jedi_Lover, I hear you about the driving. My city has HORRIBLE drivers. My pet peeve is people who don't watch for pedestrians or cyclists. I can't drive, so I get around either by bike, bus or on foot. There are so many people who don't look before turning right on a red light (something they can do here); I've almost been hit about five or six times in the past two months when trying to cross the road. Don't get me started on drivers who swerve into the bike lane... arrgh...

 

I'm in the same boat as you, Idrelle_Miocovani, not being able to drive (due to visual impairments). Not only because of the psycho drivers, but the fact that the Detroit Metro area is probably one of the least friendly cities to mass transit and non-motor vehicle transportation in the United States. It's a nightmare, honestly.

 

Want to know how I get to use any public transit?

I need to walk into town to the bus station. Then, I can ride the fixed-route buses to other places in town. The only perk is that the buses are free.

 

My hometown is close-ish to Detroit, Goodwood, just on the other side of the border. We do occasionally hear the Detroit horror stories because some of the Canadian radio stations are like, "Oh, so this happened in Detroit, just so you all know."

I don't currently live in Toronto, but I visit it enough to know that it's getting pretty bad (especially the downtown area) for non-motorized vehicle transportation. There have been so many accidents with cyclists - it's at the point where you just shouldn't bother cycling because your chances of getting hit are pretty high. Not to mention every time I step off the streetcar I feel like I'm going to get clobbered by some absent-minded driver (since the streetcars can't pull over - you basically get off and run like hell for the sidewalk).

TrakNar - oh, how I wish my bus pass was free... it used to be, when I was still in school (a universal bus pass in included in tuition), but I graduated a year and a half ago and since then I've been on the 31-day adult pass which costs $90.

 

We always had the option on fundraising for band trips in high school. It was really nice, if we didn't feel like helping out with the annual fundraising dinner and concert, we didn't have to, but we wouldn't get a cut of the funds. However, I always did because I always got put on coat check. It was like 30 minutes of work before the dinner and 30 minutes after. The other 2-3 hours my partner and I would just sit there.

I pay for a bus pass with my tuition. It's $57 for 4 months, which is actually a good deal. However, what pisses me off about my tuition (besides the amount) is the fact that I have to pay for a university gym membership, there is no way I can get out of paying it. I'm a CRIPPLE. I don't use the gym. UGG. It's like $100 per semester. Other disabled students have tried to fight it, but the university has always come up with a way around it.

 

Congratulate me! I have finally overcome my writer' s block and it' s terrible side effects! Now I can write clearly!

 

Congrats!

 

Briannakin does the gym have wheelchair access? If not tell them you want to go to the gym and they better spend the $20K to build a ramp. If they do have a ramp, the wheelchair bound students should all go to the gym like a flash mob and really clog it up. Maybe they can demand exercise machines they can use such as the type of exercise machines seen in Physical Therapy gyms. Or ask for the school to provide aides to assist you so you can fully utilize the facility you are paying for.

I think when it becomes inconvenient or costly to accommodate people with physical disabilities they may not feel the need to charge you the fee for facilities you can't use.

 

Parts of the gym are wheelchair accessable, like the indoor track, so they argue I could do that. Unfortunely, there are only 2 wheelchair students at the uni currenly and I doubt that there will ever be enough of us to cause a big enough stink. I COULD use the gym, it just would be really difficult and unsafe. I just find it stupid that we can opt-out of buying the bus pas, and buying the student health care coverage, but we can't opt-out of the gym membership, and I know a lot of students would like to.

 

Briannakin maybe it is Big Brother wanting to make sure students get their exercise. It is getting bad here with the government. There is pressure from the federal and local governments to control what we eat. I remember I would get Happy Meals for the kids. Then one day I got their Happy Meal at McDonalds and their fries consisted of five French fries in a mini container. This meal was supplemented with sliced apples. It was a push to make kids healthier. The next time we went to McDonalds the boys didn't want a happy meal. They wanted an adult combo meal with a double cheeseburger, a large fries and large drink. I guess that Happy Meal health push backfired. And before anybody says it is bad for me to feed them McDonalds realize my oldest is fourteen and weighs 90 pounds. The doctor wants him to eat whatever he wants and as much as he wants. It looks like I starve that kid, but he eats like a pig. His baby brother is 140 pounds of pure muscle. I don't have fat kids.

Anyway, I know the NYC mayor wanted to ban large soda cups at fast food chains. We get taxed extra on stuff that is bad for us. And the school lunchrooms needed to give kids veggies and fruit instead of hamburgers. The result was kids would rather go hungry than eat broccoli and apple wedges. In one school at least a lunch inspector looked at homemade lunches and pressured the kid to eat the school lunch instead stating the lunch their parent packed was not nutritionally acceptable. I didn't believe that one until I saw it:
http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=8762

It's a mad house!

 

Canada's obesity problem isnt nearly as bad as it is in the US, mostly because eating fast food, including Macdonalds, is MUCH more expensive, and we don't have things like 99 chicken nugget meals or all you can eat pizza buffets for 2.99. I went to a supermarket when I was in seattle and I was amazed by how cheep some of the junk food was, and this was at a time when the US dollar and Canadian Loonie were about the same.

I think it's just the University looking for a couple extra bucks. Most students don't realize what all is included in the tuition, so a lot probably dont even know they are paying for a gym membership and never pick up a card.

 

Hey! We Americans are just bigged boned! Lol!

 

I'd wager a fine heap of gold that the obesity problem in America is in large part a product of widespread consumerism and the rise of the "value meal" ethos. Proportions at restaurants have increased hugely in the past fifty years, gently at first but starting around the eighties they started shooting upward. Compare the average McDonald's meal from when the chain was first popular with the standard Big Mac meal served nowadays, and you may find yourself rhetorically staggered. Not to mention two whole generations of kids raised on commercial television, and it's no wonder they'd rather go hungry than eat some apples or celery (personally I love apples, abhor celery, but also love raw carrots and spinich).

Government my arse; while we've got a few loonies (Bloomberg, et. al.) with loony ideas, at least some are trying to solve the problem. Universal health care would go a long way toward helping.

 

The government is what needs to be on a diet.