… can be found here... interesting stats.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

… on the Interweb thingy…

An innocent post by a fellow Ottawa blogger – and pretty cool person – has caused a storm of sentences! A cacophony of curses! A maelström of meanness! And an onslaught of overreactions!

Seems Zoom (The Knitnut) put up an innocent post soliciting opinions about whether or not they should adopt a certain type of dog from a rescue organization. She said the following: We’re not crazy about the look of poodles. She’s not ugly, but she’s not drop-to-your-knees heart-meltingly cute either. I think we’re both feeling guilty about this. Is it terribly shallow of us to reject a sweet little dog on the basis of her looks?

Um. No. I don’t think so.

Well, some self-proclaimed do-gooder forwarded this on to the owner of the rescue group and the group immediately disqualified Zoom and her family from adopting the varmint… judging their suitability as pet-owners solely based on these couple of lines from a blog post. That’s it. Here’s how Zoom put it:

Yesterday’s blog post, Should we adopt this puppy? has had some completely unexpected and bizarre repercussions.

Someone forwarded the post to Kim Knapp, founder of Friendly Giants Dog Rescue, and she hated it. I don’t understand what her problem with it is, as she doesn’t seem to be able to articulate it, but she really hates the post.

Not only is she not allowing us to adopt the puppy in question, and barring us from adopting any dog from FGDR, but she claims to have contacted all the other dog rescues in the Ottawa area. She says we should not be allowed to adopt a dog. She says “The rescue community is a very tight-knit family and stuff like this travels like wildfire.”

What I want to know is, STUFF LIKE WHAT? What have we said that would make anyone think we’re unfit to adopt a dog?

She’s also threatening to sue me.

Personally – I don’t see the big deal. So what? You make a throwaway comment about the looks of a dog. Don’t we all make comments of the appearance of one thing or another? But it’s a dog, you say – looks shouldn’t matter. The hell it shouldn’t! I’m sorry people, but it is human nature to use attractiveness – whatever the criteria may be – as one element of decision-making! If you don’t recognise that then you are being incredibly naïve.

Anyways – lots of comments on the post. The rescue org is threatening lawsuits if Zoom does not take down the reference to the organization – which is total BS. There is nothing libelous in this post. In fact, FGDR posted several times on its FB site about this whole travesty using terms that COULD be considered actionable (since taken down after they were reported to the FB gurus). Eight-two comments on her blog later (she has had some primo traffic lately) and the morons at the FGDR have been trolling and have adopted different aliases (same IP address – newbies!) to post defamatory comments, and have claimed to have banned Zoom from the animal rescue community and managed to get much of the Ottawa blogosphere into a titter. All over an innocent blog post.

Two things to conclude.

1. The peeps – as least some – who run that organization are extremely judgmental, thin-skinned, extremist and shallow.
2. They are bullies, pure and simple. As one commenter pointed out: This is how the values of an entire country are being corrupted. Bullying is the pith and substance of the present government. From there it’s been seeping downwards, into the media and to the grassroots. What you’re experiencing is bullying, pure and simple, and I’m glad you’re standing up to it.

I’m not a dog person, and never will be and will never understand why some people are so attached to animals… but, Zoom, I hope you and your family can find a pet without ever, ever having to go through the bullshit that you have had to endure because of this incredibly cowardly bully.

Happy Christmas!

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

… you’re not for me.

I have been experimenting with Adsense ads on my site for a while now. I figgered, “what the hell”, I get half decent traffic so maybe I can make a few bucks. Maybe enough to get extra toppings for my pizza!

But no, I’m going back to the no-ads policy. They clutter up the site too much and aren’t worth the few bucks you get back… eventually.

I guess you need daily traffic in the thousands and not hundreds to make it worthwhile.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

More and more I find myself wandering over to Pushed to the Left and Loving It… so I thought I’d add a link to the site in my sidebar.

Worth a read if you’re a like-minded progressive thinker.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

I have been getting a laugh-a-minute from this Ottawa-based satirical blog called the the-O-dot News Update. It’s sort of a lower budget version of The Onion – but just as funny and it’s mostly about Bytown!.

Take the post that is on the front page today:

Florida Seniors Stoked For Another Spring Break

“We’ll keep our eye on the Spring Breakers and make sure no one gets hurt or causes problems.” explained County Sheriff Gus Harding. “Last year we had an impaired senior on a Rascal scooter so we’ll be cracking down on the seniors as well as the students.” Harding replied.

LOL!

But what I really like about this blog is its focus on Ottawa. In fact, Westboro in particular is often a target of the author’s wit.

Check it out:

City Approves Segregated Stroller Lane For Wellington/Westboro

“I think it’s a great idea.” says Wellington Village resident Dave Shindle who suffered a lacerated ankle from a stroller last year. “The strollers will be off the sidewalks and allow us non-baby people to enjoy shopping and getting our lattes without fearing injury or slowdowns trying to get around the slow moving stroller people.

Or this one that quite a few folks took seriously at first before realising that this was really satire:

Westboro To Use Artisan Sea Salt On Icy Roads

Imported from the south of France, the new artisan sea salt will increase road salting costs by 475%, but Hobbs sees the benefits far outweighing the increased costs. “My ward residents are quite happy to pay extra taxes if they can enjoy the benefits of the artisan salt.” Hobbs replied. City Hall passed the motion put forward by Hobbs, and Westboro residents should start seeing the application of the sea salt as early as next week on their neighbourhood roads. Discussions are also underway to have area sidewalks plowed with organic bamboo shovels instead of the regular metal scrapers used by current sidewalk snow removal units.

I know lots of folks from Westboro, and this was, well, more than slightly believable!

The blog also takes the expected shots at OC Transpo, the Feds (though this is a true story and not satire), and other Ottawa institutions… all in good fun.

Whether you are from Ottawa or not, I highly recommend adding The-O-dot to your feed and to your fave lists if you haven’t already done so…

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Warren Kinsella thinks so.

Do you?

Has the blog been surpassed by Twitter and Facebook as the communication tool of choice? Already?

Food for thought.

My take is that blogs will go back to being what they were in the early years (10ish years ago) – very narrowly-focused issue-based discussion forums – rather than rambling prose wandering  across all levels of subject matter and quality.

Blogs are not dead but will undergo quite a transformation in the next few years.

But my crystal ball is in the shop for repairs right now…

And I’m not quite ready to pack in Trashy’s World just yet…

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

This is the third in what I hope will be a weekly series of blog profiles. And, with this post, two of the first three to be profiled are food or drink based.

But hey, that’s just me.

Today’s  victim profiled site is one that was launched a bit more than a year ago (if memory serves me) by a colleague who had been posting recipes and pictures of his favourite edibles on his Facebook page.

As Joe says in the sidebar of his blog, This blog began as a little project to get my facebook recipe photo albums into a more friendly format. I hope you find some inspiration here.

And I often do.

Eat at Joe’s is a creatively assembled selection of some off beat and not so off beat cookables. Many cultures, most tastes and all degrees of expertise are covered here. And all accompanied by wonderfully composed pictures of various stages of the creation process.

Take this post for example. A simple recipe for broiled potato chips. But this is typical of the posts that Joe throws into that Interwebby thing… good photos, well written and lots of humour sprinkled in.My all-time fave is this recipe for Chicken Galliano! UN-FREAKIN-BELIEVABLE!

One common thread through most – if not all – of the posts is the consumption of beer, wine or some other potent potable as an accompanying activity to the whole cookin’ thing. Which is just peachy with me!

Take a peek over at Joe’s and try a couple of his concoctions if you’re so inclined! You’ll thank me!

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

If you’re in Bytown and haven’t anything better to do this evening, c’mon out to Blog Out Loud Ottawa (BOLO) at Irene’s Pub on Bank Street!

Lots of your fave Ottawa bloggers will be reading their fave posts. There will be laughs, tears and, most importantly, beer!

I won’t be reading… I’m kinda shy, ya know… but I’ll be there!

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

No, this is not about Harper, Baird or any of the ReformCon henchmen…

I was inspired to pen this post after reading the comments made on this entry written by Gordon over at gordon.dewis.ca. The subject of the post is not as important (well, to me anyhow) as the comments in this case.

When we, as bloggers, scribble a post on whatever happens to be top of mind that day, we do it knowing full well that everyone with Internet access can read it, and not everyone will agree with your opinion.

I love this part of my blog thingy! I get into some great exchanages with a few intelligent folks and we banter back and forth on issues ranging from child care to whether the ReformCons are slimier than the Grits.

But one line is never crossed and that is the line of simple civility. There is no name-calling. No rudeness. No ad hominem attacks questioning someone’s character. If nothing else, my parents raised me to be polite when dealing with others and I am raising my kids the same way.

But some folks don’t agree with the idea that civility is a preferred approach in discourse.

Check out these statements made by a certain commenter (I won’t name him. You can go to the site yourself and see):

You’re the kind of individual that makes me ashamed to be human.

You won’t win any debating contests. Too narcissistic and closed-minded…

Wow, are you ever confused …

You just spew words like a babbling child … All navel-gazing grunt with no meaning.

Except for your critique of the appendix, which obviously wasn’t written by an idiot…

There’s more. But like I said, go and see it for yourself.

Me? I woulda banned this clown from commenting after receiving the first one. Such attacks are not welcome on my site nor would I ever expect one of my “regular” commenters to spew drivel like this.

What about you? If you have a blog, where is the line where you say : “enough”?

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

I’m not one to buy into sinister rumours about unwanted intrusions into one’s on-line privacy, but this seems to be legit.

One of the things that I try to trust about Facebook is that they do protect my privacy according to the settings that I stipulate – i.e., who can see my “stuff”. But there is a little tick-box in one’s privacy settings that should be unticked unless you want your profile info to appear in Google searches.

Latest rumors suggest Facebook is up to compromise users privacy by automatically indexing all users info on Google. Facebook’s privacy features has been one of its strong suits since it began and millions of users trust that the personal information will not be shared with anyone unless permission is granted.

So will Facebook index all your info on Google?

In response to the “rumour”, Facebook posted the following response

There have been misleading rumors recently about Facebook indexing all your information on Google. This is not true. Facebook created public search listings in 2007 to enable people to search for your name and see a link to your Facebook profile.

In case you think that this is an unwanted intrusion into your privacy and don’t want your name to be indexed by Facebook and pop up on Google there is simple solution -  just follow the steps below:

Step 1

Go to the Settings>Privacy Settings>Search

Step 2

If the Allow indexing box is checked for search engines, just uncheck it

In case you have already unchecked the privacy setting feature in past, recheck to ensure if it has changed with the new Privacy settings.

Thanks to cousin Christopher as well as the folks at Simple Thoughts, by Gaea Times for this info.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario