a bit of a disclaimer, if you will

i dont mean to insult anyone with anything i say here... these are only my opinions which i am entitled to just as much as the next person is entitled to disagree. i will hold nothing against a person who dissagrees with me. i probably will argue and try to convince them otherwise but who knows, it's just as likely i get convinced by them. but i would never dislike a person who dissagreed with me.

now that i got THAT out of my system...

i was watching tv on the computer today (a neat little invention) while doing several other things (as usual) and my dad came in and decided he wanted to test ome wire thingies that allowed us to listen to whatever sound on the computer there was on the stereo speakers. this would be a great invention if we had half decent stereo speakers, which we do not. but i digress... me and my brother (oh yeah, he was there too) were watching friends onthe computer and in the process of fiddling with the wires, the sound got disconnected. now, my brother and i were raised to not complain if someone was doing something considered important that disrupted our tv viewing. the idea behind this is that tv comes basically last and you work tv in around other things and not you work things around tv. anywho, i digress again. so here we are, patty and me, watching friends withtout sound. since when i watch tv on the computer, i'm usually doing something else like chatting or solitaire or online jigsaw puzzle or minesweaper, i dont actually SEE the tv. well, i kinda look every once and a while but i mostly just listen. so needless to saw, the soundlessness of it all greatly dissrupted the tv experience. we were able to follow the plot and every once and a while, we would be able to get what they were saying (like if they said "yes" or "ok"... those were pretty easy. oh, and nodding worked too) in the end, my dad connected everything back to normal again, so we got the end of the episode. i bet you guys are wondering what this story is all about or the "moral" if you will... well, i'd have to say that it would have to be that i would make a horrible lip reader. and it showed me what watching tv as a deaf person would be like.

speaking of deaf people... i was waiting at rideau for a bus the other day and a man walked up to me and handed me a paper which i at first thought was a flyer. i took it and looked up to thank the man and he look at the paper and pointed to the writing on it. it was a small square of paper with a few stickers on it. typed on it said that the man was deaf and that any amount of money would do for the paper and i guess the stickers that came with it. as i begun to dig out my wallet in my purse i realised i had no change on me and my bus had just arrived. i looked back up at the man and began stammering something about having no money and having to catch my bus and that i was sorry. he waved his hand at me, cutting me off mid-sentence and pulled the paper from my hand and walked away. by this time i had to hurry to the bus. once seated i thought back at the whole encounter. it was at this point that i realised what an idiot i was. he was DEAF. he couldnt HEAR you, you moron!!! somehow, because he wasnt speaking, i must have subconsciously thought he was mute. he must not have known lip reading then, because it's my understanding that once you can read lips, you can figure out speach. yet another story without a point except to say that i'm an idiot. also, it's sad to think that someone with a dissability must have to actually beg for money. he wasnt out there because he made a mistake in his life (which is not necessarly a good reason to be on the street in the first place) but he was there because he was stuck with a handicap which he didnt chose. i dunno, maybe i dont know the whole story, but it just didnt seem right. well none of the poeple out there begging for money ever seems right... yeah yeah i'm a hypocryte and a sap...

i watched the Pianist today. that movie really helps put things in perspective ...