We're Only Gonna Die for Our Arrogance

What? Two posts in as many days? Inconceivable!

Before I begin, I'd just like to mention one thing: radiojazz Toolbar for Firefox. It's an add-on that gives you access to some ridiculous number of jazz internet radio stations in a toolbar in Firefox. As soon as Firefox is open, you have an effectively limitless supply of jazz available at the click of a drop-down menu.

And a bunch of other shit, too. Maybe they thought that they needed to put in a bunch of other random things (email checker, 3-day weather forecast) in order to justify taking up a whole toolbar. I dunno. I disabled all of it until I was left with the bare essentials, namely a drop-down menu full of stations and anything else that couldn't be disabled by me. Also, I have removed the toolbar space normally allocated to Bookmarks in FF, so having this new toolbar hasn't actually decreased the ammount of space which FF uses to, you know, show me the internet and stuff.

Now, I would have given this extension 10/10 on the awsome scale. Seriously. Except that... it doesn't seem to work all of the time. After playing all afternoon in my basement while I was out doing things, it stopped working for more than 10 minutes at a time this evening. Which kind of upset me. I thought that it might have just been the station I was tuned to, but before I could change it, I got curious about another button, a small circle right at the end of the drop-down menu. I clicked it, and it turned out to just harmlessly minimize the menu. I clicked it again, and the menu jumped back to its full size. Without the arrow to drop it down.

So, I don't know if it's just one station, or the entire extension that's gone sour, because I can't change stations. Download it at your peril. I can sort of give it the benefit of the doubt for now... I dunno how much longer that will last.

Now for the meat of my post:

I have done something(s) bad. I know you may find that shocking, but it's true. I'm sure that you'll be further surprised to discover that the exact way I managed to do said bad thing, was by shooting off my big inter-mouth. Please raise your extended jaws before you drool all over your keyboards.

Binks is an awsome guy. He's one of the many Stratford-Waterloo transplants who keep this little community running smoothly. If you click the link, you'll notice that he posts reasonably often, and I enjoy reading all of his work. I also enjoy commenting on his work. But don't bother to try and do that, because he doesn't allow comments on his posts anymore.

*cough*

I found this out just a little while ago, while reading the latest at Granite's blog. Read it. If you aren't a) Binks, b) Granite, or c) me, it'll go a long way to bringing you up to speed. It's all the background you need for this stage of the post.

So, you'll notice that Binks goes out of his way to be nice and not mention that the person he's talking about in his lengthy comment of explanation is me. That was quite big of him, and it has given me the chance to own up and take the blame for myself.

Now, to categorically explain what has happened (otherwise there's a chance this will come in at a decent word-count):

First, the PS3 post which no longer exists mentioned at the top of the comment:
Basically, there was some survey about PS3s from which Binks quoted a number of statistics, rounding them all off to the nearest 5%. Granite commented that that was misleading. Binks responded that he'd done it because it made it easier to read, and (more importantly) that the statistics all had some measure of error, usually in the range of 5%. Thus, the numbers Binks used were just as valid as the ones quoted in the study. Repeat. Ad nauseum. I actually missed the whole thing happen. I'd been busy having the hell week I posted about below, and just happened to find this post on Binks' page when I visited it. Seeing that the comments had reached into the mid-teens, I figured that there was some exciting debate going on. I was quite wrong.

I am the person whose "most stimulating comment was insulting". I won't deny that. I will even not take up a defense against Binks' accusation that it failed to possess "a decent attempt at being clever". However, the reason that I won't bother arguing those things is...

That I don't remember what I said. It was a 2-parter. Basically the thrust of it was "Please stop this ridiculous argument" which I attempted to deliver (apparently with a distinct lack of cleverness) in the package of an insult directed at both of the parties. What irks me most, is that I can remember what I said about Granite. I thought it was silly, and wouldn't be taken seriously. It was something about vegans not being attractive (Granite having just told me recently that his girlfriend had gotten a job at a vegan restaurant). But I can't remember what I said about Binks. Apparently it was above average on the "tasteless" scale.

So, Binks, I am sorry about that. Well, that's a lie. I am 99.99% very sorry about that. I am 0.01% very angry that I can't remember what my (apparently) awsome bombshell of an insult was (and, don't worry, there is no 5% shuffle room in those figures). But it's probably best that I don't know.

Now, as Binks said, the post doesn't show up anymore. So, if that had been the extent of my wrong-doing, you would be happily navigating away from this page right about now. But, it wasn't and so, hopefully, you aren't.

When Binks says that none of the comments on his posts are about the topics of the posts, he's right. At least for me. I've only commented 2 other times on Binks' blog recently.

The first was on this actually quite interesting post about finding out that someone is dead (Required reading. It's not that long). I read through it all, and remembered actually feeling the same way when I found out that DNA had bitten the dust. I was going to write a comment about how right he was, and that he'd really hit on an interesting idea.

But then. In the time it took to load the comments page (not that that was a long time. A split second, really) I remembered, "Binks said he only finished reading the Guide a few days ago... Didn't he steal one of my Douglas Adams books 3 years ago?". And then I had to write a comment about that, because the thought of Binks stealing one of my favourite books for months, and not even knowing who the author was was even more interesting and personal than the idea he'd shared in the post.

Also, we managed a bit of banter about it in the comments after that.

However, my most recent commentary (Required. Don't whine, it's not like there'll be a test. And the video is pretty funny), may have been what did it.

Now, in my defense, here is what I saw:

Binks found a pretty funny video and posted it. I mean, the guy shoots himself in the foot. It's classic. But then he proceeded to put forth a couple of opinions that I thought were completely wrong on more than one level. It seemed to be everyone against the poor cop with the limp, and I decided to weigh in on his side.

Now, I did weigh in rather heavily. I mean, this is what might have happened in a similar situation:

Binks and I are just sitting down to lunch at a restaurant. We order our meals (we both have the same thing), chat amiably, and then tuck in when the plates arrive. After a couple of bites, Binks looks out the window, turns to me and says, "It's a shame the weather's been so bad lately, eh Liam?"

At this point I look out the window, and allow at least 850 milliseconds for a confused look to register on my face. Then I overturn the table, meals and all, onto Binks, kick him in the shin, and then beat him vigorously about the face with a salt-shaker while saying, "I don't think I quite see where you're coming from there, Binks. It's been pretty good around here lately".

So, I'm sorry about that as well.

So, in conclusion, I am sorry x 2. Binks, please let people comment on your blog again. I will make a concerted effort to make my comments serious and impersonal. I stand by the factual worth of what I wrote in the comments for the Death and Foot Shooting posts, but I could have delivered them in a better way.

I am also additionally sorry that this has happened (as you said in your comment on Granite's post) during this of all the months of the year. Tonight is probably the last night for the next 6 days that I'm even going to be able to run through my links and see who's posted. The stress is high, and I didn't mean to contribute to yours, especially with something so pointless as passionate blog commentary.

I can't think of anything clever to end this with, so I'm sorry again.

Oooh, and I found an extension for FF that just opens a game of Minsweeper whenever you click on it. But I haven't played it yet, so I can't really comment on its worthiness.