“Aces & Asses” Volume 3: All Ass Edition.

This edition features a double dip of despicable.

Recently, my friend Jeff (http://jeff-bourne.webs.com/) had an accident in his wheelchair that lead to an infection in his toes so bad that they needed to be amputated (I’m just going to sum up the story; for a more detailed account of the ordeal, click here: http://www.jtbourne.com/jeffs-ordeal/ ).  So Jeff took it like a man, and entered surgery for the procedure that removed the pinky, ring, and middle toes of his left foot, in hopes of not having to remove his entire foot due to a spreading infection.  The amputation occurred, but Jeff’s body struggled to adapt; he lost nearly 2 litres of blood, began seizuring, and quite soberingly, almost died.  Thankfully he came around, and is recovering now.

Now, here’s the Ass part.  Jeff had a backpack on the back of his wheelchair.  Inside the bag was a laptop; a great hospital time-passer.  Sometime between the initial amputation, room changes, and the life recovery episode, Jeff’s bag went missing. It was later recovered—minus the laptop.  Some jackass (speculatively a drug user looking for pawn collateral) walked into the hospital, and stole the laptop of a man in a wheelchair who was undergoing an amputation, and a life-saving episode.  Is this maybe the most unbelievable thing you’ve ever heard? 

We’ve since learned that Kelowna General Hospital will write it off as an insurance claim, and get Jeff a new computer.  Tip of the cap, KGH.

I don’t wish harm upon many people, but I can think of a few laws I would like to break if I ever ran into the culprit.

                                                                *************

Some people don’t believe in monogamy, and that is their choice.  But some people take this right to opinion a little too far, in my opinion.  I’ve been married for over 2 years now, and I believe marriage to be the definition of love, trust, and commitment between a man and a woman.

The people at the Ashley Madison Agency have created a service that facilitates extra-marital affairs.  Basically a dating site for married people.  You may have seen the ads on TV, or heard them on the radio.  One of their taglines is, “Life is Short.  Have an Affair.” They also offer a 100% money back affair guarantee, bordering the whole service on prostitution.

   I don’t feel like promoting traffic to their website, so I won’t even post a link, but this is all for real.  Oprah, Larry King, Fox News, CNN,Ellen, Dr.Phil, Howard Stern and others have all ran stories on it.  A YouTube search will show you Ashley Madision President and CEO Noel Biderman, a married man and father of two, being lit up by hosts and studio audiences all over the country while trying to justify his service and stance.

Whatever Mr. Biderman uses as a smoke-screen, this is a despicable service.  It promotes infidelity in the hopes that sleeping with someone besides your spouse will provide the happiness in your life that you’ve been missing.  Not only is this an abomination, it’s a flat out lie.  Somehow their guaranteed level of “discreet” will make sure the fallout of families, psychological impact on childen, divorce implications, and every other facet that is attached to cheating on your spouse, will somehow not be an issue. 

These people are making money in one of the most shameless methods I’ve heard to date.  Why don’t terrorists go after these kinds of people (I’m not promoting terrorism)?

“Aces and Asses,” Volume 2. The Stupendous and the Stupid.

 

Welcome to the second edition of the column that takes a closer examination of the stupendous and the just plain stupid that I’ve seen, heard of, or witnessed lately. 

Let’s get right to the Asses category.  Whilst slowly driving home from work through rush hour today, in the far right lane of a three lane highway, I noticed an East-Indian woman walking on the sidewalk.  She wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary, just walking on her way.  As we crept up to the traffic light around 20 km/h or less, we overtook a late 80’s, primer gray Dodge pickup.  The ass-ish part is this: the Caucasian jackass riding shotgun in his buddy’s work truck decided it would be hilarious to imitate an East-Indian accent, and mockingly speak to this lady, who had done absolutely nothing to provoke such a racially slurred exhibition.  You can use your imagination as to what it was said, but it was somewhere in the ballpark of a crude Apu from the Kwik-E-Mart impression.  With any luck, the lady may have been out of earshot.  She, at least, did not qualify the volley.  It’s really hard to believe that as far as we have come as a society in terms of racial sensitivity, there are still people who just don’t get that things like this aren’t acceptable anymore (not that is was actually ever acceptable per se, more just common practice, albeit ignorant and still racist) and/or just refuse to make any changes in their thought process in lieu of just entertaining themselves with disrespectful, vulgar remarks. 

                                                          *****

Coming in as this instalment’s Ace, is “Insane” Usain “Lightning” Bolt (can a person have two nicknames like this?).  With newly acquired world records of 9.58 seconds in the 100 m sprint and 19.19 seconds for the 200 m sprint, this guy is the fastest man on the planet.  He’s also destroying all conventional schools of thought that say a person of his size should be running like an elephant.  In response, he seemingly effortlessly gallops like a gazelle, and obliterates world records.  And he does it with a smile on his face.  And he’s entertaining to watch, and he makes people actually want to look in their TV guide to see when track meets are on.  AND he’s (currently) drug free.  What track star has been able to make all of these claims at the same time in the last 10 years?  Ben Johnson didn’t exactly leave a positive impression on the running world, Donovan Bailey was cool (especially when embarrassed Michael Johnson at a 1997 150 m “World’s Fastest Man” showdown in Toronto), but he didn’t have staying power, and there have been a few American runners who set records in the last few years, but frankly no one cared about.  Bolt’s got all the makings an athlete that should be a star for a long time.  As long as he keeps not failing doping tests, he’s an Ace In my book.     

In a Canada vs. USA showdown, Bailey obliterates Johnson in '97, as the American pulled up lame.

Bolt rules the running world.