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Showing posts from 2005

Whatever Happened To Baby Madonna

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I think there is nothing wrong with aging women. I think any guy who can't appreciate (read: get the hots for) a woman who is +/- 10 years their age, is an idiot. With all that said, I have been really disturbed by Madonna for the last few years. She went from trampy to sexy to still-got-it to milf to cougar to... Baby Jane. I was watching a seldom seen, but beloved movie, "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" about a child star whose halcyon days were 50 years prior. Betty Davis plays the title role: she had one scene were she was out and about and all tramped up to impress the menfolk. She had this creepy quality and I got a sense of deja vu. The last time I saw a trampy old bag who was trying to hook men was the last time I saw Madonna on TV. The sad part: in the above examples, Madonna was 47 and had the benefit of more anti-aging techniques than Vlad the Impaler; Betty Davis was 58. Yet, there seems to be a slim gulf between a has-been and an actress playing a has-been ta

God's Will Exacted on WalMart

Tonight at approximately 5PM, a lightning storm broke out over Saanich, BC. It hit several locations including the Walmart store, knocking out power in the area. This knocked out power, emergency communications and traffic lights. Lights on many interections were knocked back to 4-way stop status. Lightning also struck a home on Cadilliac Avenue, where it blew out windows and peeled bark off of a fir tree. We were shopping at a grocery store at the time. The lights flickered and a fierce rumble roared over the roof of the building. I was outside for a follow-up flash and that lit up the whole of sky. Despite being struck by lightning and a loss of power, Walmart reopened within minutes. I guess they didn't get the message that they shouldn't be open for business. Chalk this up to a tale of Greed vs. Mother Nature. Update: A Canada.com Story on the lightning strike and its effect .

Satan or Santa?

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A red figure who knows if you're naughty or nice. He seems to have supernatural powers and he's not a revered figure in Christianity. Santa or Satan? I've have fun with this typo potential for years: "Satan's Wish List" "The Fallen Angel, Santa." "Kids? Do you want me to take you to see Satan?" Anyways. It's more than a typo. In Austria, St. Nick is followed around by figures dressed in devil masks. While Santa dishes out candies and well wishes, the devil swap people's backsides. This from The Beer Hunter : Grotesquely masked as monsters and devils, and accompanied by the red-robed figure of St Nicholas (otherwise known as Santa Claus), a troupe of children were causing a commotion in the huge, arched, beer halls of the Augustiner brewery - not the famous one in Munich, Germany, but the very imposing namesake in the city of Salzburg, Austria. Both of these breweries were founded by Augustine abbeys, and the one in Austria is still

Do We Pay Enough Compassion?

In response, to a friend's blog post , I have this to say: Helping the homeless easy and impossible to solve. It's been a big concern about me for a while. The bottom rung is where the trouble happens. That's the person who saps your taxes; he'll take your stuff; she'll go (more) nuts and take a swing at your mother as she's closing up the store. If everyone in your surroundings is a billionaire, the millionaire will need to bum a ride on your lear jet. If you have a roof and groceries, the guy with nothing will try to get your roof and/or your groceries. I take a moment to think every time I see a homeless person or someone who is high risk (there are two houses just up the street where the people aren't homeless: they have a base of operations and they're much more dangerous). I ask, "how could I fix that?" In case you don't know me: I'm a loud mouth and a busybody and I try fix anything broken. The difference engine chugs for a few

Utah, here I come!

I just found this super cool site , via another super cool tool What this SFX site lacks in looks, it makes up for in pricing and diversity.

Tony Danza Moment

I was speaking with an acquaintance last night who worked as an extra, on the crap-ass TV movie, Stealing Christmas , starring Tony Danza. In between shots, Tony "Who's The Boss" Danza was sitting around on set. One of the extras came up to Mr. Danza and said, "Hey! How are you liking Vancouver?" Tony replied, "Don't fucking talk to me" and went back to reading. My guess is that he was bitter that his career was in such a state that he was sitting on a soundstage in Canada filming a movie for cable TV. My second guess, he's angry that he's a punchline. What's your theory?

PriceRitePhoto: Abusive Bait and Switch Camera Store

This is a small excerpt regarding customer service whiz Steve Phillips: He first told me that if I did this that he would not cancel my order but just never fill it. If I cancelled it he said he'd charge me a 15% restocking fee. When I told him that that would be unethical he went nuts. He accused me of trying to "extort" him and said that he was going to have two local police officers come over and arrest me. He then went on to say that as a "professional photographer" I should have known better than to try and buy a camera this way and that he was an attorney and would sue me if I wrote an article about my experience. He told me that I had no idea who I was dealing with and that as he had my work contact info that he was going to call both my immediate supervisor and the CEO of my company and tell them that I was trying to extort him. "I will take this very personally," he said. He claimed to have recorded our phone call and said that he would make

What Does Rudy Know?

Rudy Rucker is super cool. I am going through his book, Freeware right now. I'm barely into it and it one of the coolest books I have read in the last-- well, since Software . Anyways, Rudy Rucker has exposed his list of writing tips and notes for his books. They're really insightful and inspiration. Freeware is approx. 200 pages; he has 120 pages of notes. On top of that there are scribbling and drafts. He didn't just sit down and blurt it out. If you're a writer or a wannabe, I urge you to check it out.

Deborah Davis vill be avested for disoveying ORDERZ!

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From Papers Please , Deborah Davis is a 50 year-old mother of four who lives and works in Denver, Colorado. Her kids are all grown-up: her middle son is a soldier fighting in Iraq. She leads an ordinary, middle class life. You probably never would have heard of Deb Davis if it weren't for her belief in the U.S. Constitution. One morning in late September 2005, Deb was riding the public bus to work. She was minding her own business, reading a book and planning for work, when a security guard got on this public bus and demanded that every passenger show their ID. Deb, having done nothing wrong, declined. The guard called in federal cops, and she was arrested and charged with federal criminal misdemeanors after refusing to show ID on demand. On the 9th of December 2005, Deborah Davis will be arraigned in U.S. District Court in a case that will determine whether Deb and the rest of us live in a free society, or in a country where we must show "papers" whenever a cop deman

Crash My X-Box

It turns that while one erstwhile guy smashed his X-Box360 outside of a store, a lot of gamers have seen their X-Box console suffer crashes . Cryptic messages like E79, E64 and the like are cropping up on TVs around the world. Way to go, Microsoft . What CNN says about the X-Husks.

MoMA's Safe

In a dangerous world, we worry about being safe. That's the topic of the exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. SAFE: Design Takes On Risk , the first major design exhibition at MoMA since its reopening in November 2004, presents more than 300 contemporary products and prototypes designed to protect body and mind from dangerous or stressful circumstances, respond to emergencies, ensure clarity of information, and provide a sense of comfort and security. These objects address the spectrum of human fears and worries, from the most mundane to the most exceptional, from the dread of darkness and loneliness to the threat of earthquakes and terrorist attacks. The exhibition covers all forms of design, from manufactured products to information architecture. Featured products include refugee shelters, demining equipment, baby strollers, and protective sports gear. Designers are trained to balance risk with protection and to mediate between disruptive change and normalcy; goo

Attack of the Zombie Member

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I have been working on prosthetics and mask masking for the last 10+ years. I was tapped last monh to make... ahem... a penis and two breasts for local Cinevic production called "Not Dead, Not Alive." I rose to the challenge. I had lots of fun saying things like "check out my penis." A friend who the video on the weekend called, I proudly said to him, "You saw my penis!" Ah... the language is such an inprecise tool. I plan on posting a longer and much more exhaustive piece of how I did it. This was the first time I used water putty to cast the mould. Wow. The best substance I've used yet. Second, I cast with a theatrical grade latex. It was like working with human skin. Despite the high cost, I am never going back. As time and space allows, I will be showing off many more of my mask making and sculpting creations. Apart from these three items, the rest of my stuff is G and PG rated. Don't believe me? Check my Deviant Art site .

Sarah Needs Help

I am part of a number of Ask-A-Question-Get-An-Answer groups. Most notably: Google Answers. I also signed up for www.kasamba.com and for about a year, nothing. Now, finally, I've got a request for information. This is a new spin on the Nigerian 419 letters: Client's Target Fee: negotiable From: LadySarah Date: 11/22/2005 1:22:43 PM From Sarah Johnson Tel: +225-0717-3084 Dear One, I Come across your profile and have Decided to get in touch with you after the prayer,to see if you can help me solve my problem. My name is Sarah Johnson,The Daughter of (Late Chief Adam Johnson) Who lost his life in the course of the crisis here in Cote D'ivoire on the 7th of November last year on his way to their company ( Nestle Food Plc) . My father willed in cash, the sum of $8.7 Million US Dollars which he deposited in a Fixed/Suspence account here in Abidjan Cote D'ivoire in west Africa, with enabling conditions for the release of the fund whic

Is it just me, or do these people look surprisingly ragged?

My friend, Ben, is working in India right now and he's having a great time. You have to read this week's post on what happens when he visits a temple. It's great.

Quickie Candidate Survey

In 1999, a friend of mine gave me a quicky rundown of the candidates running in the Victoria Civic election. In 2002, hoodlum and rent-a-protestor, Ben Isitt (pronounced EEEE-sit; or pronounced Chucklehead) was a contender of Alan Lowe's job. In 2005, Ben Issitt is again gunning for Alan Lowe's job. Here's my quickie survey of the select candidates: Mayor Alan Lowe - The autopilot vote. He went to the trouble of reading from his phrasebook. You should go the trouble of voting for him. Ben Isitt - The Anti-Alan Lowe vote. Gregroy Hartnell - The Anti-Ben Isitt vote. Comes with munchies and a lava lamp. Pam Smarden - She's been a fringe candidate who decided to lose a more noteworthy election. Georgia Jones - Just Visiting Earth Council Dean Fortin - Media whores need a case of the clap Rose Henry - Poor and needy can be a career option. Wow. Helen Hughes - The candidate of choice for the 19th, 20th and 21st century. Philippe Lucas - Dude, where's my ballot? Pam Mad

Google Base Is On The Air

Move over Wikipedia, eBay, uh... everything else. Google Base has released its beta and I've drunk the kool-aid . What can you post on there? Almost anything and everything from classified ads to recipes to rants and raves.

Handle The Fries... and Get Naked

This is more than lurid. This is a scary intersection of the stupidity of McDonald's staff and management; and predatory people. Callers are calling McDonald's in the US, impersonating police and convincing supervisors to strip search female employees. There have been over 70 cases and a number of cases include sexual abuse. Wow. How can you be so stupid that you would get naked on demand? How could you believe that part of strip search could include a sex act? But then, these are people who are willing to work at McDonald's. Video footage .

December 3rd: McUnHappy Day

A ten year old wants to protest the Softwood Lumber impasse . For those who haven't noticed, the US has massively lost challenge after challenge. Despite the rulings from NAFTA, the WTO and other organizations: the US refuses to ante up the cash they have skimmed from incoming lumber. Luke McAndress' solution: boycott McDonalds on December 3rd. "No Mc-D on Dec. 3" Why? Move over Apple Pie: McDonald's is the international symbol of the America. Fat people quickly stuffing their faces with greasy and nutritionally devoid food products. It's an American success story. How can you boycott McDonald's? Well, I do it about 360 days of the year. I've learned my lesson. Since dropping McDonald's from my diet, I've lost 40lbs ! For those of you who have the time to spare here's how you do it: A) Go to a drive through. The bigger the vehicle, the better. Go up to the window and order nothing. Or, order "I'm boycotting McDonald's" the

Arrested Development Suffers Cardiac Arrest

Fox has axed Arrested Development after it placed fifth last week in the Nielson's. I do want to rant at how Fox has its head up its ass, but this show has never done well in the ratings. That's what galls me. Though a little sleepy, its timeslot was ideal for a show like this. So what am I to do without Arrested Development? Likely, watch 30min. less TV per week. For the most part that's good news. For television advertisers that means someone like me is 30min./week closer to turning off the TV and leaving it off. Shows like "Firefly", "Dead Like Me" and "Enterprise" are ratings corpses. They need to find a life off of the airwaves in DVD collections. Rather than release 22 episodes once per year for $60+; why not release 4 episode installments every 4 or 6 weeks for $20. See what I did? Six weeks is enough production time-- it's also enough time to steer the show if the sales diminish or ax the production if the sales suck. Most important

Khan, You Forgot to Kill Tony Danza!

How do you make William Shatner REALLY suffer? Put him in the room with Tony Danza . Wait. That's how you would make anyone REALLY suffer. Doesn't the US Constitution ban Tony Danza?

Super Happy-- Super Time Wasting Happy Sparkle Hour

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Super Happy-- Super Time Wasting Happy Sparkle Hour is on the air! Feel free to read, participate, reproduce and kibbitz. I have set it up so that you can join the group if you wish. To paraphrase Emperor Palpatine: I can feel the freakdom in you. Release your weirdness ! Subscribe to supertimewasting Email: Browse Archives at groups.google.ca

Hot Potato! Hot Potato!

From Reuters : BANJA LUKA, Bosnia (Reuters) - A hand grenade being used instead of a ball in a game of catch exploded early on Saturday killing three youths in this Bosnian town, police and news agencies said. Two youths aged 19 and 20, one of them from neighboring Croatia, were killed instantly while a 20-year-old woman died on her way to hospital, police said. Her sister was slightly injured but two other youths suffered serious injuries. The blast occurred at 2:00 a.m. in the western town of Novi Grad at a place in the town center frequented by youngsters. Police said an inquiry was under way and declined further comment. It was not clear why the grenade exploded. ONASA news agency quoted witnesses as saying the youths tossed the hand grenade to each other before it exploded in the hands of one of them. Bosnia is awash with illegal weapons left over from the 1992-95 war and tragic incidents are frequent despite several successful campaigns by international peacekeeper

Could I be Scooter Libby?

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According to Yale Daily News : ...Birdsall said she particularly remembered a dinner she had with Libby when he recited all 79 episodes of "Star Trek" from memory. "He was very detail-oriented," Birdsall said... I always thought Trekkies were weiners .

iPod Parodies

This site is full of GREAT iPod parody ads. If you are a geek of any shade, you will like these.

Bushspeak

Move over Haliburton! Now you too can write Bush's speeches .

Ashlee Simpson: Talentless Wench

Ashless Simpson is the lessor of the Simpson sisters. Not, that Jessica Simpson is a rocket scientist: she couldn't even spell "rocket." It's just when you compare talentless, stupid and ugly vs. talentless, stupid and chesty: the latter wins out. Last year Ashlee Simpson was caught lip syncing on Saturday Night Live and proceeded to blame everyone. This week she was caught on camera at a Toronto McDonald's having a drunken tantrum. Sad, annoying: you be the judge . Maybe she wasn't: she could have lip synced the tirade over a Quarter Pounder w/Cheese.

Island View Golf Course Has Some Balls

The news talked about the Island View Golf Course. The farm next door has collected 11,000+ golf balls. They land in the farmer's field from errant swings. The farm has to either collect them manually or suffer golf balls when they machine up their harvest. The balls would either wreck farm equipment or give the crop that golf ball flavour. The chucklehead doofus golf course manager, Chris McNulty has said that he's made offers to the farmers. The farmers have said he hasn't spoken to them yet. I guess the chucklehead didn't think that the reporter would walk next door and ask: "Did he talk to you?" How can the farm get some contrition out of the golf course? Because of the golf course, farming on the farm is no longer viable. Why not use all of this unfarmable land to make the golf course unplayable? What helps golf? MUSIC! Nothing improves your game like a mix of music. Here's the iPod shuffle I would blast music out over the farmland to soothe jangled n

Happy Halloween!

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Here are a list of links for your enjoyment. PLEASE heed the NSFW (not safe for work) and NSFS (not safe for squeamish) warning: only the cemetaries are good for a work based viewing. Expect gore, grimaces of the dead and the odd naked person on a morgue slab: Architecture: Of The Dead After Life - This is one of the most beautiful collections of photography I have ever seen. Jonathan Clark spent several years photographing the seasons changing in England's Streatham Cemetery, and the results are breathtaking. In many cases, subtle animation and sounds are used to enhance the already captivating ambiance of these magical and melancholy pictures. Angels In Filth - A great collection of black and white and color photographs of graveyard angel statues. Beneath Los Angeles - How thoughtful! Steve Goldstein walked around the cemeteries of L.A. and photographed the graves of the famous and infamous for our viewing pleasure. A cyber treat for the morbidly inclined. Cemetery Listings

April 30th, 2006: Philips Pulls Defibrillators Amid Wrongful Death Claims

I was watching West Wing tonight. Because of a scheduling issue, I actually get the real US feed, which I love because how different their culture is. Case in point: HeartStart Home . The ad shows an ambulance stuck in gridlock and talks about cardiac arrest stats. It's an ad for a home defibrillator. In other words, you keel over from a heart attack and someone shocks you into life. First my small problem: if you are in danger of a heart attack: CHANGE YOUR LIFE!!!!!!...! I had a moment of clarity about my weight well before I had a crisis. Since then, I've lost 40lbs. and I plan on losing 80 more : my goal is to do this at a speed that does more than change my waistline, but my attitude. If you walk into a store to buy HeadStart Home, something is wrong. Coming from a background in first aid, I have to say that defibrillators are scary devices. If someone has a cardiac arrest, there is a small chance they will survive. Done right, the use of the defibrillator will raise the c

Bend Over and Say Splog

Blogs are getting pounded by spam blogs: splogs . Weasels will post a comment and add a plug for their website. They do this not once or twice: they do this 100 or 1000 times. Google and other search engines march to the blogs, index them and spit out their results. Two factors make splogging viable: spastic trendy hungry search engines and crappy programmers. When I started doing stuff on the web (like 9-10 years ago), you could go to a search engine, add a site and voila! it would appear as part of the search engines. Weasels of the day flooded search engines, so the engine had to get picky and hold onto a link for weeks and vet it. This stymied the weasels. In the last couple of years, blogs came on the scene. Blogs are nothing new: Blogger is just a honed CMS for posting material; crap-ass LiveJournal is a discussion forum with a lot more popularity and lot less functionality than you would find elsewhere. Anyways, they make blog posting so easy that there is a diarrhetic flood of

Beware of Fourth Dimensional Creatures

I'm watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos series, particularly the episode on galaxies, the expanding universe and Flatland. He was showing the village of Flatland with all of its two dimensional creatures. A three dimensional apple decides to visit Mr. Square of 123 Flatland St., Flatland. It lands unhindered by the walls on a Flatland hut and presents itself in three dimension: four little apple bottom lumps appear. The same apple's geometry would change as it sunk into Flatland and presented new planes. What breaks my brain is that this single object first presents itself as four separated objects from a two dimensional perspective. What if a) every object presents all of its dimension; and b) objects in our world are connected from a perspective of higher dimension? What if every object presents all of its dimensions? In the Flatland example: the apple had three dimensions but Mr. Square had two? Scientists used to theorize that there were monopoles: magnetic objects have posit

Electra Woman and Dyna-Girl

This site shows off the Where Are They Now for the staples of Saturday morning TV in the late 70s: Electro-Woman and Dyna-Girl; Land of the Lost; Isis. Remember the late 70s? There were three channels of kids shows, some of them weren't animated; and none of the live action characters dressed like purple dinosaurs.

Cooperate AND compete, not just one or the other

Some great ideas from Bruce Sterling's blog : Many people have abstracted principles of how nature designs. The following list is what I consider the distilled combination of those enumerated by Janine Benyus, Michael Braungart and William McDonough, Kevin Kelly, Steven Vogel, D'Arcy Thompson, Buckminster Fuller, Julian Vincent, Dee Hock, and my own limited experience. Explanations and attributions follow the main list. Waste = Food Self-assemble, from the ground up Evolve solutions, don't plan them Relentlessly adjust to the here & now Cooperate AND compete, not just one or the other Diversify to fill every niche Gather energy & materials efficiently Optimize the system rather than maximizing components The whole is greater than the sum of its parts--design for swarm Use minimal energy & materials "Don’t foul your nest" Organize fractally Chemical reactions should be in water at normal temperature & pressure

Squatting On My Civil Rights

Victoria has been rated as one of the most pleasant places to live in Canada from an enivronmental standpoint. On a scale of 1 to 100-- with 1 basically being room temperature every day of the year and 100 being Hell on Earth-- Victoria rates an 11. Because of this, you can walk around outside in January in nay but undershorts and live to tell the tale. This means that Victoria is a great place to be homeless. In Toronto, Montreal and New York, a winter night in the cold is a death sentence. Here, we have campers who trot from one public park to another and set up camp. They believe that we are violating their civil rights by refusing them a campsite on public land. They are selfish and weaselly bastards. When I was a kid (that was only 30 years ago), downtown's Government Street used to be a hub of scum-- drug addicts, alcoholics, hippies and drifters. Our parks were relatively safe. Nowadays, Victoria has emphasized its tourist trap aspect. Government street is now dotted with M

Ah...Sunday

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Cheryl, Alice and I went to the Toy Show in Sidney on Sunday. After that, we went on a leisurely walk through the seaside township of Sidney, BC. I met up with a couple of the locals: friendly folks, who seemed stony at first. Let's just say, they'll remember me... A friendly seaman dared me to gore out his eyes. I showed him that I would do anything on a dare An elderly lady asked for help reading a passage from her book. I helped myself at the same time...

Oh, Dear Deer

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Hunters in New England are supposed to be on the lookout for pumpkin headed deer: Elizabeth Laatsch had to reassure the operator her call was no Halloween prank. A deer came through her backyard Friday with a pumpkin stuck on its head. At least, it looked like a pumpkin to the South Middleton Township woman. “It sounds very far-fetched,” says Laatsch, who moved into the Stonehedge Drive house with husband, Jerry, about a month ago. Her husband was on the back porch about 11:15 a.m. when something walked through the yard. “He did not know what it was at first,” Laatsch says. “He called out to me.” She looked outside and saw the deer moving slowly, unable to see where it was going. The animal disappeared into a wooded area and gully. Forty-five minutes later, the deer meandered back and Laatsch took its picture.

The Recreational Interview

I have a good job. And, I am past probation. A post on a discussion forum that I am a part of asked for a web developer-- a non-smoking web developer. The job poster gave a gmail.com address which is something I always find weasely : by keeping the employer anonymous you have to apply for the job and then discover if they're an employer you would ever want to work for. I applied for a job once and discovered that the place was the place that sold herbal viagra and spammed almost everyone alive about their crappy product. This guy is likely a one-man show who BSed his way into a job too big for him; and/or the graduate of a lame tech college ( 2 , 3 ) who now has to do his job and he's discovered he's tapped out for skills. Anyways, the post to the discussion group generated a lot of flak and it reminded me of a concept I came up with a while: the recreational interview. Make up a resume and LIE about every detail so as to be a shoe-in for the job and guarantee an intervie

Ailin' vomit!

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Thinking quickly, Ronald disguised himself as a big Hollywood movie director, took a shorcut and headed off the Grimace at Filet-O-Fish Lake. Here's this great piece on McDonald's ads . McDonalds is insidious and evil. This site tracks the ads that brainwashed little kids into thinking that dead cow and onions between disks of starch could only be better if washed down with sugar water and a side of grease fried tuber filaments. Oh, I dislike them . Between McDonald's and Walmart, the North American countryside has been decimated of its merchant biodiversity. Where before there was Pop's Hardware and Mom's Diner now there is only the megalo-Walmart and their little McDonald's franchise in the corner like a gorilla with a derringer. Victoria, BC sports more than 12 McDonalds'! Why? Why? Via RealPolitik I've been following the McDonald's march of evil. They've run out of market share. In other words: everyone who wants a Big Muc, can get it when

Oh Galactica: You Were the Dicso of SF

Flashy, stupid, with bright lights and a lot of big hair, Battlestar Galactica was the Magnetbox to Star Wars' space fantasy. Today, I was making lunch and turned on the TV. They were rerunning the old Battlestar Galactica series. It lasted 24 episodes (would they be epsilons in Galacticaese?) so the reruns continued into the spin-off series: Galactica 1980 . They made it to Earth but found that Earth sucked technologically. Talk about a repressed memory. Galactica 1980 is one of those experiences you push down into your subconscious like the time you were blindfolded and thrown into a slaughterhouse. I took a moment to read the plots from the 10 episodes of Galactica 1980 . Oh man: did they stink ! The best of the lot (and this says it all) is where Starbuck comes back for a tale from the past, befriends an injured Cylon and makes out with a space angel (episode 10). A few more of them involved Hitler. I kid you not. Back in the last 1970s, the bar for TV quality was pretty low. H

Who to sue... Who to sue...

In the third calendar week on the seemingly unending BCTF strike, word has come that the Canadian Tax Payers Association has landed a class action suit on the BCTF. Well, the BCTF is screwing them; and the BC Government is screwing the BCTF. In a way, the BCTF is firing blind and the BC Government is pointing the shooter. I think the next class action suit to come down should name the BC Government and the BCTF as defendants. Think about it: they have both worked to make us miserable. Why not punish them both? Can you imagine these two sides working together to save their collective asses? I can see it now. Either: they will band together to fight a common target-- the public. It's what they're good at, so they work together to beat down Joe & Jane Average and the Average's 1.76 children in a court of law. they will snipe and claw at each other. It would be like that story about the scorpion that talks a fox into ferrying him across the river on his back. Half w

This Post Is Three Hours Old Already

Shaw Cable released its Shaw Digital Phone last week to much hoopla. I was suspicious. They go down all the time and their technical support sucks. For a while I used to do their dance of unplug the modem, unplug the hub, et cetera.The techies were so clueless that for a while I faked it. Then I started to refuse: "I'm not doing that. That won't get us closer to a solution." I'm sorry. I asked for an outtage estimate. They give me a bunch of busy work, meanwhile a Shaw service truck is pulling up out front and the techie is still trying to get to the bottom of whether it's my router or my cabling at fault. Shaw is offering all phone services for $55/month. Oohh! Of course if I plug in a $30 headset I can Skype unlimited anywhere in the world. Better still, I can pick up my laptop, go to an Internet cafe and Skype from there. If you don't like Skype, there's Google Talk or MSN or AOL. Trust me: using Shaw for VOIP telephony is like paying AOL to see mov

Put it to a Vote, You Cowardly Bastards

It looks like Jim Sinclair's BC Federation of Labour has come out from a 1000 day slumber. They are organizing a day of action for Monday. What form of does it take? Who knows. Will there be a strike of the transit system, the steelworkers, the brotherhood of dog walkers? Who knows. Do you know what I do know? According to Canada.com : Sinclair repeated his offer to call off Monday's day of protest if the province agreed to talk with the teachers it has ordered back to work after imposing a two-year contract with no wage increases. Thanks, Jim. Get all of the unions organized. Get everyone making alternate plans and then pull the plug. This harkens to back to the 1983 when the leader of the BCGEU of the time made an 11th hour deal with the BC Government, hours before the BCGEU would have to pay their own membership strike pay. Maybe this is a case of two wrongs making a right. Most of the people participating in Monday's day of action will be out of work despite the fact th

NBC Finds Men Walking on Water

This from Breitbart.com : ...on NBC's "Today" show Friday, she didn't have much to worry about. In one of television's inadvertently funny moments, the NBC News correspondent was paddling in a canoe during a live report about flooding in Wayne, N.J. While she talked, two men walked between her and the camera making it apparent that the water where she was floating was barely ankle-deep . Matt Lauer struggled to keep a straight face, joking about the "holy men" who were walking on water. "Have you run aground yet?" Katie Couric asked. "Why walk when you can ride?" Kosinski replied. Later, an NBC News spokeswoman explained that Kosinski had been riding in deeper water near an overflowing river down the street, but there were concerns that the current was too strong for her.

Grow A Pair

With the BCTF walkout into it's first week I have heard that their walkout will last a couple more weeks and that the general strike card has yet to be played. This is all about the unions vs. the government. The unions are weak because they so much better at supporing other unions than they are at supporting their own. If they wanted to bring the government to its knees, they would carry out a focussed strike: one bent on causing the most harm to government. They have to understand that if they're up against a government elected by the people, the people are targets. If they weren't the targets, unions wouldn't strike and withhold services that people use to generate revenue for their businesses. The tepid actions of unions in the last several years is part of this passive-agressive mindset that people use to assuage their guilt or hide an iron fist in a velvet glove. In war, if you bomb a factory and a nursery the latter is called collateral damage. Trust me: everyone

Should I Take Drugs?

People escape reality through drugs. It's cowardly, but given the onslaught of reality TV shows, maybe I need to escape reality by any means neccessary. This is a quote from an article about the Reality show, Kill Reality: “The whole cast was drunk or wasted throughout the taping, and everyone was having sex with everyone else,” says the insider. “Not only were there orgies, but at one point someone relieved himself on Trishelle [ Canatella , of Real World: Las Vegas and Playboy fame] in full view of the cameras—and, from what I saw, she loved it.” In another booze-fueled bacchanal, we hear Tonya Cooley , the lusty blonde of Real World: Chicago fame, begged co-stars to do lines off her genitals “because it turns her on.”

What No Boy Should Be Without

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I liked the movie Serenity and I think this guy would be a fitting addition to my toy collection. It has everything a kid would like: grizzly grimace, bloody blade, matted hair. Oh wait, I think I described a citizen of Esquimalt. I may buy extras to give to disturbed children at Christmas :)

Wipe That Smug Look Off Your Face

I've been watching the BCTF affair for the last few weeks. When Jinny Sims appeared before camera, she looked smug. When Shirley Bond was interviewed, she looked smug. Apish thug, Mike De Jong sort of looks smug (I think smug is something you can only pull off if you have an IQ of 100+). How can the different sides look so smug? Simple: they're getting paid to hurt us. They have one concern about the people: the body count. If the BCTF can screw over more people, the better their job action. If the BC government can land its boot on the neck of more people, the better their government-- their control over the people. Are Liberals (nee SoCreds) bastards? Well, yes. That's no surprise. What gets me is that unions are raining down fire from a pillar of moral superiority. They have the workers in mind. They're looking out the little guy. Oohh, think of the children. Bullshit. Unions didn't show up to make the business or the institution that employs the people to turn o