Wednesday 24 December 2008

Post 51 (not to be confused with Area 51)

Thank you for a perfect two days. You know who you are...


Wednesday 17 December 2008

The Project, Sneak Peek No. 3




This is post 50. I suppose this is some kind of milestone.

Thursday 11 December 2008

Onion headlines we'd like to see (a series)

Copywriter wants recognition
Password typed incorrectly
Freelance writer still waiting for cheque

Friday 5 December 2008

Move it to the left...

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whoops - sorry, had my fingers in the wrong spot.

Thursday 4 December 2008

Fuzzy on all fronts

The image - out-of-focus and so poorly composed - was telling. That the Liberal Party of Canada - the party of Laurier, King, Trudeau and Pearson - showed itself inept at something so simple as focusing a camera showed me everything I needed to know about our leaders.

There was a time - not so long ago - that you could count on the Liberals. You may have disagreed with their policies. You'd have been right to say they were oft-arrogant, an attitude no doubt the result of running one of the world's oldest functioning democracies for the better part of a century. But at the very least you'd expect them to be competent. To get things done. Quietly, seamlessly, and occasionally, with a touch of class. The Liberal Party - and by extension the civil service it built in its image - was an execution machine.

No more. The Party lost more than its two warring leaders in the Chretien-Martin feuds. In business terms, it's lost its ability to execute. The party that gave us free national healthcare, our own flag, and the ability to amend our own constitution can no longer find its way out of a paper bag.

Stephane Dion, the stiff academic who led his Party to its worst-ever electoral showing a mere two months ago, now wants to be our Prime Minister. Yet in his (and his sidekick Jack Layton)'s ravenous, near-rabid drive to topple the Harper government (one of which I am not a fan), I'm reminded of a Seinfeld episode. There was George, (a man so inept at life as to be unable to sustain a job or a relationship) who, upon hearing one of his lies about to crumble, running out of the bathroom yelling "Vandelay! Vandelay!" George trips, falls, then lands face-down on the floor of Jerry's apartment.

At this point a bemused Jerry stands over him, remarking: "And you want to be my latex salesman."

Friends, we're all Jerry now.

How sad.

Wednesday 3 December 2008

If Abe Lincoln Played Hockey

"Four score and, uh, (snif) seven years ago...

you know, um, our fathers brought, uh, forth on this (snif) continent a new nation, you know, conceived, uh, in liberty and (snif) dedicated to the proposition that, uh, you know, all...all men are, uh..created equal, you know.

Now, um, you know, we are, uh, (snif) are engaged...in a great, uh, civil war, testing whether that nation, uh, or uh, any nation, you know, so conceived and so, uh (snif) dedicated can long endure. We are, you know, uh, met on a great battlefield of that...war. We have come to uh, dedicate (snif) a portion of that field as a final...final, you know, resting-place for those who here, you know, like, gave their lives that that nation might..you know, live.

It is altogether fitting and, you know, like proper that we should, uh, do this. But you know, in a larger sense you know, we cannot (snif) dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we uh, cannot you know....hallow this ground.

The brave men, you know, living and (snif) dead who uh, struggled here have you know, consecrated it far above our uh, poor power to uh, add or detract (snif).

The world will, you know, little note nor uh, long remember (snif) what we, uh, say here, but you know it can never, like, you know, forget what they did here (snif).

You know, it is for us the living rather, you know, uh, to be dedicated here (snif) to the unfinished work which they, uh, you know, who fought here have, you know, thus far so nobly advanced.

It is, you know, rather for us to, uh, be here dedicated to the uh, great task remaining before us (snif) that from these honored dead we, you know, take increased devotion to that cause for which they, uh, you know, gave the last full measure of devotion--that, uh, you know, we here highly resolve that, uh, these dead shall not have you know, died in vain, that uh, this nation under God shall uh, you know, (snif) have a new birth of freedom, and that (snif) government of the people (snif), by the people, for you know, the people shall not, uh, perish from the earth (snif).

Thanks, Scott"

Tuesday 2 December 2008

The Project: Sneak Peek Number One



I'm not telling, but you can probably guess....

Monday 1 December 2008

The verdict is in....

because i knew you just couldn't sleep until i weighed in. 

well?  was it worth waiting 17 years for? worth getting all misty-eyed about appetite for destruction and how it blared through the hallways of your high school as you papered the gym for graduation even though it was so friggin humid that the crepe paper sagged overnight so badly that you had to do it all over again and in the photo afterwards you looked like you had just run a marathon in a gown? 

no. 

all that tweaking, all that futzing, and finally, there's no there there. Chuck Klosterman wrote a good review of it here, but the review was more fun to read than the album was to listen to.



Ink fetish, but no tattooos




i had an idea to write about pens. along the lines of, "is it too much to ask for pens that look like pens?"

see, i'm kind of a pen fetishist. a big one. the only pens i really enjoy writing with (when i do write by hand, and even then my handwriting, never sterling to begin with, has deterioriated to the point of scribble) are Uniball Deluxe Micro, with black ink. but being fresh out lately, i've been forced to forage for these wierd, bulbous-looking things that i don't know whether or not to twist, click, pray to, or what, just to be able to write.
frankly, they scare me. half the time they're as thick as breakfast sausage and in some dayglow color - very close to the kind of personal play toy you'd find at some of your finer adult shops.
but then i thought, who cares about pens? is that really enough to write about? is that what i devote my brain power to in my off-hours?
how sad.
so i decided that i'd instead keep that post, and that particular fetish - to myself.