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January 25, 2003

ON VACATION

Goal - to get as far away from computers as is humanly possible.

Back in eleven days!

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January 24, 2003

The Life Of Jesus & Humanity

Bruno Dumont's first film, 'The Life of Jesus' - a modern day look at a french kid, his motorcycle, his girlfriend, and his life in the North of France. It's one of those - shit, rare - films that manages to be vivid in the way that experience is, and whenever this is achieved it's a challenge to say why. There are a few things that come to mind: Dumont doesn't need much dialogue to make points about his mostly introverted characters, and his sound design has a precise, purely poetic quality. The most striking thing is his use of POV shots. We get right into these people's minds, and see stuff everyone sees, except, for some reason, people in movies.

For a debut film, I think The Life of Jesus is a little unprecedented, but I tend to get carried away saying stuff like this. I do remember thinking the last shot of the film was one of the classiest things I'd seen on the big screen. I put him in a category with Antonioni, Rohmer and almost even Fassbinder - were it not for the fact that Fassbinder made 43 films in 37 years of life, and Dumont has made only 3 in 45. (But really, 43 films in 37 years of life! No one will ever be in that category - ever!) Oops, I digressed.

Dumont's follow-up, Humanity, is colder, and more abstruse, but also maybe a little bit better. It earned flat-out masterpiece-status on the festival circuit in '99 and turned him into the Great French Hope. I finally checked it out a couple weeks ago and I think I love this movie. I figure Dumont arrived on the scene with his technique already fully developed, so all he could really do was plunge into darker territory, which he does, I think, bravely.

Humanity begins with the discovery of a child who has been raped and murdered. It promises to be a portrait of who would do such a thing and offers a multivalence that takes our need for revenge and leads us toward compassion with it.

I was a little dissatisfied with the development of some of the peripheral characters. It would have bothered me more if I didn't feel like something profound was getting across. But as it is, there just aren't a lot of people making movies on the level that this guy is working on.

Better than Y tu Mama Tambien!

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January 23, 2003

Y tu Mama Tambien

I was going to write something about how much I loved Y Tu Mama Tambien ("And your mother") because it's one of the few films I've seen lately that's actually movied me to tears, but then yesterday an earthquake hit Mexico and my feelings were radically undermined.

I called my filmschool-friend Mutante to make sure he was okay and woke him from a sound & pleasant sleep. I don't know what disturbed him more, the idea that I had woken him with news that an earthquake had hit his country and killed 20+ people, or my subsequent enthusiasm about Y tu Mama. At any rate, I was told - in no uncertain terms - that it was a most unwanted one-two punch.

According to Mutante, liking Y tu Mama is tantamount to liking Threesome. He said if I spoke Spanish well enough to detect the accents of the lead characters I would have realized how terribly annoying they were. He said "please don't tell me you like that movie!" about five times, because it was every lazy-brained trend in Mexican cinema crunched into one loathsomely unfunny, pretentious pile of poop. I wouldn't know this, as I've only seen maybe four Mexican films in my life, but I was happy to learn.

I learned that the director, who I imagined to be a progressive young politico (who was nevertheless somehow now at work on a Harry Potter movie?), was actually a macho big-mouth who makes a point of bringing up how hot his wife is in all his interviews. To Mutante, the film failed on all counts, though he was mostly infuriated about the way in which it ended - saying it was standard, unthinking cheeseball logic. He simply hated all the characters and what ended up happening to them.

Our disagreement was interesting. I thought this movie really got the politics and style of a delicious french new wave film and applied them to the American dumping ground that is Mexico. It possessed a degree of realism that few Canadian films - maybe none (since, perhaps, Mon Oncle Antoine?) have even come close to approaching. Maybe I just have too much of a soft spot for coming of age films, or maybe - as I'm starting to think - my initial impression was ill-informed.

I planned on saying Y tu Mama Tambien was among the best films I'd seen recently, alongside The Believer (and others that I'll write about, er, tomorrow,) but now I'm inclined to go with Mutante's take and say: "Disappointingly obvious in a Mexican-cinema type way".

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January 22, 2003

Tucker Vs. Bianca

Last night I was watching 'Crossfire', because unlike all my friends - who have given up on network news - my fondness for this Tucker Carlson guy just keeps on intensifying.

What's more, lately he's been very badly losing his debates, and his opponent "on the left" has more confidence and a quicker wit than he does, which - you can plainly see - already has him worring about his year-end bonus.

Tucker was looking particularly smarmy last night, because he was about to enter into a debate he had a fair chance of actually winning, with Bianca Jagger. He started in on her [to paraphrase this, and everything that followed]: "What makes you think you're qualified?"

She said she'd worked with an array of human rights organizations for the last 20 years, that she had been to Africa and the Middle East and Kosovo and that she had read this and that and seen first hand the conditions that half a million children in Iraq have already died under.

He disputed the number as propaganda and she talked about all the independent bodies that had verified it, to which he said "well the reason they're dying is because Saddam is spending all the money from Food for Bombs on his palaces!" She said, "you could say that but you could just as easily say that it's because the US government has only paid 40% of what it owes Iraq for the oil it has already acquired".

The crowd, to my surprise, started laughing. I think they were laughing at Tucker. He reached for his cue-cards and said, "Sheryl Crowe recently said - and this is an actual quote given at an awards ceremony! - that 'war is bad for world karma.' Can you enlighten us as to what this might mean?" Bianca said, "Did you really bring me here today to talk about what Sheryl Crowe has said, because that is not something I am qualified for - I don't know her or what she meant, but I do know..." and she started listing off more information about all sorts of generals and former US government higher-ups who regard "The War On Iraq" to be the biggest mistake the country could ever make. She asked, "Are they too nothing more than airheads, Tucker?"

Tucker said, "It just kills me to think that you think there are things that you know that the US government doesn't know - it just seems so incredible that a celebrity could get this information when we're pouring billions into our global intelligence and yet it's Bianca Jagger who ends up enlightening us! That is so amazing!"

She said, "Oh, I never said the US government doesn't know what I know - they do know it - perfectly well - but unfortunately they have seen fit to lie to their own people and that is why some of us, who have a degree of celebrity status, are having to go on these shows - to make people aware of what the government is hiding."

Tucker put his finger to his ear at this point - I kid you not - and said, "Oh, I'm very sorry to have to do this, but we have breaking news" and they cut to a press conference of the dudes who survived the avalanche in BC. They played this for 20 minutes, and then came back in time to say good-night to Bianca Jagger.

I thought: every Republican's nightmare: getting your ass kicked - by a girl!

Posted by ÿ at 04:10 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

juvenility

Tomas posted these on the private blog.

"Amazing how the simple act of planting W's mug on otherwise healthy looking women transforms them so completely into flagitous looking crack-whores."

It's true!

Posted by ÿ at 03:44 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

The Believer

"The Believer", originally titled "The Jewish Nazi", one of the smartest narrative films I saw last year.

Read all about it - and what happened to it as a result of the 9/11 attacks - here. There's lots to be learned from this reading, too, though be warned the director is assuming - in virtually every interview he gives - that his readers have already come through the experience of his film. (I didn't read the interviews with the actor, as there's nothing lamer than an actor mouthin' off...)

I found this film to be a bit like Naked, in that it centers on someone so full of compelling ideas he's come unhinged, though it's the viewer (more than anyone within the picture) who's aware of it.

It's a great film, full of ideas about faith, ignorance, and power, and it sincerely broadened my understanding of what Jewish self-loathing's all about!

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January 21, 2003

The Who?

I wanted to say something on the Sting and King thread, but it was too funny for me to interfere with. I am not very funny. It's mostly my parent's fault.

I assume Pete's telling the truth about having been molested. Working with this assumption, I think he should just stick with his present line of reasoning - the whole "I-I was just doing research" thing. I think it works quite nicely, and I'm being sincere. The reason I think this is as follows: he very quickly becomes a pop-culture figure with an entirely original dimension for people to gossip about. Let there be no doubt about it: whoever it was who once observed that gossip is nothing more than the quest to enrich our definition of normalcy was on to something. And in the Townsend case - unlike with most figures in the public eye - some of this gossiping could actually be healthy for us.

Let us start with normal rock stars, so we're clear on the social position Townsend deviated from. Now we can all agree normal rock stars do not look at pictures of kids having sex. They're generally too busy having their way with them back stage before the show starts. I know - it's different! Still, it's interesting to contemplate how and why.

Sex with under-age girls is commonplace. Stars do this with the financial support of their fan bases (half of whom openly dream of humping minors themselves) and - generally speaking - it's a non-issue. It might be a little confusing for the girls, but it doesn't begin to compare to the damage that would be inflicted upon a pre-pubescent child. I would hold that - in small part due to the degree of comaraderie on this subject - this argument is absolutely right. It isn't anywhere near as damaging for an underage child to get lucky with a star, because they're getting lucky with a Rock Star! Putting them in a position where they took the stand to press charges against their idol, who - due to their child-rapist-status - is no longer worth idolizing, would be a lot more damaging. Besides, the focus is not on the obscene lack of autonomy displayed in your average 9th grader, but their amazing 20 minute experience with someone they have a poster of on their wall.

Which is not to say that Bowie (who made it with a 15 year old at the height of his career) is sick in the way that Pete is. This plainly isn't true. Pete really deviated. In fact, to be completely honest, even just mentioning the two in the same breath has made me feel a little like a diseased pervert myself, because, well - COME ON, let us face facts: it's just way, way, way more gross for someone to give money to a child-porn ring, look at those pictures, or even want to - especially someone who has actually been victimized himself! He should have known better.

Ah - there it is. And it's tough to argue with.

Yet the real problem with just standing back and shitting all over Townsend lies in the false sense of safety we feel in siding against the very people who society failed to protect from these child-rapists in the first place. Let's not forget, Pete hasn't touched any children, or at least no one's come forward with such accusations - yet. His crime was a crime, but it was more a paying-to-look-at-pictures crime than the crime of directly harming a child. Writing this I feel a certain tension in the air because... well... why would anyone wish to minimize the amount of damage being inflicted upon someone who is so clearly just not normal?... I mean... He's just not normal!

So big fucking deal, says I. Judging this guy for 'not being normal', after acknowledging what he's been through, is not really saying anything, or even thinking. Saying he made what no one would argue wasn't a mistake, really doesn't mean anything either. I'd feel differently about this if he'd renewed his membership at the kiddie porn site - but only inasmuch as I would take it to mean society should pay him even more serious - and not necessarily just disrespectful - attention.

While he should have known better gives us all the reason in the world to hate him for being a pervert, nothing happens to us for failing to know better ourselves, when it should be readily apparent to us who this finger-pointing atmosphere ends up hurting most. The tone we take in addressing such matters has its most profound effects on those who have been molested, as it plays an inestimable role in the way they process what has happened to them. The more vehemence and vitriol displayed in the voices of those who know nothing of the victim's plight, the more any sane victim might start logically concluding they truly have been done-in (for good) by whatever sexual encounter they had as a child. Which in and of itself will go a long way toward shunning a person into silence and potentially even leading them down darker avenues than the one Pete currently finds himself on.

Townsend knows more about this firsthand - if we buy his story - than most. People who go through what he's been through lead significantly more anguish-ridden lives as a result of both What Happened To Them (the severity of which I in no way intend to undermine), and society's own unceasing determination to reify monsters.

Don't get me wrong: I think cops are absolutely right to monitor kiddie-porn web-sites, but I hardly think this is the excuse (all us non-Who fans have been waiting for) to lock the guy up and throw away the key. You don't hang people without hearing them first. Frankly, I'm surprised the guy's been able to get as far as "I-I was just doing research," with everyone pointing their finger at him like he's suddenly grown horns and tail.

Perhaps I'm wrong about this. If I am, we might decide all children who've been molested are damaged goods - and act accordingly - before they start exhibiting complexities we'd rather not begin to ponder.

Posted by ÿ at 04:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 20, 2003

Protest

It was fun going to that protest.

It struck me as really something that 10,000 people could fill University from Queen Street to U of T, all to show contempt for a war that hadn't even begun yet. I liked the non-sequiturs in the signs too, from "911 = CIA inside JOB" to "Romanow Health Care Plan!" to "Postal Workers Against War!" to "Love! Love! Love!" to "Just another good-hearted Canuckistani girl!".

I felt a certain admiration for the middle-eastern man with the megaphone who was chanting "George Bush We Know You, Daddy was a killer too!" long after apathy took hold of the crowd. I felt, on the other hand, a rather confounding amount of distain for the bearded old Annex dude who started reciting homemade beat-poetry as we arrived at the campus: "Obliterating Angel! The Apostle and the impostor!" all with the kind of fake-sounding spontaneity that made me want to wretch. So why even write about it, then? Why go to a protest with thousands of vibrant, hopeful people, and walk away thinking of the one guy who bugged my ass?

I know. I ask myself some version of that question all the damn time.

I'll say this: I was most impressed by the guy dressed up as Uncle Sam who transformed the word Oil into the word War (and back again) while a trumpet bellowed the theme from Hockey Night in Canada.

Now that was cool.

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January 18, 2003

Good News?

Seemingly?

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January 17, 2003

Gore Vidal

I wrote stuff here today.

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January 15, 2003

Please Sue Me, Please

I've been reading two books simultaneously: Naomi Klein's Fences and Windows, and Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation. Eric Schlosser writes that food has changed more in the last 40 years than it has in the previous 40,000, which is not a good thing. If you want proof of this, his book offers 364 pages of it.

Fences and Windows also deals (in part) with corporate bullies in the food industry, and contains one gut-wrenchingly dispicable event after another. Here's one, just for the fun of it:

"Some organic food companies are considering suing the biotech industry for contamination, but the law is going in the opposite direction. Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser was sued by Monsanto after its patented genetically altered canola seeds blew into the farmer's field from passing trucks and neighbouring fields. Monsanto says that when the airborne seeds took root, Schmeiser was stealing its property. The court agreed and, two months ago, ordered the farmer to pay the company $20,000 plus legal costs."

More here.

This type of thing has got me thinking about all these people who are suing McDonald's for their health problems. A comedian on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show did a hatchet job a few weeks back, asking something to the nature of 'how could you not know that fat fried in fat is fattening?', and saying of a particular plaintiff "he's over-weight, under-informed, and litigious... an American hat trick."

This was good for a laugh, but I gotta say I absolutely support these law suits, and think there should be more like them. I get the shaft from some corporation almost weekly, and almost inevitably end up feeling helpless and infuriated listening to some incompetent robot attempt to take my complaint. Frankly, it seems a good sign that citizens are wising up. It's high time someone gave them a taste of their own MSG infested cow anus.

Posted by ÿ at 01:49 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 14, 2003

My Sister's Dream

What is interesting about a dream is the situation it represents and the logic that it follows.

This is why, to my mind, Waking Life is among the most wretched movies of all time. If Richard Linklater had spent a little more time reading about the fundamental tenets of drama ("show, don't tell") and a little less time pilfering Baudrillard in some inane quest to lecture his apparently illiterate demographic, he might have been able to avoid laying completely to waste some of the most ground breaking-animation ever rendered on film.

Ah, fury.

I think this type of thing would have done the animation justice:

Beaner's Dream

She's on an airplane going to New Brunswick. She notices some secret service men boarding the plane. They escort The President of the United States to her row, and he proceeds to sit down directly beside her. Nausea. How to cope with an hour and a half of this "up-close-and-interactive" freak-face? She can't begin to fathom talking to him but eventually, inevitably, he decides to try out some of his asinine Texas charm. While this is going on, she is wondering: Why is he going to New Brunswick of all places? What does he want with New Brunswick? Whether he is asked, or whether it just becomes apparent to him - I do not know - but it comes out that he wants nothing to do with New Brunswick. He loathes the very idea of the place. He wants to go to his ranch in Crawford and like the spoiled little baby he is, he starts throwing a temper-tantrum. "I'm not going to no New Brunswick - I don't have time for New Brunswick - I want to go Texas! I want my ranch in Texas!"

She remains calm. She tells him the plane is destined for New Brunswick and he will just have to find what they call a "connecting flight" after they land. But George has had it. He tells her he will hi-jack the plane himself if he has to. He's turning it around! My sister can't believe her ears. He can't possibly mean what he is saying, but next thing she knows he is sauntering up the aisle, Texas style, and taking matters into his own hands. My sister is paralyzed with fear. "He's going to get us all killed - he's going to get us all killed!" She starts pushing all the buttons over her head, trying to find the one that will bring up a stewardess. What can she do though, aside from watch on in horror, as he breaks into the cockpit and starts single-handedly choking the pilots?

Mercifully, the flight attendants intervene and force him into submission. Perhaps they take out the secret sevice men in the process, or perhaps the secret service men were never there to begin with. Either way - Air Canada triumphs over the leader of the free-world. He is subdued, hand-cuffed, humiliated; escorted off the plane into a media blitz.

Beaners suddenly finds herself in the eye of the storm. Reporters are calling out questions to her: At what point did it become apparent he was out of control? Did he seem drunk to you? Did you actually have the courage to try and talk him out of doing it? Do you realize pushing that button was the heroic deed that has completely transformed the world? She feels the way they are looking at her. They love her. She has become a hero to the masses, and it has happened over-night.

I call her first thing in the morning and she tells me about this, groggily. I tell her she has all of Canada in her head.

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Bush Is Not A Nazi!

A slide show.

Posted by ÿ at 01:46 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Men's Magazines

What strikes me as odd about this isn't so much that a Hollywood actress - even one who is vocal about her capacious tummy - would allow her figure to be digitally elongated.

This is perfectly normal celebrity behaviour.

What I find odd is that Winslet - a movie star, so apparently also a narcissist - failed to notice the case of foot-elephantitis inflicted upon her by the image doctors at GQ headquarters.

Outstretched, I'm thinking her right foot is one and 4/9ths the size of her face!

(It's a tough call, but when you factor in her open mouth and tilted head, my estimate may even be on the conservative side.)

Anyone else feel the mainstream press missed the real story here?

Posted by ÿ at 12:51 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

January 13, 2003

My I.Q.

I asked the guy who found this on-line IQ test what he got, and he said "129". This made me swell with pride, because he's the type of person I think of as having a high IQ - and I got 130.

When I told him this, he said, "oh, wait-- maybe I got 131, now that I think about it, because I took another one, an easier one, and I think I'm mixing up the scores."

I was inexplicably deflated by this... until I became suspicious.

Nevertheless, I would have gotten 131 had I honed my math skills to the point where I was capable of recognizing a square root. Perhaps this little hint will help you break the 130 level, too. Or perhaps you are the type of person who isn't inclined to have your IQ tested. Maybe you just don't give a poo.

If that's the case, good on you. If it isn't, I think you should go for it: it's easy, and flattering, and this is coming from a guy who never tested well. It called me "a curator of truth". It called the guy who found the test an "insightful linguist". It called another of my friends a "visionary philosopher".

Oooooh - but I wanted to be the 'visionary philosopher'!

Posted by ÿ at 01:21 AM | Comments (110) | TrackBack

January 12, 2003

Bush Speech

"We've accomplished much, ladies and gentlemen - above all, america stands committed to suffering further destruction, broken treaties, persistent poverty, violent ambitions, wickedness and squandered lives on a massive scale. The United States is great!."

Let me know what George says during your visit to this site. [via parrotspeak.]

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January 10, 2003

More Bile Anyone?

Anyone?

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A Year In the Life of the Drug War

It seems Alternet is my new favourite place to go. A Great Piece.

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More Gripin'

For Christmas I got a cell phone.

I had until recently been feeling like something of a reluctant convert, this after having loathed the very sight of them for years.

Why hate cell phones?

My feelings were best encapsulated by a comic I saw many years ago that featured three men, all talking on cells, one getting on the train, one sitting on the train, and one getting off the train. The respective bubbles read: "I'm getting on the train," "I'm on the train," and "I'm getting off the train".

Nobody cares!

The other day, on the street car, my phone started ringing and I felt like committing seppuku on the spot.

Another reason for hating cell phones and the people who own them: I've had friends invite me out somewhere to watch them carry out whole conversations on their phones while I sat imagining what I was missing, (emphasis here on the word "had").

Since becoming a cell phone owner, I have found more reason to hate them. The manual, which I dutifully worked my way through, explains that I must hold the phone a minimum of two centimeters from my ear at all times. When I hold it two centimeters from my ear I can barely hear the line, and I hear nothing if there is even a touch of background noise. So in other words, Brain Cancer.

Which is a good reason to hate cell phones - perhaps it's the best.

But not quite:

Yesterday I went to charge my cell for the second time ever and the caption on my LED read "Unable to Charge Battery".

I jostled with it for awhile, and spent yet another twenty minutes carefully reading over the manual, confirming the issue didn't have anything to do with my end of the deal.

Then I called Motorola, the company that makes my phone, and waited on hold for twenty minutes of my life that I will never get back. Then I spent another ten minutes on hold with Bell before finally hearing from my personalized automated server, and by "personalized" I mean that it was a message that said (with literally disgusting amounts of enthusiasm) "Hello!... My name is Emily and I am your computer automated server."

I mean, please, please, please give me a break!

Finally I got a human on the line, and explained I didn't have the receipt - as the cell had been a gift but that I would still like my phone fixed. The purchase was on record and only happened two weeks ago, the account was registered in my name - I could bring photo ID to confirm that the phone was not stolen... So what was the problem, really?

"Actually, you need to bring in the receipt".

Actually, the product that was bought and paid for, the product that I now own, kind sir, does NOT F~ING WORK, and the receipt that I "need" was thrown out - by someone who assumed it would! The last thing I want is to tell the person who only just bought me my phone that it's busted, and trouble them with the business of hunting down God-forsaken receipts.

So tomorrow I'm going to start assassinating people from the 21st floor of my friend's apartment. I'll aim for higher-ups at Bell, but I offer no promises.

Hope no one minds!

Posted by ÿ at 12:32 AM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

January 09, 2003

Bureaucracy

My good friend's mother is a judge.

She stresses that while she is a judge, and while it is inaccurate to call her an adjudicator, her profession doesn't really have a name. Nevertheless, she oversees the cases of potential immigrants, and in today's climate, obviously feels a fair amount of stress in both arriving at, and justifying her decisions.

I talked to her about her job a few days ago when I stopped by her place to get her to fill out the "declaration of guarantor" part of my passport application.

The first time I was there she signed it quickly, and didn't notice the barely visible white-on-light-grey print which stated: "Void if signature touches border". The "P" in her first name dipped down about an eighth of a millimeter into the border, which I didn't think could possibly matter, but she argued otherwise. She didn't like the idea of me standing in line to find out the hard way just how tedious the system could be. Which was fine, really, as I was only too happy to go back.

On my second visit she showed me photographs from her recent journey to India and fed me tomatoes with a delicious dressing (parsley, minced garlic, balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, brown sugar).

Later I went to the passport office, spent a couple of hours in line, and was told there was some question as to whether or not an Immigration Judge was qualified to act as a guarantor. Later still I got the phone call flatly informing me she wasn't.

It had never even occured to me this was a possibility.

The Prime Minister appointed her, entrusting her with the power to make rulings about whether a Palestinian from Israel ought to be allowed into our country. She works in the same building that houses the passport office. And yet she cannot confirm my name and likeness, in spite of the fact she has known me for 15 years?!

And who is qualified?, you ask (or at least I did).

And the answer came back to me: My dentist, who, as luck would have it, is out of town.

So tomorrow I'm going to get a lawyer who has never met me before to act as my guarantor.

(Forgive me for this - I'm sure you have enough of it in your own lives. Really, I'm trying to learn to just scream into my pillow like normal people do.)

Posted by ÿ at 12:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Evolution of Sport

Maybe this is old news, but I found it interesting:

"Everything about sport is derived from the hunt: there is no sport in existence that does not base itself either on the chase or on aiming, the two key elements of primeval hunting."

This observation was made by Desmond Morris, whose information-page I visited in the hopes of finding something to add, only to be resoundingly rebuked by my own ADD.

Posted by ÿ at 12:34 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 08, 2003

Carlito The Great

There is one cat left in our house.

There used to be three. One left when I moved in. One died. And that leaves Carlito The Great, or Carlos, as he is coming to be known, now that he is almost fully grown.

This morning he had his balls chopped. The terrible part was getting him into the box. Claw marks across my chest, up my back, down my arm. Our attempts were twice thwarted, and there were three of us.

Carlos had been going a little bit - forgive me - nuts of late. We're hoping this procedure will help chill him out a bit.

I'm just worried he'll resent me, and forever associate my face with the loss of his manhood, for I am the miserable SOB who finally succeeded in forcing him into the box.

Hopefully he'll forgive me. And hopefully the doctor will be able to make some helpful dietary suggestions. It has been kind of ridiculous of late how much gas he releases. It's made everyone a little bit wary of touching him, and prompted the household to come up with yet another name for him: Fartbag.

And that just isn't right.

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Jesus Smoked Dope...

Was there ever any doubt about this?

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Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

I have known two millionaires in my life.

One is in his fifties, and he got filthy rich in the mid-nineties working in NYC under Donald Trump. He's easily among the biggest dip-shits I've ever known.

The other went to my high-school, and at some point (in grade 12?) wound up with a sizable inheritance. I wasn't particularly close with him, but he took an ex-girlfriend of mine to Europe, and I got to hear firsthand about how they stayed in luxury penthouses and drove a Lambourghini on the Autobahn at 300 miles an hour, etc..

I haven't really thought about this guy at all in the last decade, but recently Roommate#1 came home from a vacation at the millionaire's "pleasure dome" located deep in the Rocky mountains. I was treated to a slide show.

This guy, who was never what I would call particularly handsome, now looks particularly handsome. He looks confident, tanned, toned, and extremely happy. I saw pictures of him, his bar, his not-so-humble abode, and his super-model girlfriend. In every picture he looked sincerely at peace with himself, and aware of how lucky he was.

I used to have this conviction that extreme wealth was disfiguring, and eroded character. It might sound shallow, but I was amazed at the force with which a ten minute slide show obliterated this conviction, and exposed its fraudulent logic. Don't get me wrong, I ain't complaining - my life is sincerely fun. But his life looks - as my mother says, (in spite of having coached me all my young life not to) - a whole lot "funner".

Posted by ÿ at 01:37 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 07, 2003

Linda McQuaig

Can someone straighten me out on this, please?

Linda McQuaig begins her article: "It may have its drawbacks but, according to George W. Bush, nuclear war could prove an indispensable tool for maintaining a buoyant economy." She says this, yet she offers no quote from "the President" to back it up. I keep thinking if Bush actually said 'Nuclear War' [or nuculer, as it were] was 'indispensable' for keeping the economy 'buoyant' it would be everywhere, but maybe it wouldn't. Maybe incinerating millions for a buoyant economy is now passing itself off as reasonable thinking. If this is the case, thanks CNN. But I don't know: I don't have all that much faith in The Star, so I'm wondering if McQuaig didn't just do what I often do, and fail to realize she was only dreaming.

Posted by ÿ at 05:01 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

The Horror

A dead-on-the-money post/link from King. Jewel of a discovery, especially from a guy who claims to only use the net for porn, email, & a hockey pool.

Posted by ÿ at 04:03 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

January 06, 2003

Happy New Year!

Well, I realize it's the sixth already, but I thought it was time to say this. I had a happy New Year. Three people vomited in my house, and I cleaned it up. Did you have a happy New Year?

Posted by ÿ at 02:35 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Stories of The Year

Fascinating stuff. (thanks tomas)

Posted by ÿ at 06:14 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack