Tonight at 5:30 the people of Canada are uniting against Gee Dubya Bush. In Montreal the gathering starts at Dominion (aka Dorchester) Square. If you disagree with his policies of intolerance, warmongering, restriction of freedom and religious fundamentalism then get out there and add your voice to the crowd.
Blork have announced the November Monkey, called “Border Stumbles”. I can’t decide which story to offer, so I’ll do both:
1) After a very eventful trip to Norway one December (which is another long and intriguing story in itself) we ended up in Calais, France, catching a ferry to Dover, England. We’d spent the past 10 days eating, sleeping, and smoking illicit substances in my friend Philip’s Golf GTI, so the inside of the car had an interesting aroma, and the two of us looked quite unkempt. Of course, arriving in Dover the customs man signalled us to pull over. As soon as I wound down the window, his nose wrinkled. He asked us where we’d been, and I reeled off a list of countries and cities. As soon as I said Amsterdam, he said “step out of the car please”. Four customs officers ripped our car apart, including tearing into a petrol soaked fruit cake (don’t ask) they found in the back. They then took us to separate rooms, and strip-searched us, with not quite the full rubber glove treatment, but close enough. After finding nothing they begrudgingly let us go.
2) Jen and I were driving down to Vermont for the weekend, and because I’m not a Canadian citizen, we had to stop at the border for me to get a visa waiver. The first weird thing to happen was when the customs officer discovered I was British and asked “Oh, do you like fox hunting?” Well of course, every Brit keeps a pack of hounds handy in case there’s a fox to tear apart. The second annoyance was that they had started charging $6 for the visa waiver. Neither of us had cash, so I had to walk back to Canada to get some from the duty free shop. Nobody stopped me from doing that by the way. The final oddity was while waiting for the one-finger-typist officer to enter my details (into an Excel spreadsheet no less), I noticed a small piece of paper by the keyboard with a list of words on it. I’m pretty sure it was a list of the passwords for their computer system…
OK, last post for today, I promise. It’s Monday, so I have to do my weekly WTF is it? photo quiz. Identify the object shown in this cutout of a photo and win, well, nothing really, but you can brag to your friends, who will call you a geek for spending your day reading blogs, sending you into a spiral of self-hatred and depression and basically ruining your day. But it’s fun!
I just can’t stop posting today. It’s Monday, it’s two weeks since the last one, that means it’s quiz time tonight at McKibbins. The fun starts at 8ish (well between 8 and 10 anyway). Find yourself a team of four and come see if you can win $100.
Christmas has been on my mind lately, possibly because it’s less than a month away. I’ve been trying to decide what I want to call this time of year. In England this was never a problem, everyone called it Christmas and I never thought twice about it. We heard rumours that those silly Americans called it “the holidays” but that was dismissed as another one of those vulgar Americanisms.
Now though, I’m not so sure. Why should I keep calling it Christmas when I’m not a Christian? Why risk offending those with other belief systems? I’ve tried avoiding that by calling it Xmas, but Xmas comes from the Greek for Christ starting with X so that’s no good. I thought about referring to it as the Winter Solstice, but scientific as that might be, it has a definite new-age sound to it. So it looks like I’m stuck with “the holiday season” which is bland and ambiguous and has a similar effect on me as fingernails on a blackboard. Oh well.
Last weeks photo quiz was way too easy, of course it was a funky Ikea chair!
Scene opens on an erupting volcano in the distance, with rocks landing all around. Suddenly a mud-splattered SUV lands in front of the camera, comes to rest, and then drives off. The small print at the bottom of the screen says “Do Not Attempt”.
Do Not Attempt?! Yes, that’s what I’m going to do if I ever get an SUV, drive it into an erupting volcano and hope to get spat out in one piece.
Another less dramatic example. The advert is for a movie trivia game in which the questions are on DVD. It shows a happy family watching TV and answering the questions. The small print at the bottom of the screen reads “TV and DVD player not included”.
Come on, is anybody anywhere really going to believe that the game comes with its own TV and DVD player? Even Dubya isn’t that stupid. Hmm, ok, I think I just wrecked my argument.
I realise these companies feel the need to protect themselves, but I would imagine if someone tried to sue a motor company because their son drove into an erupting volcano it would get laughed out of court. At least I hope it would…
It’s my Dad’s birthday today; Happy Birthday Dad! He’s 3000ish miles away in France, where he’s busy running a bed and breakfast and raising pigs. I wish I could be there to have a pint with him on his birthday, but instead I’ll open one of my bottles of Lambic in his honour tonight. Oh yeah, that’s him in the picture, I wanted to put up the picture of him when he had a perm, but I can’t find it anywhere so I found the worst photo I have of him instead.
Toilet paper manufacturer ShitBeGone (love that name) are refusing to sell their products to the red states, and giving discounts to blue staters (and I guess Canadians?). Here’s part of their statement:
We cannot in good conscience do business with states which have made an informed choice to actively sponsor war and terrorism. Nor can we support the Red States’ decision to affirm and expand policies of official bigotry and denial of human rights, up to and including false imprisonment and torture, against ethnic, religious, and cultural minorities in the Red and Blue States and abroad.
I think it’s wonderful to see companies like this backing up their beliefs with firm action, I hope more companies will follow this lead. Oh, and their toilet paper is made from 100% post-consumer recycled materials. I like this company.
Jen claims that this weeks photo quiz is too tough (pah!), so to ease the pain, here is a slightly wider shot. Now it’s way too easy…
In other news, we wrapped most of our Xmas gifts at the weekend. I don’t think I’ve ever wrapped gifts before December. I also put up the christmas lights on the tree outside. We’re getting all festive and it hasn’t even snowed yet. Talking of which, my prediction of November 22nd for the first settled snow was a horrible failure. Oh well.
Week three of the “WTF is it?” photo quiz is here. That genius of Philly, Sahfi, got the correct answer last week, and she has the advantage again this week, as she has seen this object. Can you guess what it is? Hint: the image is a cutout of a larger photo.
Jen has discovered an organic soup at Loblaws which she describes as ‘orgasmic’. Every night she has a bowl of this soup. While the soup is busy reheating in the microwave, Jen sings the soup song. It goes something like this:
Soup soup soup!
Soup soup soup soup soup!
Soup for me me me!
Soup soup soup!
Soup soup for me!
etc. ad nauseum
It’s a shock to me that her song-writing talents have thus far gone un-noticed.
As part of McGill’s Centraide campaign, there is a silent auction being held on the 6th floor of the Bronfman building (1001 Sherbrooke West) this afternoon from 4 until 6.
I went to this last year, and went a bit bid crazy, spending much more than I had planned to. I came away with:
And that’s just the stuff I had the highest bid on, I can’t remember what else I placed bids on…
So come along, it’s fun, there is beer, you might pick up some Xmas/Hannukah/Other presents, and it’s for charity!
I don’t care what superhero I am, or what drink I am, or what star wars/lord of the rings/harry potter/etc. character I am.
I don’t need a quiz to tell me if I’m smart, or alcoholic, or sexy or canadian.
I have a clock on my computer, I don’t need one on my blog.
I don’t need cute badges, stickers, buttons or banners to express my opinions.
I don’t need to beg for money using paypal (and I wouldn’t even if I did).
People can add me to their blog lists without a narcissisitic ‘blogroll me!!!’ link.
If you want to know 100 things about me, read my posts.
I know how many hits I’m getting, but I don’t need to tell the world.
Did I miss any?
Some random bits and pieces:
I’m sick. Again. Two colds in less than a month is just a tad annoying. So I’m off work today, lazing around the house in my dressing gown and wooly socks. I’m blaming Sahfi, my evidence being that she hugged me. Twice.
Talking of Sahfi, the weekend was fun. We stayed up far too late on Thursday night when they arrived, talking about politics and toilet stuff (why do our conversations always come around to toilet stuff?) My first impression of Michael was “wow, he’s tall”. He’s very pleasant though and his music is quite cool. They disappeared for most of the rest of the weekend but on Sunday we watched Kill Bill V1 together, after which Jen had to rush out to the video store to get Kill Bill V2. In between the two we had a not bad dinner of fish and chips (my deep-frying skills need some fine-tuning). The movie (it’s one big movie really) is awesome, Quentin is a twisted genius.
Last night was a late one at the McKibbins quiz. The regular quizmaster Sean was sick so Steve handled it all on his own. We did meet up with the folks from CheeseOrgy and some of their friends including Procrasto, a very nice bunch of people who smoke too much. I was already starting to get sick, so I involved myself in conversation even less than I usually do. And I managed to knock over a pint of Guinness. Doh. And we sucked at the quiz. Doh.