The Piano

This is amazing animation..and the song is beautiful...you may recognize it if you have seen the film Amelie. It is called "Comptine d'Un Autre Été" by Yann Tiersen. The animation is called "The Piano" by Aidan Gibbons.

Super Greg!

This is strangely hilarious: http://www.talonse.com/supergreg.swf

http://zmax.org/supergreg/sgdotcom/

Thoughts on Random Things

- For the 2nd time in several weeks, I drove through the Tim Horton's drive through without ordering. Yup, drove right past the little person inside the speaker. Felt pretty smart. See what having children does to your brain?!

- The wait for winter tires. Went to two different crappy tires in the last 24 hours to see about having winter tires put on....the backlog is crazy. Looking at about a 6 hour average wait time.

- Guys who drive pickups and the girls who love them. Was following an old rusty pickup on the highway yesterday and had to laugh to myself at the silhouette through the back window of the truck cab. You can clearly see the guy driving, and then sitting right in the middle of the bench seat next to him is his mall-hair-with-hairsprayed-bangs girlfriend. Not sure why it is so funny, but it is. One can only assume Garth Brooks was playing in his cassette deck.

- I firmly expect to have another run-in with the infamous crazy computer guy. I don't know when....but it's coming.

I'm not the only one....

Was perusing a copy of Maclean's yesterday and turns out...I am not the only one who despises that goofball in the Canadian Tire commercials. You know, the Ned Flanders-esque loser whose always showing his neighbours his tools.

http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/life/article.jsp?content=20051031_114409_114409#continue

Here's his "rookie" card.

http://www.canadiantheatre.com/dict.pl?term=Ted%20Simonett

I Return

Well...I have neglected to post for quite a while...for a variety of factors...wallowing in pity due to underemployment...then the joy of full-time employment, the death of my grandfather, a near death experience at the hands of a flying boxspring...various car-related woes, etc, etc.

Have a list of to-dos that is gathering forces. Have my next jujitsu exam in two weeks, and lots of prep still to be done. I think I will randomly start provoking my neighbours into random fisticuffs.

Random Old-Man Neighbour: "Good morning! Nice day isn't it?"
Me: "Bring it don't sing it...beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeotch!!!!!"

Get into that.

Clamp Together for Bondung

You gotta love products made in Korea. I happened to be readig the label on a bottle of dollar store glue the other day (whilst doing some crafts with my kid).

Aside from the blatant mistranslations and spelling errors (apply a heavy cost and clamp together for bondung!)....you will note in the photo below that despite the BOLD claim of being ACID FREE and PHOTO SAFE, it clearly says "Not for photos".


Haha. Idiots.

Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo

So...no posts for a few weeks. Seems there haven't been quite as many funny happenings lately.

Had two job interviews. Got neither. That sucks. However, got a lead on another extended gig, which if I got it, would take me to the end of the June. That would be sweet.

My grandfather passed away last week. Couldn't be there for that, due to job/financial circumstances, which sucks also.

Went to a big fat Greek wedding on Saturday, which was awesome, especially the hilarity of having a brief clip of my awesome dance moves inserted into the wedding party slideshow.

Keep it real.

Banished, Pt. II

Another one of my peeves...people who bring shopping carts home from the grocery store and just leave them in the neighborhood. These people, just as the sideways-hat-wearing creeps mentioned previously, should be banished.

My open letter to the shopping-cart-swiping-trash:

This tells me:

1. You are fat.
2. You are lazy.
3. You are fat and lazy.
4. You have enough money to buy smokes and Ding Dongs, but you can't fork out the $4.00 for a cab home?! The store is obviously not far from your house, or else you wouldn't have walked home with the cart. I have yet to see an out-of-province cart in my 'hood.
5. I need to move.



6. I need to hire Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys to come do something about these rogue carts in my neighbourhood.

Jiujits-ow!

Just got back from my jiujitsu class. Sometimes I wonder why I subject myself to these types of beatings. I just about blew out my knee coming down from being thrown as shown below.



Click the link for a video clip:

http://www.suginoharyu.com/html/video/ingemar%20skold/Strypning-%20O%20goshi.mpg

Kicking, punching, grappling, arm locks, wrist locks, whatever...it's all pretty fun....but getting thrown is damn hard on your body. Don't try this at home. Ok...maybe just once.

Gone with the Water

Interesting...this article wasn't written as a response to the disaster in New Orleans, it was written last year, a prediction of what might happen...and ultimately did.

http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/

I am so smart! S...M...R....T!

OK. I just keep finding the most ridiculous things. Case in point, the picture above. This is from a real estate website. I have blurred the agents name and e-mail address to keep her stupidity relatively anonymous, except for her Mary Hart-esque glamour photo. Check out the "languages spoken" section. Wow! 3 languages! Tri-lingual! She apparently is fluent in American, English, and Canadian! Don't worry, in those tricky homebuying contracts, she'll whiz right through major hurdles like differentiating between neighbor/neighbour, and frequent uses of "eh?". If that doesn't kill the competition, I don't know what will!

Ichi Wang

Was at the gym this morning (true story!), when I noticed the wall was now covered in advertisements for upcoming classes/programs. Scanning the wall, I came across one which said

"HATHA YOGA - LEVEL I with Ichi Wang"

I kid you not. The thought that someone with a name that cries out for fun-poking would venture into the world of yoga instruction kills me. Next up will be:

RESOLVE BEDROOM BOREDOM with Felicia O.

Yet Another Reason to Love Borat

http://www.ananova.com/entertainment/story/sm_1509310.html?menu=entertainment.celebrities

If I Had My Own Kingdom

I have decided that if I had my own city, town, kingdom or whatever...that all people who wear their baseball hats sideways would be thrust out of the community. That's right...banished.
It is something which makes me laugh (at, not with) and drives me crazy.

So, next time you see one of these Sideways-hat-wearers, go on up and straighten that hat up. Give it a good twist, and top it off by saying, "Not on my watch!".

*please note..I will not be responsible for any resulting beatdowns, swarmings, muggings, 4-arm shivers, or any other acts of physical harm that may result from your actions. Please note that Sideways-hat-wearers can be highly unpredictable, and have been known to straighten their hats to avoid public scrutiny.

Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down

Rented a couple of flicks on the weekend...with great results. Both were great films:

1. Sideways. Two guys, a starving author and actor-past-his prime, tear it up in the California wine country the week before one of their weddings.

2. Upside of Anger. I didn't think it was possible for Kevin Costner to pull out of tha tailspin he started with Waterworld...but I guess it is.

I'd like to give a big thumbs down to all the people I have seen lately with the Canadian Tire "spinning" wheel covers on their cars, be they Corollas, Crapaliers, or what have you. They are knock-offs of the already cheesy chrome rims made famous by the world's most intelligent bling-bling'in hip hop (hooray!) artists in their videos, and eternalized in Chris Rock's "Never Scared" show..."Come on man.. don't buy drugs.. but some rims! They spinnin nigga they spinnin they spinnin nigga they spinniiiiiin!". These are perhaps the cheesiest things I have ever seen...maybe coming just short of the people who persist in adorning their Oldsmobiles with undercarriage neon. Here is an ad I saw online:

Note the red directional arrows for those of us who can't visualize what a circular spinning motion looks like. "Ohhhhhhhhhhh! They go AROUND!". Just what your 1984 Lada needs to bring it back to life. It doesn't help...it makes it worse. The only thing suckers can hope for with these is that the girls outside the Bingo hall are hypnotized by the spinning motion and your Koss 8 track...

We R in Need of a Musical Revolution

OK...apparently this is big news: P Diddy has once again decided to change his name: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050818/ap_en_tv/people_diddy

"We had to move the P. We had to simplify it. Diddy is more personal. We are entering into the age of Diddy. It's a new era," the rap mogul said in a recent interview with "Access Hollywood".

Diddy? People are starving, wars are happening, and Puffy's collective of yes-men and advisors are sitting around the table discussing the necessity of dropping the P in his name?

"We had to simplify it"?! Yeah, because P Diddy is a stumbling block for a lot of people..."What's that guy's name....something...Diddy....G Diddy?". Who cares?

More nonsense: Diddy — whose monikers have included Puff, Puff Daddy and Puffy, says Diddy is "a little bit more personal. I've let down my guard. I'm fully exposed. We are going to have a lot of fun with it. It is the return of hip-hop, rock 'n' roll superstars and they call them Diddy. I'm going to start talking in the third person everything."

And so one can assume there will be a succession of terrible names to follow:

• Puff the Magic Diddy
• Spliff the Magic Fatty
• Spiffy
• Jiffy Pop Daddy
• Diddy Cracked Corn (featuring "I Don't KR")
• Starship "We Built This Diddy" Combs

Perhaps he should spend less time talking to himself in the third person and look for his picture in the dictionary under megalomaniac.

Straight Up Now Tell Me

Somehow...someway....psuedo-celebrity Paul Adbul has saved herself from the clutches of the "Fox" investigation into her "alleged" inappropriate fornication with AI contestant, Corey "Andy Warhol Was Right" Clark.

Here is my depiction of the investigation:

Fox: Did you fondle, touch, diddle, tickle, reach around, go Chuck Norris on, grope, stop short, or perform any sexual act or have any other relationship with Mr. Clark, beyond that of a schoolgirl crush? [cough cough..."say no"]
Abdul: Yes.
Fox: I'm sorry I didn't hear you correctly...could you repeat that? [cough cough..."say no"]
Abdul: No.
Fox: Excellent. So we have an understanding?
Abdul: About what?
Fox: Yes. Exactly.
Abdul: Can I go now...I have to meet Cor...err...Corey Hart for coffee.
Fox: However, until the heat dies down, we feel it would be best if we all had a break from you. And frankly, we feel you are getting a little tubby so we've enrolled you in a Fitness Protection Program in Des Moines, Iowa. Until you return, a garbage bag stuffed with newspapers will spew pre-corded Paula-isms during taping of this season's show.

Lightning Strikes Twice

OK. Flash back about 4 months. I'm on the bus going to work, it's like 6:15 am. Get on the bus. Immediately across from me is this character holding a homemade electronic device with wires sticking out of it. I promptly question myself about the idea of maybe switching buses. Anyway, this guy starts talking at me (not to me) about how this is an ATX Power Supply tester, and goes on and on about this thing and that thing, much to my chagrin. Anyway, my stop arrives, so I close up the copy of Dose that I was trying to read and place it back on the pile of other free dailies as I leave the bus...well... Handsome B. Powersource wouldn't have it, instead saying "Uh...excuse me...but could you please get that off of here...I don't appreciate being called a diseased Englishman!". Apparently DOSE is English slang for an STD...which this guy shouldn't be worried about since I don't think internet porn can give you an STD. Ok, so there are apparently freaks of all kinds on the bus.

Fast forward to tonight. I sit down at Tim Horton's after my class, to have a coffee and read Dose while waiting for my ride. Out of the corner of my ear I hear somebody placing an order for a coffee and 12 peanut butter cookies. Curious to see who has such a jonesin' for PB cookies, I turn and who do I make eye contact with! Yes, you know it, it's Electrode P. Mc.PowerSupply! And wouldn't luck have it...he sits right across from me (complete with bag of electronics and massive electric coooler). Here's the gist of what followed as I peered down at my copy of Dose.

Me: (dont' talk to me..don't talk to me....)
guy: I noticed your bag [100%martial arts]...are you a teacher there?
Me: Student.
guy: I heard that makes you pretty limber.
Me: Yes [rehearsing appropriate throw and follow-up technique for unwanted conversation starters].
guy: [reaching into bag...pulling out magic light stick]. I've got my Christmas tree for next year. See, I have cats and they won't be able to make a mess of this. I got them from an old server. I'll use one for my tree and one for my project.
Me: Great.

[here's where things go really awry...I get sucked into approximately 30 minutes of painful one-sided conversation about electronics...which I can abbreviate in the following summary]

guy: Well, you see I'll just run a 40 watt bulb in the top, then I'll cross-mojonate the cables, run my mosfet into a double bypass into the the 1xn switching system. Of course, I could run everything through dry circuit switching....blah blah blah...and I've got a linux box at home that I haven't touched for months, people are always trying to crack into it, but I've got a 16 character password...numbers, letters, and ASCII characters...try cracking that one!! Hardeeharhar!

me: [hand literally over my mouth to physically avert a total outburst of laughter..releasing some of the tension by laughing or smiling in agreement to whatever the f$%^ he was talking about. My brain was overloaded with electronics lingo, which for some reason he assumed I would understand]. Coaxial cable?! Hahahahaha!

guy: Looks like Dose on the table.
me: Yeah.
guy: They chose an awful name for that paper. You know it means diseased Englishman!?
me: Uh...yeah I have heard that somewhere.

The guy polished off 6 cookies and then reached into his cooler of what I can assume was body parts, and polished off the other six cookies.

Thankfully..I was saved by the arrival of my ride, and whisked away.

moral of the story: cats ruin Christmas trees.

Sphynkter

Alright..I just saw the new Backstreet Boys video on Much...and it is surprisingly hilarious. The premise is this...the "boys" are a bunch of mullet-having 1985 era rockers, cruising in Camaros, scoring chicks, doing donuts, and rocking out onstage with Poison-esque choreographed moves, playing guitar with white gloves on, etc..

The piece de resistance is when the guys fire lasers from their guitars and vapourize the shirt of a well-endowed concert-goer. The flapjacks are then blurred out of course, but hilarious nonetheless.

Check it out. The song is pretty catchy too.

http://www.vh1.com/artists/az/backstreet_boys/videos.jhtml?popThis=popVideo(57068)

Zellers Hash

Whilst my little one and I were at Zellers earlier...I spied a sheet of paper next to the register, which said "Zellers Hash" and had a series of bar codes below it (for different weights I would assume). Apparently sales of regular consumer goods has not been fantastic and they have resorted to not-so-shy tactics of selling contraban at their front lines. That said, other things finally started to make sense...the pan flute version of Bob Marley playing in the background, the glazed look on the eyes of the staff, stacks and stacks of snacks located within arms reach of the "Zellers Hash", and the throngs of guidance counsellors and high school art teachers milling about....

Think about it.

I told you it would happen!

I always said it would happen....now who's laughing?!!!

According to today's news: "U.S. Appears Headed for a Peanut Surplus "
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050809/ap_on_bi_ge/farm_scene_1

"There's always somebody who wants to take a shot at the peanut program," said Chambliss, who challenged the industry to find new uses of peanuts.

To which I ask: Who's going to something about the elephant obesity that is sure to follow?!

Here are my suggestions for new uses of peanuts:

1. Stuffing for pillows.
2. Replacement for the Euro, or currency for small rural towns.
3. Commodity in elephant "Work-for-Food" programs.
4. Low-efficiency fuel. Prototype engine inhales peanuts, spits them out the back in large quantities, thus pushing vehicle forward. Pro: cheap, snackable fuel. Cons: trail of elephants and allergic children left in your wake.

As Seen in Ottawa

White Convertible LeBaron...cruising past DQ, blasting Haywire's smash hit "Standing in Line" circa ~1986. Complete with mullets x 2. I can only wonder if perhaps the car once belonged to Jon Voight.

New Slang to be Aware of: Muffin Tops

We've all seen 'em....now you know what to call them....summer's plentiful bounty of muffin tops.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/330221p-281994c.html

Death from Above 1979

Despite hearing tons about this band for months...I've never really turned my attention to their music...however....caught the video for "Black History Month" today and I am loving the bass line and overall vibe of the track. Check it out!

The Dirty Hoard

Just spent some time cleaning the office/storage in the basement. It kills me to throw out textbooks which are entirely useless to me now, knowing that their collective value in dollars spent is well over 6 or 7 hundred bones. Now obsolete...their only purpose is to collect dust or form some sort of vast useless "look how smart I am" library.

And there is some teeny tiny part of me that is saying..."Who knows when you are going to need a Leadership and Group Dynamics book, or what if you happen to need ready access to the details of the Kreb's Cycle?...maybe....I should keep these relics...."

Into the recycling they go....

The Grappla

Tha Breaka (aka. Joseph Regala) has become Tha Grappla. Check it:

http://www.abhaya.ca/video/NickJoseph.wmv

Dude...where's the monochrome?! Sarsely...of all Martial Arts....BJJ is the one most likely to mess up your hair!

Old News is Still Interesting News

http://www.adn.com/life/story/5297332p-5234876c.html

Wedding Crashers

Two words...hi-larious! I'm a little bit biased because I'm a big fan of Vince Vaughan's films (Swingers, Old School, etc), but it was pretty damn funny.

Apparently though, some people don't enjoy it quite as much due to the Purple Hearts:

http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/ap/20050724/112225158000.html