Meh

So I was in the elevator of my building the other day when an old lady walked in. We chatted. Then she asked for my profession. "I'm a professor at the University of Ottawa," I said.

"Really?" said she. "My grandson is also a professor!"

"Oh?" I said. "What does he teach?"

"He teaches grade 7 at Nepean public school!"

Tht's great. Just great.

In other news, one of my students (you reading this, Jenny?) recently bought a used copy of my first book off the Internet from a source in the USA. When she gave it to me to sign, I was surporised to discovered that I had already signed it... ten years ago! Not only had I signed it, I had added a personalized note to the ingrate who clearly did not appreciate my efforts.

I have vague recollections of who it was: some British balloonist. Seriously, a balloonist.

Well, I got over my huffiness and have since learned to appreciate the synchronicity that brought my signed book back into my hands ten years later.

In yet more "other" news, last week I woke up with mysterious bloody claw marks on my left shoulder. The obvious explanation is that I did it myself, in my sleep, but I bite my nails and barely have any left! I doubt my stubby little nails could have done this:



The rabble on Facebook thinks these are stretch marks. They are not. They are scabbed over scratches. The mystery persists.

What else? Nuthin'. Oh yeah, apparently I'm speaking at the Climate Justice "Teach-in" tonight at the University of Ottawa campus. Check out my news link for details.

Now, despite what the image suggests, I will not be having underage girls on my lap. Nor will I be dressed as Uncle Sam.

Oh, and apropos of nothing.... today is Osama bin Laden's birthday. Make of it what you will.

More Bits of Tid

My friend Mieke K., who's now living in London, UK, went to an auction and found the following for sale:



It's cologne made by Dean and Dan Catenacci, founders of DSquared. The cologne was going for some unZodly amount.

Why is this relevant? Because Mieke and I went to high school with Dean and Dan. Strange to find a product made by high school friends being sold with such aplomb at a London auction house, no?

Okay, I thought it was interesting.

What else have I got for you today? DeeMack sends us this feature about fan stories surrounding some famous movie narratives. Trust me, they're much more interesting and plausible than the movies themselves. I particularly like the far superior theory surrounding the Matrix (*cough* crap *cough*) movies.




Also from DeeMack, apparently the Washington Post's Mensa Invitational asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are the winners:

1. Cashtration: The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.
3. Intaxicaton: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high
8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
11. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
12. Decafalon (n..): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
13. Glibido: All talk and no action..
14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
17. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. And the winners are:

1. Coffee (n.): The person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted (adj.): Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.
3. Abdicate (v.): To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade (v.): To attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly (adj.): Impotent.
6. Negligent (adj.): Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.
7. Lymph (v.): To walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle (n.): Olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence (n.): Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash (n.): A rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle (n.): A humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude (n.): The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon (n.): A Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Frisbeetarianism (n.): The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
15. Circumvent (n.): An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

In Other "News"

You never know where a blog post is going to end up. My H1N1 vaccination post has been popping up all over the 'Net, including on the blog of Keith and Darcie Dow. I don't know who these people are. They're welcome to my words, as is everyone else, so long as my name remains attached, as the Dows have done.

Sadly, my post on Obama's failures thus far appears on this discussion forum, resulting in not quite the quality of discourse I had hoped for.

And every now and then some wingnut conservative discussion forum picks up my 2004 blog post about Belinda Stronach (scroll to Jan 16).

2010: Odyssey Two

Know what's sad? A Google image search of "2010" and "Odyssey" results in scores of images of freakin' Honda minivans.

Those of you in the know, however, will recognize the reference is to a classic novel by the late great Arthur C. Clarke, whose recent demise is still felt these many months later by a science fiction industry yet to find someone of his stature to fill the empty seat of Grandmaster. No, Bradbury doesn't count.

The thing about the book, and subsequent movie, is, of course, is that the world of 2010 described bears little to no resemblance to our world today. For one thing, Clarke failed to anticipate the fall of the Soviet Union, and still couched his story within the confines of the Cold War, a conflict of which today's young people have little concept. And Clarke's depiction of thinking, feeling and creative artificial intelligences really has no place in a world in which my email filter tags emails from myself as spam. The lesson, of course, is that, as far as I know, no one has ever accurately predicted the future. How's that for deep?

Regular readers of Deonandia know that the tradition here, going back to 2001, is that the first post of every year is when I list the things I was thankful for during the past year. Here are my comments from 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 (you'll have to scroll to the bottom for those), 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009. So, at the risk of being maudlin, let's begin...


1. My family. You know the drill.

2. The University of Ottawa. I mock the U of Zero, but Zod knows how grateful I am to be a professor there. It really is the greatest job in the world, despite the mountains of work and frustration.

3. My students. See "frustration" above. They drain me and infuriate me at times, but for the most part their genuine desire to learn fills me with joy.

4. Facebook. Yeah, you read that right. I still have my various websites, endless email accounts, Twitter, text messaging, etc. But Facebook has provided a one stop shopping locale for accessing all of the above. It also provides a fake social life for those 3:AM late worknights.

5. Physiotherapy. Finally, after more than a year of agony due to herniated discs, I'm on the path to a life of manageable pain.

6. The women I've dated. Like other years, 2009 brought me more delightful women generous enough to spend their time with me. I believe I even managed to squeak out something resembling a relationship once or twice, but don't ask me to confirm details.

7. The Interwebs. For rescuing me from commercial TV, an office, isolation and paper.

Is that enough? Can I go now?



In Other News

Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod.... there's going to be a LIVE ACTION STAR BLAZERS MOVIE! (For you not in the know, the Japanese name is Space Battleship Yamato, one of the finest anime products of the 1970s!)




For comparison, here's the opening to the original 1974 anime:

Christmas Funnies

These have been making the rounds.

Cornhole

If you're old enough to remember this, then you're old enough to hang out with me.



Here are supposedly the 50 most interesting articles on Wikipedia. As I stumbled upon this, I also found the single most addictive website for an information junkie like me: tvtropes.org.




So apparently there's a game in Cincinnati called "Cornhole". That's right. And even a movie about it. Need I even comment? If you're like me (and I know that you are), this is what first came to mind:



This guy agrees. Apparently, Bengals Quarterback Carson Palmer is a big proponent of playing "cornhole" with your children. There's even a shockwave cornhole game.

The comments to this article about the game are priceless. Some samples:

"Cornhole" is the only name they could come up with? Good thing basketball didn't originate in Cinci or we might be watching game three of the "Rimjob" finals tonight.

I wonder when Hell's Kitchen will feature a salad tossing competition.

You know that Cornholed -- the Movie, has already been filmed and is "in the can".

Ebert & Roper gave it two thumbs in.

Is this anything like the Gloryhole Invitational?

Kids play this at birthday parties and whatnot in Chicago but it's called "beanbag toss".... Because we're not fuckin hicks, that's why.

My understanding is that in order to rack up killer cornhole scores, you have to have a a wide stance.

The game is especially exhiliarating when you come from behind.


The traditional snack during a game of cornhole is fudge. After the game, the participants pack everything up.

See? Deonandia is entertaining AND educational!

I leave you with this, put together by Facebook friend Graham S. about my recent adventure trying to get rid of the mushrooms infesting my houseplants:

Recent Facebook Profile Pics

Oh, and an extra:

Will The Work Never End?

What is this? Tow blog posts in two consecutive days? It's like the old days, no?

For the second consecutive year, I also attended the opening cocktail party of the Harbourfront Festival of Authors. Remember last year's photo? Here's the new one:



Before I forget to bring this up, I stole the following from Graham S.'s Facebook page:



I also found an old letter of recommendation I wrote on behalf of myself, to be signed by my former boss. I was just checking to see if he actually read it:




I'm working like a mad man trying to get stuff done before catching a train to tomorrow in the morning. I was in Toronto this morning, Ottawa the day before, and Toronto the day before that. Yes, I know. I know.

Oh, it gets better. I'll be up all night doing paperwork, then off to the Canadian Conference on International Health at 8:AM to hear Jeff Sachs speak, then hop on the train, then rush to a Board meeting at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto, then rush to the opening ceremonies of the Canadian Conference on Science Policy.

This is the sort of rushed, stressful schedule that can make you sick. Might even allow you to contract the flu! (Nice segue, eh?)

Following up from yesterday's post, here's a graphic from InformationIsBeautiful.net:



It's yet another attempt at providing evidence for the anti-vaccination crowd. See, according to this graphic, the current H1N1 pandemic is no big thang.

Let's consider this an educational moment. Can you see the problem with using this graphic, assuming it is correct, as an argument against the seriousness of H1N1? It's the difference between absolute and relative measures.

Here's an example of what I mean: if you hear that the incidence of cholera in Alberta doubled between 2007 and 2008, that sounds pretty serious, right? "Doubling" is a relative measure. But what if I tell you that the number of new cases went from 1 in 2007 to 2 in 2008? Yes, it doubled, but the actual number of additional cases was one. That's an absolute measure.

To beat this dead horse, it's clear that if media and policy makers relied on the relative measure to inform their decisions, a lot of emotional and financial resources would be misspent.

Now, for the graphic above, it's important to look at the denominators. The case fatality rate is a relative measure. According to it, SARS was a much bigger deal than H1N1 (swine flu), about a 19.2X increase in mortality rate.

However, the number of people who actually contracted SARS in Toronto in the 2003 outbreak was a mere 358. If we believe the graphic's 9.6% case fatality rate statistic, this translates to 35 deaths in absolute terms.

In absence of the seasonal vaccine, seasonal flu would be contracted by tens of thousands in Toronto. Assuming an infection denominator of a conservative 10,000 unvaccinated people, that translates to 100 deaths in Toronto alone due to seasonal flu.

See the point? The absolute measure provides more meaningful information.

Okay, I've got work to do now. As you were.

Avocat

Ever notice how in French, the words for "lawyer" and "avocado" are the same?!!!

Interesting.....

The Roopster

I recently came across this. And because of that, I can't get this out of my head. "Yeahhhh, here comes the roopster..."

Now, my favourite comedian of the moment is the "pathetic little fat man", the immortal and genius Ricky Gervais. Here he is being mocked by David Bowie:



Now, the scene has more poignance when you consider that Ricky Gervais was genuinely a new wave pop star back in the 80s, with a look reminiscent of both David Bowie and Nick Rhodes. His band was called Seona Dancing, and here's a clip of them performing "More To Lose". In standard 80s overkill nonsense, there is of course an extended edition that will make modern audio producers cringe.

I love how in standard new wave style, Ricky is wearing clothes seemingly home made from curtains and handkerchiefs. The weird part is that this song found a life of its own in the Philippines well into modern day, where it was erroneously broadcast as "Fade" by "Medium". (Some DJs lie about songs in order to prevent others from playing them.)

Here's Ricky and his fey friend from those days, looking very Bowie-esque indeed:



And here's the little fat funny man today:


In other news, I had my pre-moving out party this weekend. Here is a pic from the festivities:


Yes, that's a carrot, not a cigar. No, the porn-style moustache is not permanent (in fact it's coming off right now). And yes, those are in fact man boobs.

Recent Facebook Profile Pics

'Cause why the hell not?






If any of you are in Toronto, don't forget to come out to the SpeakOut Slam Poetry contest tonight! I'll be a judge!

PAB09, part deux

Still in Kingston at the Podcasters Across Borders conference. It's been an excellent year for conference food. I reported earlier about the food at CPHA. Now at PAB09 I've been treated to an excellent buffet lunch of lasagna, chicken, mountains of fresh vegetables and a large array of desserts. And this evening our boat cruise featured free beer from Molsons: Rickard's White. Mmmmm, calortastic.

Surprisingly, PAB09 continues to be a thought-provoking and very enjoyable affair. I've also discovered some dopplegangers among us. This is a picture of LA-based actor and creator of the Hollywood Podcast, Tim Coyne:


And here is former Dr Who, Christopher Eccleston:


Erie, huh?

This is the owner of Pets.ca, a nice fellow named Marko Kulik:



And this is Major Dad himself, Gerald McRaney:


More eeriness abounds!

Marko clued me into this last eerie resemblance. Here is photographer Annie Liebovicz:


And here is, um, Howard Stern:



And that, my friends, is what you come to Deonandan.com: for the hard-hitting political analysis and social commentary.

I leave you with this, the hilarious pilot for Awesometown, a sketch comedy show by the Lonely Island, that was never picked up:



And one last thing. I tried to register the domain name Or.gy (".gy" is the country code of te nation of my birth, Guyana.) But apperently there are issues. I tried, my droogies. I tried.

PAB2009

Greetings from the 2009 Podcasters Across Borders convention in sunny Kingston, Ontario. As you probably don't know, my friend (she would say, "acquaintance", I'm sure) Chamika A. and I have been trying to launch Chutnification, a podcast about South Asian literature, for some months now. Don't think about stealing the name. We already own it. So we're here for the skinny on the podcasting world. Yes, it's a nerdly sausage fest. But you know what? So far it's a pretty fun time. The fellow conventioneers are all well engaged and genuinely nice people, and there ain't nothin' wrong wit dat.

Here's a pic of Chamika and me. I'm throwing down some bad-ass gang signs. So no, I'm not having a seizure:



Since our podcast doesn't have any, you know, content yet, I'm calling it a "mimecast". Yes, you can use that terminology, too, but don't you dare forget where you heard it first. Or didn't hear it, since that's the point of the joke, after all...

Tonight I had some more ideas for podcasts:

A show about fishing: codcast
Another show about fishing: rodcast
A show for Evangelical Christians: godcast
A show for weed smokers: potcast
Another show about weed smoking: podgrass
A show for cattle ranchers: prodcast
A show for fitness freaks: bodcast
A show about Flash comic books: Gorilla Grodcast
A show about my favourite Superman villain: Kneel Before Zodcast
A show about failing computers: podcrash
A show broadcast in double stereo: quadcast
A show about affirmation: nodcast
A show about nasal hygiene: snotcast
A show about potatoes: spudcast
A slow moving show: plodcast

Well, you get the idea.


In Other News...

Darth Vadum sends us Sex Myths That Are Actually True.

Any Iranians out there wishing to protest the current shenanigans online, but are afraid of exposure? Try Anonymous Iran.

Tuesday Round-Up

Greetings from Vancouver airport where I await my very long flight back to Ontario. Yes, I've managed to get some work done, but am still behind, of course. Will I use this brief and valuable airport down time to catch up... or will I use it to surf Facebook and write a blog post? I think we all know the answer to that.

Rossland

Many thanks tomy host Gale for showing me around Rossland, BC. It's a stunningly gorgeous piece of the countrywith world-class ski runs, surprisingly good cuisine and remarkable mountainous scenery. I even managed to learn something... While touring the gold mine museum, we discovered that the tour guide was a geology student who had previously worked for Canadian miining companies. According to him, the mining industry is a leading indicator of economic downturns. Since exploration requires heavy upfront financial investment, it depends on speculative money to keep it going. When speculation decreases, mining exploration suffers, and the core mining business is not that far behind.

Vancouver

I've been here several times before, but each time I conveniently forget how ridiculous the drivers here are. Yeah, I said. I've famously written that Toronto drivers are skilled but discourteous; Ottawa drivers are unskilled but courteous; and Montreal drivers are unskilled assholes. Let's add Vancouver to that list. Vancouver drivers are... how shall I put it? Distracted. Yes, they are distracted. Their speeds are random, their timing is poor and many don't seem to know the rules of the road. Now, I will say that they all seem to be quite courteous; road rage appears to be missing in this town. Maybe it's the prevalent pot smoking, but a lot of people here seem to forget what they're doing at any given moment.

I won't bash Vancouver anymore. I actually like it here. The scenery is great, the people are goodlooking and friendly and the food is excellent. It's just that the flake factor is dialed a bit too high (emphasis on the "high") for a cynical Easterner like me. In the course of half an hour I passed dancing middle-aged white Hare Krishnas, a stoned girl standing on a box and giving away "free hugs", a "healer" accepting money in exchange for healing you by waving his hands in front of your face (he'd heal me of the affliction of too much spare change, I imagine), and of course the ubiquitous unbathed white chicks with dreadlocks, biceps Om tattoos, lip rings and tribal drums slung over their shoulders. Nothing like trying to stand out... by looking like everyone else.

I had a lovely time staying in the UBC residence (called "The Pacific Spirit Hostel" in summertime). It's a cheap way to stay in an otherwise expensive city, and you get to wake up everyday on the most gorgeous university campus in North America. But in a moment of weakness, I allowed the dude at the car rental place to sell me on all the unnecessary options. Thus my three day car rental was three times more expensive than my total accommodation cost.

Oh well. Thanks to Anju, Ram, Cam and Jen for hanging out with me in the 'Couver.

Hopefully the plane will board soon and I can watch my many downloaded cheesy movies and TV shows. Air Canada now has satellite TV on many of its flights, which is how I usually get to watch Ricky Gervais' Extras. Here's a compilation of several scenes from the fake TV show featured on Extras, called When The Whistle Blows:



Air Canada

I will say one last thing before I sign off: one would think that with a struggling economy and rising joblessness rates, customer service might improve, as business are desperate to keep their customers and workers are desperate to keep their jobs. But I observe a continuous decline in service across all sectors.

Air Canada is an interesting case. Never the best provider of service, they've made some odd choices of late. In Vancouver airport, all passengers are now required to check themselves in, print out their own baggage tags and load their own bags onto the belt. I watched a single mother of 3 wrestle with her bags and toddlers. (No, I didn't hellp because I''m an unfeeling bastard.)

So to summarize: flight prices are going up, but service is declining in every measurable way.

Fascinating times.

Daily Funnies

Am busy cleaning my apartment, so I don't have time for you people right now. You get three things today:

1. Thanks

Thanks to Dr Qais Ghanem for inviting me and a friend back on to CHIN radio Friday to talk about Guyana. I'll link to the MP3 as soon as I have it.

Thanks to the CBC's Andreanne Baribeau and Nora Young for having me on the radio show "Spark" yesterday to talk about Twitter haikus. The show will be broadcast on the 10th, I believe.

Thanks to the Muchmor public school in the Glebe, where I was invited to speak to a class of 9 year olds. A special thanks to the little girl who proposed building a giant yoyo filled with mail, that we could drop from a helicopter to deliver mail to remote people; and to the little boy who insisted on giving me a minute, blow-by-blow recap of Jurassic Park 2.

2. Angels and Demons

I hate Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. I'm sure the plot was okay, but it was so poorly written that I felt myself getting dumber with every page. I had to stop after the first chapter lest I be rendered into a retarded lemur.... or, worse yet, a Republican.

So I went to see the movie version of Angels and Demons with trepidation. The first half hour was head-slappingly retarded, with dialogue that was likely written by George Lucas. The nex hour or so was surprisingly good, with excellent direction. Then the ending was more chimp-level cliched nonsense. Why do bother?

3. Daily funnies:

You're Fired!....Guv'nor.

Cousin Ajay sends us this. Is funny:




Cousin Ajay also sends us this, with the comment that he fears it might turn kids retarded:



Cousin Ajay is on a roll. (It's a figure of speech; he's not actually riding bread.) He also sends us Helen Keller's twitter feed. Go look.

Special Ed sends us Captain Kirk's Best and Worst Moments. (Yes, it's the real Kirk, not this new poser.) The list is missing the bit where Kirk has nasty Captain sex with the hyperfast accelerated woman who can kill him with a scratch, yet somehow manages to avoid any and all abrasions. That's skill.

Special thanks to Dr Qais Ghanem for hosting myself and Dr Robert Huish on Dr Ghanem's radio show last Friday. Hopefully the MP3 of the interview will be posted very soon.

A further thanks to the organizers of the CSEB student conference this weekend for inviting me to be a judge in theit epidemiology poster competition. Ironically, this weekend I also judged a literary contest with co-judge Shanthi Sekaran. Shanthi's new book is getting a lot of attention; I can't wait to read it.

What am I doing now? Procrastinating. How? By watching the UK version of The Apprentice. Man, I love this show! Well, I love most things British. It's so delicious watching Brits argue. Their turns of phrases sound so cute and alien to me that it's impossible for me to get too emotional about it, only highly entertained. And I love that their equivalent of Donald Trump, Sir Alan Sugar, is an enormous prick who doesn't take shit from anyone, and whose firing decisions appear to be both consistent and justified! What a change!

Okay, back to TV...

Until I Have Time For a REAL Post...

Check it out...

An sign of intelligence from space? Now if only we could find a sign of intelligence here on Earth. (BOW! HELLO! TRY THE VEAL, I'M HERE ALL WEEK!)

(Video of alien intelligence here.)

The BBC apparently stands for "British Broadcasting for Christ" because it's received 115 complaint emails since announcing its new Head of Religion is a Muslim.

Um... why does the BBC need a "Head of Religion"?

I'm sure many of you have seen this:




Well, it's a lie!!!



So revel in your pervishness, my droogies.

Remember my review of the new Star Trek movie? Recall that it's a JJ Abrams project, much like two of my favourite TV shows: Lost and Fringe. Well, I just finished watchin the season finales for both shows...

...Wow! Now that's writing! HOWEVER... JJ is showing his unmentionables. All three products --Fringe, Lost and Trek-- rely heavily on either time travel or alternate realities. I'm a little sick of this science fiction crutch. Suddenly I'm not too optimistic about the continuing resolution of either of the TV shows. I'll let you know.

I'll leave you with some Facebook goodies. First up is my new profile pic, the Hasselwat:



And lastly, here's the profile pic of my friend Sara F. Looks like he's been out all night drinking, no?

Real Life Superheroes

I'm sometimes asked to explain my semi-retirement from the world of fiction writing. The long answer has something to do with not believing that we should flood the world with books unless we actually have something of value to add... so many authors write because it's their job, not because they have something to say. The short answer, though, is probably more pithy and digestible: truth is a billion times more interesting than fiction can ever be.

Case in point: the recent emergence of real-life "superheroes" on American city streets. Let's be clear here. By "superhero" we mean dudes with issues who wear costumes and prowl the streets looking to exact vigilante justice. Cincinnati's "ShadowHare" is the most famous:



You can see them all at, well, the World Superhero Registry.

Predictably, with the emergence of real life superheroes has come the emergence of real life super villains. That's right. We have witnessed the birth of ROACH: Ruthless Organization Against Citizen/Chubby Heroes.

ROACH is so diabolical that they have posted an ad in Craigslist offering a staggering bounty of $10 for anyone who can provide the secret identity of ShadowHare.

I think there's one thing we can all agree about this story: it will not end well.

In Other News...

Adam S. sends us this neat commercial showing what Bruce Lee would have looked like playing ping pong with his nunchaku:



Meanwhile, Cousin Ajay sends us today's classic Daily Perv Link (TM):



Lastly, my review of the new Star Trek movie is available at Skiffy.ca.

Real Women

I regularly Google random words and phrases. Don't ask why. Just assume it's part of my charming quirkiness. Well, today I Googled "real women", then clicked on "images". One of the earliest hits was this.

Please only click the link if you're fully emotionally and spiritually prepared. Afterward, you may need this.

Smooching = Dating

A "friend" (note quotation marks) has generously offered to write a dating profile for me. Because I believe in archiving the minutiae of my life, I offer it here now for your benefaction:

"40 going on 14

C-list shut-in idiot savant given to serial bouts of nonsensical utterings seeks highly attractive, worldly, accomplished, well-traveled partner to go steady with. Will offer juvenile antics, frequent mentions of porn, disrespectful comments about the bodies of women over the age of 22, tacky jokes, and occasional mature insights in exchange for intellectual and physical stimulation. Laughter, among other things, will have to be faked on a regular basis. Asset qualifications include being of South Asian background, financial independence, being a nerd or dork in high school, having a firm body with big boobs and breathing semi-quietly through your nose. Smooching = dating, so respondant [sic] beware. "

And because I'm all about the the awkward segue, I give you this interesting article about the roles of science versus religion by Stanley Fish --a topic that was actually at the core of my second book.

I will summarize my take on the debate this way: science tells us everything about the how, but is incapable of addressing the why.

Things I Would Pay For

Latest column is up at the MicroSoft column. It may look familiar to you.

So I was waiting for a bus this afternoon to take me to the airport. I was standing there at the bus stop as bus after bus stopped briefly, then went on their way. At one point, I looked into the reflective sheen of one bus's side advertisement and saw the reflection of an attractive young woman standing next to me and staring right at me. But when I looked to my left to see her... she was nowhere to be seen!

Another bus came along, and sure enough her reflection was there again! This time she was preening her long hair, using the ad space as a mirror. But yet again, when I looked over, there was no one there!

Was I seeing a ghost? If so, I was glad I was being haunted by a sexy babe. With ghosts, you never know what you might get.

It wasn't till many minutes later that I finally figured out that I was standing in front of a glass-walled building with strange refractive qualities. When viewed slightly askew, the glass is opaque. But when viewed head-on, the glass is translucent. You guessed it: the hot babe was standing behind me and behind the weird glass. She could only be seen when the bus's reflective surface provided a head-on reflection.

I'm sure she had no idea she was freaking me out.

Now, on that long bus ride to the airport, I had time to think about stupid things. One of them was the question, "What surprising thing would you still pay to see?" What do I mean by this? There are some obvious things I'm enough of a fan of to pay to see; for example, a good comedy show or a top movie. I no longer enjoy most forms of live music, but I would always see a good sitar player or qawwali singer. Even though Bono spat on me 25 years ago, I might pay to see U2, if you got me in a good mood. I would certain pay to see Ian Brown or a re-formed Stone Roses.

But what are the things I'm unironically a fan of, that might surprise you? Here are three:

1. Justin Timberlake - Boy can sing, boy can dance. (And I say "boy" because he was born when I was already in high school).

2. Lata Mangeshkar - Girl can sing, but girl can't dance. (And I say "girl" because I'ma jerk like that).

3. Christopher Hitchens - Can't stand the man, but I'm one of those folks who appreciate a good lecture. I might not agree with him a lot of the time, but I enjoy Hitch's arguments, and would pay to hear them.

4. Kanye West - Not sure there'd be room for both of our egos in the same stadium, but I'd love to hear the little braggart live.... even if he does have a thing for fish sticks.

That's all for today. I'm gonna watch TV. Yayyyy!



Justin Timberlake from "Jizz In My Pants"

The Sexual Adventures of Savita Bhabhi

Having one of those mornings when I feel I have squirrels in my pants:



And how is this for progress? India has a somewhat mainstream pornographic comic: The sexual adventures of Savita Bhabhi:



Meanwhile, Darth Vadum sends us this real-life attempt by a doofus to get out of jury duty:


That is all. As you were.