I Have A Suggestion for U, Facebook

Dear Solitary Reader: As I type this right now there is a little panel on the left of my Facebook home page telling me I should add some guy to my friend  list. I don’t know this person.

In fact, if you were to stand this person up next to a hole in the wall beside Bessie Smith and the boys from O-Town I wouldn’t know who the hell he was (though as I’m occasionally intelligent I may be able to puzzle it out. For instance I would start by eliminating Bessie Smith and then, reasoning that all the members of those boy bands of days gone by looked the similar I could reasonably pick who belonged in O-Town (or I would google a picture of them on my i-phone) and the person remaining would more than likely be this fellow that Facebook loves so much).

Yet Facebook is telling me that this dude should be my friend; now as I’m a friendly dude, and my humour is without parallel (thankfully),  I can see how it would be in his best interest to have me on his friend list. I mean, come on, memberships in the Fellowship of Bill comes with the access to the awesomeness that is the Fortress of Verisimilitude plus I can also cut up a shoe and a tomato (though not with the same knife).

But that’s not my point; my point, and I relish this because I so rarely have one, is that I don’t know this dude.

Everyday I log on and Facebook is suggesting that I should do something to make my life better; without any knowledge of the inner workings of my life. Facebook reminds me of a specific aunt, who without fail, tells me whenever I talk to her how to go about living my life. That’s right, Facebook is becoming that annoying relative everyone has, the one who knows everything about everything (because of the status updates) and gossips like all hell (again, thanks to those status updates). I never listened to my aunt, and I will not listen to you Facebook.

While logically it works out that the enemy of my enemy is my friend (and the enema of my enemy is his own business); it is not true that the friend of my friend is also my friend (although the enema of my friend is also his own business).

So John Kerr, I`m sure you’re awesome, and my life is a pale shadow of what it could be if I were to add you as my friend on Facebook I will not do so; to add you just because Facebook suggests it would validate that useless panel and therefore you and I shall be like two ships passing in the night… travelling on different oceans.

As for you Facebook – here’s my suggestion: take a long walk off a short pier.

Signed,

Not Yet Friends with John Kerr

Technorati Tags: Facebook,Bessie Smith,O-Town,friend,friend list

The House of Mouse Horror

So in the news today we see that Canadian scientists have ripped away the mask of the “kind, caring, polite Canadians” the world has come to know and tolerate. Fresh from the national paper The Globe and Mail comes the article: How to Torture a Mouse.

Okay as you can see the article isn’t about how to torture a mouse (because, as we all know, alls it takes is a plunger, some duct tape and a battery and they squeal like a maid in the house of Naomi Campbell). Instead this is an article that tells us that when experiencing pain, mice flinch and make other facial gestures.

The beneficial ramifications of this study are something along the lines of “we can tell that the mouse is hurting because it’s making a pain face and that’ll let us know whether other research we do is hurting the meeses.” I’m paraphrasing… just a wee bit. But really does it take a scientist to figure that one out? I can tell you’re hurting the mouse because of the electricity you’re shooting at it… and I’m not even a scientist!?!

There are two things that make this story wrong:

1) Somewhere in the article it tells us that, much like humans, the mice make pain faces when hurt. Has anyone noticed that they use mice for a lot of things because they’re just like humans? Well here’s a thing about humans – we are big on revenge. So if mice are enough alike humans to feel pain and show it, to test drugs on because they’re systems are similar then mice also probably like revenge. Rest assured some doofus is probably injecting some mice with super serum that’s going to result in a mouse that’s pissed off with humanity. You know what that’s going to look like?

Rodent of Unusual Size. Nuff Said.

2) And the other thing is: these scientists have just blown the cover of the greatest mask ever worn by a civilization. Canada for decades has been known as the nation of the polite, the home of humility, the core of caring and other such drivel. Everyone in Canada knows that’s a farce – we have our hates, our greeds, our lusts as much as the rest of the world – its coated with a thick sugar coating to disguise its evil core mind you, but its still there.

But now these scientists have, without taking it to a democratic vote, blown the cover off of our facade of kindness; but then, I guess a referendum would have been pointless because Canada hasn’t reached a decision on anything by election in decades – that’s right I’m talking about you minority government.

So world, we might as well own up to it. We’re Canadians. We’re evil. Do you know why nothing attacks Canada in the movies – why aliens will bypass our fair skies to descend upon our neighbours to the south? BECAUSE WE’RE IN LEAGUE WITH THEM. That’s right. You heard me.

And that’s not all.. if it weren’t for Canada, Coronation Street would have been cancelled long ago. WE DID THAT! MWAHAHAHAHA!

Alright that’s it. I’m out. I’ve got to go torture a mouse… I’m missing some cheese.

Technorati Tags: Mice,Torture,Pain face,naomi campbell,R.O.U.S,Coronation Street,Evil

Do You Hear that Buzz-ing?

While sitting in a state of flux, supper not quite done, kids playing outside, I turned on the hockey game in the background while I tried to catch up to my sister in Bejewelled Blitz (I will eventually, she hasn’t beat me through a week yet) and I heard an employee from Westjet offer me his Carantee.

At first I was a little discomfited because I don’t roll that way, but then I realized that this carantee he was offering was the offspring of a brief tryst between “caring” and “Guarantee” after a night of drinking cooking sherry. “No thanks” I said. But he kept talking at me anyway. Why don’t commercials listen to you?

Some old people lament about what teenagers are doing to the English language what with their texting and the lols and such; me I think the process was started long before that when some advertising execs locked their employees in a closet and told them to come up with something “clever.”

Smashing two words together to make one non-existent word and talking like its an actual world does not make it a word.

The business world is another contributing factor to the destruction of the English language; which I guess makes a sort of sense because it is the bastard cousin to the advertising industry.

Right now in my workplace we are “leveraging technologies.” Now I’m almost sure that this means we are using technologies appropriately, but I’m not sure because leveraging is an ambiguous word created by some dude who needed to update the book he wrote for bizness college because then he could say it was a new edition - he was leveraging his textbook let's say.

What does leveraging mean? Maybe it means we’re using it as the fulcrum in some sort of heavy lifting tool – but as I work on the set of Office Space I doubt that’s the case.

Back to the guy at Westjet, don’t sell me some mythological carantee – sell me a plane ticket and throw me a free f$#!king sandwich and a drink and we’ll talk caring.

The Death of the Man From Atlantis

Yes this is Patrick Duffy

Right now as you read this there are litres upon litres of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico. If you’re in the US, that’s gallons upon gallons of oil (you see? I write for an international audience!) spilling into the pristine oceans Mother Nature created for us (because God told her too). This has been going on since April 20th… that’s two weeks ago. You can spill a lot of oil in two weeks.

Gas companies, sensing a more firmer excuse than “we felt like it” to continue the financial raping of the working person, have used this spillage of oil to increase prices at the pump. Life continues. That is as long as you don’t live in the oceans in the Gulf of Mexico.

Green Peace, PETA and Charlie the Tuna will all preach to you about the catastrophic effects of such a colossal spill on the sea life in the Gulf of Mexico; pessimists will tell you that the area will never recover, optimists will tell you that there’s now one less step involved in deep frying fish (what do you mean it’s not that type of oil?).

But everyone talking about the effects of that messy little leak has already overlooked the worst possible thing that has happened due to BP’s little booboo: the Death of the Man from Atlantis.

Who was the Man from Atlantis you ask? Well before MacGyver ever stepped foot on that fabled continent Patrick Duffy, also known as the Man From Atlantis, was swimming under the sea saving turtles from Japanese harpooning ships and rescuing sea horses from sharks.

Growing up I can remember sitting with my mother late at night waiting for my father to come home from his job at the bar; we’d sit and play Sorry! (she cheated mercilessly and contrary to the name of the game never did apologize) and watching old TV shows (well they’re old now, less so then).

The Man From Atlantis was always one of my favourites and I was always surprised that my mother watched it because she was never a fan of the odd sci/fi shows. GAHHHH…. I just realized she liked the show because she got to watch Patrick Duffy in a bathing suit and threw up in my brain a little.

And so it it is with sadness I present to you the obituary for the Man From Atlantis, who’s oil soaked body washed up on the shore of the Gulf Of Mexico. Doctors, who seem to be all of a sudden driving fancy sport cars that they didn’t have before the press conference, assure us that this death was due to natural causes and had nothing to do with the massive amount of BP oil clogging tMfA’s lungs.

Name: Mark Harris Weight: A svelt 185lb… soaking wet Height: Taller than a dolphin, but shorter than a shark. Life: Taken from us too early, Mark Harris, the was born in Atlanta… wait, what? oh Sorry, Mark was born in Atlantis. He lived to see his civilization sink into the ocean (well actually, it was a city under the sea so actually it sank further into the ocean).

He was a public figure for a time trying to rescue the oceans of the world from the evils of Mr. Schubert. Eventually he grew tired of life working at the university and moved to the driest place he could find, reasoning that no one would look for a man from the sea in Texas he because truly a fishman out of water.  Where did he go? Well Dallas of course.

Eventually Patrick Duff… er Mark Har.. er Namor… or… whatever his name was, like Legolas, heard the call of the sea birds and made his way to the Grey Havens. There he stepped majestically into the ocean and sought to swim back to to the ruins of his native Atlantis.

Yeah unfortunately that was on April 20th. The Man From Atlantis is survived by Flipper, the cast of Finding Nemo,  and the cast of Sea Quest with the exception of Roy Scheider and the career of Joxer the Mighty. In lieu of flowers donations can be made to your local food bank (always a good idea); but please no sea food.

God rest ye merry fishyman…