Cows with Moograines

Dear Solitary Reader: From the interweb today comes the shocking and demoralizing news that some cows out there are living better than I am; not only are these cows being grain fed but they are also being given a diet of red wine to wash down their highly nutritional meals.

Now all the animal rights activists are probably going to get all up in arms about this story, and in this case I think I’m going to have to agree with them. The difference  however in this case will be where they protest on an “every animal has rights” platform, I protest on a why should the cows get it for free when I have to pay for it?  

Here are some reasons I think feeding cattle red wine is a bad idea:

• Everyone knows that red wine has a certain amount of tannins in it and tannins have been known to cause migraines in some people; it’s a trigger food. It would be cruel, and certainly unusual, punishment for these animals to, on top of killing them and eating them for meat, make their last day on earth feel as if they’re heads were being squeezed by a rubber band. These will of course be called Moo-graines.
• All it takes is one surly cow with a hangover to start a stampede.
• Alcoholics may be unwittingly thrown from the wagon after sampling such a cuisine; if they start holding 12 step meetings at the Keg then we know for sure there’s a problem. These people obviously have the most at steak here… (yes, yes I did go there).
• A generation of young farmers will never have the benefit of going cow tipping ; the cows will be tipsy already and will fall over on their own.
• These cows are eventually going to start developing a palate and when that happens its going to be become prohibitively expensive as the cattle will no longer drink from the boxed Domain d’or, but only the Naked Grape. From there they’ll move on to Yellow Tail and who knows what after that?

Now, it would be unfair to present only one side of the argument. There are bound to be some positives from this story. 

• From a  consumer stand point there are abound to be some time savings – no longer will you have to waste time eating AND drinking.
• Maybe cows will now understand the humour in The Hangover.
• Maybe when you wake up naked one morning lying in the middle of a field at the old Circle Bar ranch in the middle of a crop circle that looks like Elmo being eye-balled by Bessy, instead of passing judgement she’ll just say: “Oh yeah buddy… I been there.”

Its also interesting to note that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has investigated the process to make sure there are no negative effects (hangover aside); the long term effects of feeding wine to cows has yet to be determined however BECAUSE WE KILL AND EAT THE COWS.

Stupid Canada.

Moo-graines…

Heh Heh.

The Banana Man

The Banana Man - to the tune of Piano Man by Billy Joel. Also there’s this: Man in Banana suit arrested for indecent exposure It's nine o'clock on a Wednesday The news is on the TV They tell me the story of Kohnert And I just can't see how it could be.

They say, Son you were wearing a Banana
Or that's what they said on the news
And while its not good to whip out your wood
It sure as hell does amuse

Ba ba ba be na na
Ba ba ba be na na
Sing us a song 'bout the Banana Man
Arrested for unpeeling his fruit;
He's not the only one charged
It turns out he had a recruit.

He found himself at the airport
And I guess the time it was ripe
He got drunk silly and then he freed willie
And now some young gal has a gripe

I say Bill how can you resist this one
And as you can see I just can't
The man chose this route in his banana suit
Instead of wearing some pants

oh Ba ba ba ba na na na
Ba ba ba na na naaaaaa
Sing you this song 'bout the Banana Man
That I took the time to compose
Maybe it'll get on the Internet
And like him be over-exposed

Now Tony his friend drove the vehicle
You might call it the Banana-mobile
He didn’t know see that his buddy
Would his banana- a'peel

He said Carl good Lord what you doin'
you'll make me toss up my lunch
There's no one in here, or even out there
That needs to see all your bunch

oh Ba ba ba ba na na na
Ba ba ba na na naaaaaa
Sing you this song 'bout the Banana Man
That's what you have to go do;
You can laugh at his misfortune
It's funny because its not you.

And now its all over the Internet
I bet someone call's up his Mama
Saying look what your son has gone and done
He's a banana without even pyjamas;

And the story sounds like a carnival
It's a story reeking of too much beer
He shook out his tree where somebody could see
In prison he'll have something to fear

oh Ba ba ba ba na na na
Ba ba ba na na naaaaaa
Sing you this song 'bout the Banana Man
The news reports dug up the dirt
And now he's going to prison
Where he'll get his just dessert.

oh Ba ba ba ba na na na
Ba ba ba na na naaaaaa

I Scream… From Ice Cream

Dear Solitary Reader: On a day when its hotter than the devil’s arm pit outside there is nothing more refreshing than beer; but as its only two in the afternoon hitting the suds will have to wait (but only until I’m finished this article because I wouldn’t want to slur while I’m typing).

The next best thing to beer on a hot Christmas morning is of course ice cream and with all those flavours out there ice cream is, truly, for everyone; for those of you who put hands to forehead and say “Alas! I am lactose intolerant!” I say to you first: “the world already has too much intolerance in it, shame on you! AND they have dairy digestive pills now so go pop a couple and grab y’self a blizzard.”

But with summer and ice cream comes that which steals the lustre off the ice cream bar – the ice cream truck.

Perhaps its because I grew up in Newfoundland, where communities were small and far apart, but the ice cream truck  wasn’t all that prevalent; an ice cream truck was not economically viable. The closest thing we came to having an ice cream truck show up was when Mr Higgins the milk man, or my dad according to my sister, came in October and the milk had frozen.

And so it is that my only real knowledge of the ice cream truck comes from television; and I’ll tell you something, ice cream trucks on TV (apart from the episode of The Simpsons where Homer drove one) are all driven by pedophiles and killers. If you drive an ice cream truck and aren’t one of the above then apologies; if you are one of the above then go die.

Let me see… I remember watching that animated Spawn movie, I think it was called Spawn, and the creepy pedophile killer in that movie was, you guessed it, an ice cream truck driver. Not long ago I hate to admit to it, but I watched a portion of Legion (I couldn’t make it through the whole thing cause it was smelly sock bad) and the first demon killer dude drove a … you guessed it… Honda Civic. But the second one drove an ice cream truck.

And I’m pretty sure every criminal on Law and Order: SVU drives one.

The worst thing about the ice cream truck now is that creepy ass music it plays. No longer do kids run in flocks up to the truck when that music, which to be honest sounds like the tinny music you get when you open one of those “Singing” holiday cards at the dollar store, begins to play; rather at the cautioning of their parents the children run inside and hide until the ice cream truck is gone.

It seems to me that if you’ve been put on the path of being an ice cream truck driver in this day and age then you’ve been put on a Rocky Road; and that’s probably no scoop to you. The media coverage may just be why it seems every ice cream truck driver has a mint chocolate chip on their shoulder; but hey, let’s all be Neapolitan here, I’ll lay it out for you in chocolate and vanilla: a career that seems on the surface like a Heavenly Hash is probably just gonna turn Moose “tracks”.

Note: I just googled ice cream and read about a company called Emack and Bolio’s ice cream… but for some reason my mind read Ebolio’s… sick… and sickening

The Insecurities of Our Age

Dear Solitary Reader: The other day, yesterday I guess actually, I was standing at a gas pump and it told me to do something. No not that! Get your mind out of the gutter. The instructions on the pump said: “Remove Card Rapidly” and I thought to myself: How do I know if I’m removing the card rapidly enough?

As an aging, balding, overweight male with a vague sense that I’m in the wrong career (but at least surrounded by smart people who can cover for my incompetence) I do not need any more opportunities to feel insecure about my daily life.

But they’re everywhere.  To list just a couple:

Remove Card Rapidly: Why doesn’t it just say “Remove Card" Why do I have to remove the card rapidly? Will it refuse to take my money if my carpal tunnel syndrome is acting up and I can’t withdraw the card from the slot with sufficient vigour? Should I lube up my card before I put it in that slot so I can be sure to get it out and pass the test?

Shake Well: I shake stuff but there are things that demand to be shaken well – who decides what is shaken well? If I flick my wrist a couple of times in a lacklustre fashion is Simon Cowell going to pop out of nowhere and say: “Honestly that was the most self-indulgent, lacklustre shake I’ve ever seen. To be honest, its like when you’re at a wedding and you’ve hired your cousin who did some bartending work in college to shake a martini. I’m sorry. You’ll really have to pick it up next time.” I shake with vigour. I shake with flourish. Occasionally, I even shake with rage. But do I shake well? I just can’t say.

And then there are those instructions that just assume you’re smart like stick – you know the ones:

• "Remove wrapper, open mouth, insert muffin, eat." -- Instructions on the packaging for a muffin at a 7-11.
• "Use like regular soap." -- On a bar of Dial soap.
• "Serving suggestion: Defrost." -- On a frozen dinner.

Google silly instructions and you’ll come upon droves of them, of course the sad thing about those is the company probably had to put these instructions on because some numbnuts out there did something incredibly stupid… which, in a way, does make me feel somewhat better.

After all, I’ve never had to read the instructions on a machine to know: "The appliance is switched on by setting the on/off switch to the 'on' position." Although every know and then, after I’ve been told to “Shake Well” and I”m left wondering if I have, and I encounter one of those sillier types of instructions, I can’t help but wonder… are they just talking to me?

The Mystery of Jam

Dear Solitary Reader: The other morning while sitting in at the breakfast table I heard the telltale clinking of knife upon glass that denoted the end of the another jar of jam. I wasn’t crushed because I don’t really care for jam.

You see I prefer my toast to taste like toast and my crackers to taste like salt. If I wanted a mouthful of strawberry… I’d eat strawberry. But I’m a liberal minded fellow and if you want to eat jam that’s fine with me; after all, those strawberries that are a day after their due date in the store have to go somewhere… right?

However, it seems to me, in my non-jam eating way, a jar of jam has only two states: unopened full and opened with a half-inch of jam left in the bottle so it can make that clinking sound (also known as the Jam Alarm Recording or JAR). I cannot recall in all my years of having seen a half-empty jar of jam (or even a half full one if you’re an optimist).

And at the same time there is a sort of temporal displacement which revolves a jar of jam because doesn’t it always seem like you just  bought a jar of jam two weeks ago?

Are there any Jam Eaters out there willing to disclose the secret? Is there a Jam Vortex that slowly sucks all the jam into its Cthulhu dominated space; is that also where the socks go when they don’t come back from the dryer? Is there a 4th dimension full of socks covered in jam?

Perhaps some wicked witch has found a magical way of siphoning the jam from your fridge; at this very moment your reserve of preserve is disappearing and reappearing in the vat which said witch is currently boiling Hansel and/or Gretel.

I have no answers, Solitary Reader, all I know is that come the next trip to the grocery store I’ll have to buy more jam – despite the fact that I just bought some two weeks ago…

Sorry Zynga, I Have Commitment Issues

Dear Solitary Reader: I’ve come to a realization about myself and its one of th0se epiphanies of self-discovery that is both discomfiting and liberating all at the same time. The discovery? You guessed it: I have commitment issues. But Bill, you say, how can you have commitment issues when you’re about to hit your ten year wedding anniversary? That’s a good question.

It turns out that my issues with commitment are not to do with people but with games – specifically the games made by Zynga and those of the Zynga-esque ilk. Shall I expound?

Let us wind the hands of time backward a few years or so and you’ll find me, a young impressionable user of the interweb logging on to Facebook; I, as someone who has alienated most of his friends with his cutting edge wit, couldn’t pay someone to accept a friend request – so what was I to do?

The answer presented itself in a little game called Mafia Wars. I alit down the road of mobster with a glee which bespoke of my deeply buried Italian heritage (thanks Grammy Martin); I was bustin’ kneecaps, takin’ protection money and eating pasta like nothing else. Until I hit about level 11 or so… and then I got tired of it. Neighbouring branches of ‘Da Family” honed in on my territory, but I could care less.  Suddenly forcing people’s joints to bend in ways they never had before had lost its appeal (I know, crazy huh?)

Life in the big city got to be too much for me, so I decided I needed a change of pace (also I turned state’s evidence against the don and entered the witless protection program). I needed something a little more serene. And where did I go? You guessed it – to the Farm. To be more specific, to Farmville.

I, who was pimpin’ in Mafia Wars, was now hoeing in Farmville; my crops grew and so too did my Friend database as random strangers wanted my name in their log to help expand their plot. I didn’t mind the usury though; I wanted the same. I grew all kinds of plants, gained all kinds of items. But no matter how many crops I planted there was still a big empty space – and it was in my heart.

Soon the only thing that grew was my emotional distance from my Farm. But how could I just turn and walk away, just leave it without a trace? Now I sit here taking every breath without you…. ooo… you’re the only game that really knew me at all…

… yeah, anyway…

It turned out that life on the farm was not for me; it was no longer about the farm, it had turned into an agri-business.

I told myself I’d gotten away, just not far enough. That’s when I saw the advert for a little game that promised me treasure and my very own Isle; how could I resist? Soon I set sail in my dory and ended up on this little sand spit in the middle of nowhere…

I could tell this game wasn’t going to go too well for me because within minutes it wasn’t meeting my expectations. Where was Ricardo Montalban welcoming me to Fantasy Island? Heck, Malcolm McDowell wasn’t even there! But I dug the sand for treasure like a good little monkey; I completed collections and turned them in; some fat bastard named Winston Adams took my collections and who knows what the hell he did with them…

… Finally a big gust of wind came and I told that wind to carry me over, carry me over, to MyTown.

MyTown, that was my next stop along the Zynga circuit. After all, I reasoned, Burnaby is a stupid city (what with it dropping street names and then picking up again three streets later in manner to make Tomtom weep and Google Maps dizzy) here’s my chance to do it right. And I did! For a little bit… and then I got tired of trying to please all the residents of my town.. they wanted more street lights, they wanted more bus shelters, they wanted the latest and the newest of everything and they didn’t want to pay a single cent of tax.

Finally I abandoned MyTown and the last I heard the weeds had taken over… it had turned into a Ghost Town… without my love… like a Ghost Town… I been dreamin’ of..

… And now I sit at my computer waiting… I wait for the next game that will fill the empty hours between sleeps…  until something comes along I will do what I always do to fill the gap created by boredom…

Bejewelled Blitz… this game never gets old!