Terrible Gas Pains

The Government and Soylent Green have the same tragically ironic beginnings; they're both made of people. And as such, none of the above are any good at math.

The Opposition (namely the Tories) is demanding that the Federal Gov't do something about the high gas prices. This 'something' happens to be the need to cut taxes. More specifically, the mythical Gasoline Taxes. Anyone who's been to a gas-pump lately has seen the impressive looking pie charts stickered on next to the price readout. According to these sources, 400% of the price we pay for gas goes directly to the government. Now, I'm not quoting the specific numbers here but the impression is the same: the Liberals are bleeding us dry... even more.

On first glance, a tax cut would lower the prices immediately. Gasoline would be free. More dinosaurs would be born, die, and fossilize into more petroleum reserves and free energy would rain down from above. The logic is rock solid and irrefutable. Don't even try to deny it.

However, for anyone within whining distance of Toronto we know that a good portion of these gas taxes would go to the city. Presumably this money is for public transit and the improvement of roads and sidewalks. I think it will just go to building a giant wall to prevent outsiders getting into the city and spoiling its' hipness. But that's beside the point.

So let us juxtapose these two theories:
1) Cut Gas Taxes and 2) Give Gas Taxes to Toronto.
Am I the only one able to see they might be connected?

Toronto desperately wants and needs a portion of this gas tax for funding. But they also want this tax to be lessened or removed. Now apply this to all of Ontario or even all of Canada. What we want is less of something that we want more of.

I say, leave the taxes where they are. They're a gentle reminder that there always has to be something on either side of the equals sign. Well, in the divide between the public and the Canadian Government, it's more like a lesser-than sign. You can guess which side we the people are on.

A Universal truth is that there is no such thing as free energy. Something must always be lost in the burn. And if that means there has to be just a little less pompous arrogance as more drivers become public transit passengers, I think it's a fair and even trade.

Ms. Behaven

Before I sleep, before I forget I must tell you what I saw on the way home tonight.

On the Bloor line subway there was a man. A giant man. A black man as large as the sun. And just as glorious. He and his friend were immaculately dressed. His friend in a three-piece grey suit, beige-cream shirt and a smashing tie. However, the large man, the giant man; he was wearing the most enchanting white suit you have ever seen. It was majestic. Everything he wore was white. White suit with white stripes. White shoes with white laces. White pants with white belt. Again, it was enchanting. He wasn't a man, he was architecture! A giant ivory pillar towering over us all, guiding our way to the Land of Style.

The entire time of the ride back, I just kept thinking to myself:
"This is not an outfit, it's a statement!" Astonishing.

Later, at Union station, I made my way up to platform 3B. It's always three-b. I don't know why we all play the charade of waiting for the schedule to tell us all what we already know. Lakeshore West is 3B. Anyway, I'm beside my point.

There was a girl. A rocker girl. A punk girl. She was my perfect, neatly made bad-girl. She looked so tiny yet so strong. She was perfectly put together. Jet-black hair closely cropped and just messy enough. A few piercings in her ears, one or to in her nose. Maybe an eyebrow ring. The world should be so lucky. She had with her a simple black skateboard. You'd miss it if you didn't look for it. A tight black shirt with dark baggy jeans. And those boarder sneakers that have three times the sole it needs.

She was a goddess. My little rocker goddess. For a brief instant, she was my girlfriend.

The night ended with a long train home where three teenagers swigged back green-apple vodka straight from the bottle and debated who was more drunk. The tall ugly one smashed his head on the ceiling, window, and chair on his way down. Later, he disappeared for a while into what I assume was the bathroom. The conductor had to ask the entire car whom he belonged to. His hunched over, red-headed friend claimed him. Everyone in the car made smirking eye-contact as he fumbled his way back to his chair. That's about when he threw up... onto his red-headed friend. That's also when me and the guy across from me walked to the other side of the car.

I shuffled off at my stop with the rest of the late-nighters. Obviously two-thirds of whom just came from the club; the others probably from work. And now I'm here, retelling what was probably the longest hour I've had any night this week.

Glorious!

His Noodly Appendage

Okay, so what do you see wrong with this photo? Don't look too closely, now. Could it be a moment of divine intervention or just poor judgment on the part of the photographer. I can't be the first person to see this can I?

For a note, it's part of an ad for a sports club in my local newspaper. I worked at a newspaper once as the Scanner Monkey. It's a soulless job. You just scan photos of the mayor, kids' birthdays, soccer moms, and car salesmen all day. I recall entire days would pass and I hadn't even looked at a single photo beyond colour control and unsharp mask. I was amazed at the pictures in the newspaper as much as the next guy.

However, I will say, read your paper closely. Sometimes there are subversive messages snuck in by people like me.

Synergasm!

Get this: a paranoid, conspiracy-lovin', poser hacker uses a "WebLog" or 'blog' to report the creepy things going on in his backwater hometown! And he's a character from some TV show!

Astonished? So am I!

Hasn't this been done before? FreakyLinks, anyone?

Here's another example of how the marketing department doesn't grok tech.
A hokey, faux-cheese website ostensibly created by a character in the show is as useful as teaching archery to an orangutan. Great in theory, really must have impressed the bosses, but someone's going to end up bleeding.

A vast majority of viewership for television are blazingly tech-savvy; using TiVo's, BitTorrent, MythTV, and a slew of other contraptions to narrowcast their favourite shows. I've personally bought many DVD boxed editions of television shows, that are readily available 12 times a day on re-runs, just because I could. Despite its' otherwise luddite leanings, we geeks sure love our TV.

That's why it's important for the marketing arm of the broadcasters to cup their farts and throw it in our faces when it comes to speaking to the nerds in the audience. Just creating some cartoon fantasy of a website or blog and filling it with more nonsense than the script shows that either your writers are shitheads or your marketers are fuctionally retarded.

I imagine that a group of these helmet-headed business school coasters got together one warm afternoon and had a brain-storming session:

"How can we degrade both ourselves and the human race in general?"
"Hmmm, we could have the character in our show run a blog."
"Wow, that's incredible. Much better than my idea. I was going to say the character could eat live kittens while violating the corpse of a dead horse!"
"That's awesome too! Save it for sweeps"
"Hey, wanna go dry hump the company logo?"
"I'll tag team you, dude!"

Keep in mind that this show and blog come from Disney. The same company that wanted to make DVDs that would self-destruct after 48 hours. Clearly that company sold its' soul at the same time it sold Walt's frozen body to the dog-food plant.

Who says all bloggers are hackneyed, wannabe-writers with conspiracy theories?