I was planning on going to bed early (before 3am) tonight – but instead I made this web site about cereals in anticipation of the Cartoon Party: http://thickets.50megs.com/cereals.htm
Tell it to Queen Doppelpopoulos…
Janet had a haiku contest and everyone – EVERYONE – should go to her site at psychicle.com to vote.
Let’s imagine for a moment that the 7th Annual Saturday Morning Cartoon Party will be held not on February 28th, as previously supposed, but rather on February 21st. What would you say to that? (By the way, the theme this year is doppelgangers.)
E-cybopooch is part of the family now, and he deserves your e-respect!
In a sweeping coup of procrastination, I rearranged my nerdy D&D and Spaceship Zero miniatures last night. I even cleaned up a bit. Yes, it came to that.
So I had to get up before 2pm today to go downtown to the Vancouver Police Department. For this Mentor volunteering I’m doing, they require a criminal record check. I took the bus to the heart of the delightful East End. When I got on I put in two loonies and the box told me I owed another dollar. The bus driver said “I saw both of them” and so he overrid the box. Then he announced to the entire busload of passengers that the ticket machine was acting up, so the next time it happened he was going to say “stupid machine!” and he asked the entire bus to repeat “stupid machine!” after him. So at the next stop an old lady got on and the box did it’s thing again. The bus driver said quietly to the old lady “yeah, it’s broken – watch this: Stupid machine!” and the entire bus yelled out “Stupid machine!” That was fun.
Then on the bus ride back I was the first one on the bus when it was at the beginning of it’s journey (the #50) and the bus driver asked me if I had seen the front page of the paper – the headlines were “Who is stealing transit fare?” or some such. Then we had a little discussion about how they decided not to instal proper turnstyles on the skytrain stations as it was too expensive, but in the long run it will save them money. And he read out a bunch of boring statistics, quoting from the newspaper, about which stops had the most people without proof of fare payment on them. Even if those stats are true – they are meaningless.
Anyway – the criminal record check went swimmingly and I wager that I’ll be mentoring by Friday. I’m putting the Toren back in Mentoren.
Not stupid – ignorant.
So I get on the bus in Coquitlam, and I put in my three dollars, which as I understand it is the fare for a two-zone pass. I say to the bus driver “two zones, please” and I plunk in my three bucks. I sit down and look at the thing – it says three zones. I don’t think anything of it. I only paid my three dollars for two zones so it must be right. I transfer onto the skytrain station. All is well. At Broadway Station, I get on the 99 and put my transfer into the slot. It comes back reading “upgrade required – $1.00.” I’m confused but I’m not going to argue with the driver while there is a line of people waiting behind me. I have a toonie and ninety five cents in change. I drop in the toonie and the driver gives me a new transfer, taking away my old one. So now I’ve paid a total of $5 (although one of those dollars was Ang Holds, which makes it even worse) for what I thought was a $3 ride, but the worst part is not that I’ve spent two extra dollars, the worst part is that I’ve spent two extra dollars that I feel I should not have had to. That’s the kind of shit that ruins your whole day.
Double-yoo-tee-eff?
Overheard today on 10th Ave, some thin, balding guy in his late 30’s or early 40’s talking into a cellular phone:
“Okay but here’s the thing: I agree with you 100%, but right now we need the money and he’s got the fuckin’ gun.”
And on a lighter note: clowns!
News from Harper’s:
Bush was disturbingly disengaged (“like a blind man in a room full of deaf people”) during cabinet meetings, and that many high-ranking administration officials have no idea what the president wants them to do and that they operate on “little more than hunches about what the president might think.” – Former secretary of the treasury Paul O’Neill
The International Monetary Fund published a report warning that the United States’ budget and trade deficits threaten to destabilize the entire global economy.
Britain released plans for new emergency powers that will permit government authorities to ban public gatherings and to destroy or confiscate private property without compensation.
A large new study found that up to half of all plant and animal species on land could face extinction by 2050 because of global warming.
Here’s a thought I had while lying in bed this afternoon: if a century is 100 years, and 100 per cent is 100 out of 100, shouldn’t a dollar be called a cent because it’s 100 pennies? Who’s in charge of these things?
I won the flail on ebay. I noticed that nobody had bid on it so I emailed the seller and asked if I could have it for $20 US including shipping (saving $7.50 US). It paid off.
This coming Friday they’re showing Big Night (Stanley Tucci & Tony Shalhoub) and Yin Shi Nan Nu (Eat Drink Man Woman) at the Placebo Sofa Cinema. It’s $5 for the evening, I’m sure you know. Then on Sunday it’s Tampopo and Delicatessen. On Sunday the 25th it’s one of my all-time favourites Miller’s Crossing with Gosford Park (good old Bob Balaban).
So, think about that for a moment.
As much a reminder to me as it is to you:
As you know (if you’re Anghold, Marlo, Stuey, Yvonne, or select few others) I have gone to a Paperfolders Around the Lower Mainland (PALM) meeting to do origami. It is organized by a very cool nerd by the name of Joseph Wu. He tells me that “CBC will have yet another interview of me on Friday night. On the Road Again, Jan 9th, 7 p.m.” I was looking at origami with Yvonne in a very kawaii Japanese stationary store (I don’t remember what it was called but Y would) at the Metrotown Mall and I think we can all agree that origami is good. I mean to go to another meeting to fold strange new worlds – hopefully this month.
The Thing, The Ring, And Return of the King
Metrotown burned me out – but I felt immediately refreshed once I got outside. The reason we went was to see Return of the King in the nice seats. I liked it (the movie). There were some things about it I really liked and a few things that I felt “meh” about. I hadn’t read the book so it was all new to me. Keep that in mind when I make my judgments. I’m assuming that I’m the last person in my circle to have seen the movie so I don’t feel the need to say “spoilers ahead.”* I really liked the fact that Frodo just didn’t let go of the ring at the end – that he didn’t conquer it in the end – that if it wasn’t for gollum Sauron might have won. I wasn’t too keen on Sam being able to take on Shelob. In real life spiders are really fast. But of course, they aren’t that big. So there is that. But still. Was she toying with him? I didn’t need Aeowyn (sp?) telling the witch-king and the audience that she wasn’t a man – I think we all knew that. I never thought I’d hear myself type this but I got a little impatient about halfway through the movie. Even though there was a lot of action, I got a good dose of it in Two Towers and I felt a little inundated with epic battle scenes. Or maybe it was the drawn-out buildup to those scenes. Or maybe a combo of both. Otherwise, I quite liked the ending and…well pretty much everything that I didn’t just complain about. I would give it a 7 or an 8 out of 10 I guess. The ending had me leaking water out of my face so it’s a good thing I was with Yvonne instead of all my macho jock friends who would make fun of me. Yvonne made fun of me for other reasons but I won’t go into that here. Besides, I’ll show her one day. One day soon – oh yes.
*”And I don’t need to remind you that I rigged the election. But I did remind you. Well, what’s done is done.” – Scudworth.
Cartoon News (Canadian TV)
Just some info for all my fellow local cartoon afficionados:
Teletoon:
STAR WARS: CLONE WARS Saturday @ 5pm, Sunday & Monday @ 9:30 and 9:35 pm
AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE Sunday & Monday @ 9:45pm
FUTURAMA weekends @ 9pm & 1am
HOME MOVIES Mondays @ 10:30 pm
YTV:
Astroboy premieres Jan 31