Television

I've always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with the telly.  Love, because....seriously....there's been some amazing things that I'd never seen if I didn't have this wonderful black box in my house.  And hate...because 99% of what comes on it is complete crap just churned out to fill airtime or sell the sponsor's product.

Despite the amount of crap out there I still think we're in a bit of a golden age right now as far as what we can watch on TV as long as you're willing to disconnect the cable box and hook up the interwebs.


With typical canadian cable you get.....actually...I'm not really sure.  I stopped watching years ago... except for "important" sports and a few oddities that I like that actually show up here. From my journeys into the real world I gather it's mostly a mixture of talent shows, dubious-talent shows (ventriloquists....my mom fucking loves ventriloquists) , tampon commercials, imitations of CSI, and some canadian content about muslims living in small-town saskatchewan (although I hear this series is over...which is the easiest way to know it's not american...more on that later).


So if you don't watch cable....what do you do?

Torrents baby.

There's good shows being made out there in the world.....but they just don't seem to ever actually get shown on our tv's here.  Sometimes a series has already been over and done for a couple years before you hear about it....but that's no reason to watch Jersey Shore instead.  But...but....you don't want to be left out of conversations at work about it.....um....all you need to know is it's something about new jersey....all the people in it are douchbags....something called a snooky happens....and everyone who watches claims to be embarrased by that fact but still watches anyway.   Boom.  You're all caught up. 


So how do you find shows.  Well...the best/easiest place to start is england.  It's hard to believe but they do watch tv there....and it's really fricken good.  One of the best parts about it is that when a show is over...it's over.




There's no dragging it out for 7 years just because it was a hot ticket for 4 and you wanted to guarantee ad revenue so you committed to 3 more even though you're completely out of ideas and all your main actors have moved on to other things.  British shows (the good ones at least) tend to have a pre-defined plot outline...they run through it and then boom...they wrap it up.  It's like a movie told 25 minutes at a time at weekly intervals. 

Oh and forget the american 26 show "season".....generally each "series" of UK shows are 6 or maybe if it's a really big one 12-13 episodes.  You can wrap up a 3 year english show in 18 episodes....maybe 20 if it's huge and their fans badger them into a Christmas special....and it's done.  Nice little package.  No filler.  No on-again-off-again-on-again love stories that drag out for 3 years. 

or

Ok...not the best comparo.....since the US Office was a pretty good show on it's own once it stopped trying to be the UK one.  ...  but you get my point.

Poking the Bear

Oh what wonderful times we live in when a person on one side of the world exercising their right to free speech can get someone else that they've never met on the other side of the world killed by a horde of religious fanatics. It's like the butterfly effect....except even less believable than Ashton Kutcher's "acting".

As you've no doubt heard, the muslim world is up in arms over this completely rubbish film "The Innocence of Muslims". There have been violent demonstrations all over the middle east and elsewhere and in what may or not have been a related attack, a US ambassador was assassinated in Libya (although the timing relative to other attacks and demonstrations may have been coincidental as it was also the 11th anniversary of Sept 11th).

 This is not the first time that muslims have responded like medieval savages to modern day events (Salman Rushdie's fatwa, Danish cartoons of mohammed, Terry Jones and his qur'an burning idiocy) and it is certainly not the last. There just seems to be difficulty understanding that people who are not members of your religion do not have to follow the laws of your religion.


You can wring your hands all you want about muslims killing muslims in pakistan because some verse in their holy book says that adultery, or blasphemy, or whatever silly thing this week, is punishable by death.. Sure....to a Canadian it seems barbaric and wrong and completely in violation of countless principals that this country is founded on.....but a) it's not our country b) all the parties involved are playing the same stupid game and know the rules going in. This doesn't mean we should just ignore it.....we shouldn't. We should, through our government, and through private companies that do business in these areas put pressure on the people to abandon their backwards ways and join the 21st century.


However....what we can't tolerate is when muslims expect the western world to follow their rules within the borders of our own countries. As you've probably heard.....free speech and freedom of religion are two of the most important principles of western living. In this case what it comes down to is that within our borders, you're allowed to believe whatever crazy mixed-up stupid shit you want....put a funny hat with a bow on top of it....and call it god almighty....and nobody can force you to believe otherwise. But what they can do....is mock the ever-loving shit out of you for being a crazy fuck who is worshiping a soup can with a couple of googly muppet eyes glued to it (or whatever you picked). Any you know what....being a civilized country, that's not necessarily a very civilized thing to do.....but ... you can do it. Nobody has to listen to you though. And no matter how much it hurts your feelings.....you don't get to beat them up, or kill them. And if they draw a picture of your little google-eyed soupy god having anal sex with a goat, you still don't get to kill them. And if they make their own life-sized replica of your little Mr Minestrone.....and then they take him to the recycling depot to be destroyed and melted down into something actually useful.....you don't even get to kick them in the shins.

Hail the great and all-powerful Mr. Minestrone!

 And if I draw two stick figures on a piece of paper, and put a little legend underneath that says "one of these little stick figures is NOT mohammed", nobody gets to kill me, or anybody else over it. Sure images of mohammed are forbidden in the muslim religion.....that's a very interesting bit of trivia......but since I'm not a muslim, and since I don't live in a country with sharia law I really don't think that applies to me. END OF STORY.

And if some idiot (Terry Jones), down in the states wants to make a big fuss and publicly burn the qur'an .... well that's not very nice, and I must say I'm really uncomfortable with the concept of burning books because you don't agree with them, or they offend you, (or any reason really besides being snowed in in a secluded cabin with no firewood and nothing left but a library full of combustibles).... but....as long as he didn't steal the book, and as long as he doesn't violate fire code and burn a building down....he's free to do it. And you know what muslims, you can be as mad as a cat in a bath about it....but you don't get to grab and kill the first handful of whitey's that you see after you hear about it....and you don't get to demand his arrest, and you don't get to put bounties on his head.

You can call up your local american embassy and lodge a formal complaint, but you should be simply told that while yes, the government agrees that the burning of your holy book was disrespectful, no laws were broken, and nothing was hurt except your feelings so you're just going to have to be the better man here and suck it up. END OF STORY

And guess what....following the pattern of the above examples....if someone makes a truly disgusting movie that makes fun of your prophet and your faith.....well....that sucks. Settle down, go watch Monty Python's Life of Brian or Meaning of Life, or head to New York and watch The Book of Morman....and have a good laugh and go about your business.

 Maybe have a discussion with your buddies about what a jerk that guy was to make such a shitty, historically inaccurate movie. Heck....call 100 of your closest friends and picket the US embassy, or if you're somewhere in the western world picket city hall.....but guess what? You're not justified going on a rampage. You don't get to threaten to kill people over this.  Also, if you're in a civilized western country and you've got your kid carrying a sign that threatens death to anyone who violates your religious rules.....guess what else....you've overstepped any reasonable interpretation of what "religious tolerance" protects and it's probably time for social services to step in and have a nice long chat with you about acceptable parenting standards.

So what to do, what to do? Should the western world self-censor? Put Islam up on an untouchable pedestal? "Any and all free speech is protected, and even promoted....unless it might hurt the feelings of muslims because those fuckers are crazy and they're gonna kill somebody". Sounds like a good law. We'll just pretend they don't exist and get back to making fun of christians and jews and those silly atheists.....can you believe....they don't even believe in god. I mean.....checkmate...right there....you can't not believe in something if it doesn't exist....otherwise how can you know you don't believe in it. Dumbasses.


Or maybe we could do this concerted society-wide program of passive-aggressive criticism.....instead of drawing political cartoons criticizing mohammed, just leave it blank and write something like "we WOULD have put a scathing cartoon poking a little fun at the muslim prophet, but sharia law forbids it" in it's place. I'm sure after a few years of doing that the islamists will be so curious about whatever could they have wanted to draw there that they'll be practically begging us to give mohammed his own cartoon on Adult Swim.

Or...probably the best response is the equivalent of immersion therapy. "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" works on this principle, and it's probably what we're going to have to do in the end. Simply fill the internet, the newpapers, and the TV airways with our western blasphemy.....overwhelm them with so many things to be upset about that eventually they realize that they have to either give up trying to force everyone to play by their rules and learn to play nice.....or they completely snap and well....let's hope it doesn't come to that. But still....even if it does....it's better than tiptoeing around the big bully in the room. Sometimes you've just got to poke the bear.

Got Me a Beard

T-Rex Taking Communion

Awesome Dino-eating-jesus-fish sticker

And....the response left under the wiper blade.

I love that it's written in crayon....I mean...if you're going to write the equivalent of a childish tantrum...it might as well be in crayon.

I'm guessing she was a paleontologist who was expressing her frustration because the Tyrannosaurus most likely preyed upon ornithopods and other herbivorous dinosaurs rather than fish.

(Stolen from reddit)

Why I'm Not a Creationist

Well...not really why I'm not....I was convinced well before finding this...but a good primer series on evolution.  If you watch it on youtube it's in a playlist to play vid after vid....not sure if it works with the embedded one.

GR 1986-2011

One year after her death, thinking about my late sister.





I was in charge of picking the music for her funeral (except for a couple of songs that my family picked....).  I thought of including this but I left it out.  Probably because of the lines ....

"A little less than a human being
A little less than a happy high
A little less than a suicide"

...  even though in retrospect they're probably perfect. From what I understand Jill died, most likely from toxicity from an overdose of local anesthetic complicated by a bunch of other medications she was taking for poorly diagnosed and treated psychiatric disorders.  We probably will never know what her intention was that day.....but it seems unlikely that she was trying to kill herself.  She had plans later that day with a close friend.  There was no note.  She'd talked to my parent's that morning about their supper plans and whether they'd be home or not.  And all the meds they found in her system were ones she seemed to have been using for some time. She was found by my parents in the backyard of their house, early in the evening of a hot sunny day, with the stereo blasting away on the patio.  Most likely she was using this medication to numb pain from self-harm, or for the buzz of a mild overdose and just overdid it.... but really....we don't know....and we'll never know.

The thing for me is, she really hadn't been any part of my life for quite a while before this happened.  The last time I really saw her was at Christmas, when she showed up at my parent's usual Chinese restaurant on christmas day for their annual chinese lunch.  She'd been living in their basement for some time since then....with a big chaotic move that of course happened to be the exact same weekend my brother and his wife moved from their tiny apartment to their first house.  She was at my parent's house but I never really saw her. 

....


We weren't really on good terms you see.  The last time my wife and I had dealt with her before that....was with her on my doorstep demanding we give her my parent's dog Grover....with a police escort.  She had commandeered Grover a few months prior from my parent's house.....because in her opinion he was her dog and he was happier with her.  Grover was a really elderly fellow.  With 3 legs and terrible sight and hearing.  He was pretty much happy as long as somebody kept food in his bowl and a rub on his belly ready for him. But Jill thought he was hers and my parent's decided to not declare war over his ownership. 

However.....that fall, my parents took a trip to Japan.  And as things usually were with Jill when it was most inconvenient, it was time for something to happen.  So....my wife got a call saying that she had to come and pick up Grover STAT!!!!!! from my second cousin(whom she'd never met)'s house because Jill was going to rehab and obviously couldn't take her dog.  So....my wife picked him up.  No big deal...we've got two dogs....what's a third?  And anyway, we knew my mom missed him terribly, so she'd be very happy to have Grover waiting for her when she got back from vacation. 

Yay.  All's well that ends well....except that about 24hrs later....we got a call from Jill. "I'm coming over to get Grover".

"Like hell you are, what happened to rehab?"

"He's my dog and you have to give him back to me"

"We took him because you were going to rehab....Mom and Dad are back in a couple days, how about we keep him until then, and you sort it out with Mom and Dad when they get back from Japan..."

"If you don't give Grover back I'm calling the police!!!!!!"

"You know what...fuck it...come get him. ....  I really don't care enough to fight you about this"

....

So...a couple hours pass....and the doorbell rings. 

Answer it...who's there?  Jill of course.  And a cop car...with a big fucking spotlight lighting up the entire front of the house (and any room with a window) like it's the Super Bowl. 

"here's your dog.", coax grover out the door, shut door.

A couple seconds pass ... knock on the door....answer....cop there

"Um...you can't just take somebody's dog"

"She asked us to take him cause she was supposed to be going to rehab"

"Oh?!?!, well...if you're concerned about the animal's welfare you can call the humane society and they'll check in on her house"

"We don't know where she lives, she asked us to take the dog so she could go to rehab.....she demanded the dog back...we asked about rehab....and then we gave the dog back"

"Um...you can't just take somebody's dog"

"Sorry for the trouble officer, I'm sure it won't happen again..."

End of story. 

...


So yeah...that was it....pretty much the last real interaction I had with my sister.  Sure she was at that Christmas supper....but it was about as awkward as a cow on rollerskates.  We didn't speak to her at all except a cursory hello.  And she was around here and there at my parent's house....since she had decided to move back home.....but she was usually out at an alcoholics anonymous meeting when we were there, or if she wasn't we really just tried to avoid her.  (interestingly...nobody in my family had ever seen her drink even slightly more than socially.....we suspect she joined AA for the acceptance and attention she found there)

And now...she's gone.  And she's not coming back.

It's still very hard to get my head around.  I think of the past 12 months, and everything that's happened in my life....and I can honestly say, with 100% conviction that all things considered I'm happier today than I was the day before Jill died....I mean seriously.  I'm a father now.  My career is pretty damn good.  I'm on a couple rec sports teams that I really enjoy.  My wife is a wonderful partner in everything in my life.

This isn't to say I'm happy Gillian's not around.  There are definitely times when I think about her and feel sad that she's gone....but there's just as many times that I'm .... not glad.... but relieved.  Her behavior was erratic and bizarre and inappropriate at times and I'm glad I don't have to restrict her access to my daughter like my other sister had to do with her kids.  I'm glad I don't have to worry about emergency 3am calls that she's in the hospital with some (likely self-inflicted) injury.  I'm glad that I don't have to worry about her calling the police on my parent's about some made-up thing just because they wouldn't do what she wanted some day. 

I have my memories of her as a little girl....and that's where she'll stay for me.  In all honesty...I said goodbye to the Gillian I knew when I left for college ... I was 18, she was...11.  I only really saw her at holidays and for bits of summers after that.....and along the line....she changed... from the little girl I knew, to a confused and troubled teen....to a troubled and self-destructive adult, and now to a person who is only spoken of in the past tense.  Of course it's sad.  Of course I wonder if there's anything I could have done  But you know what....it's too fucking late for any of that.  Maybe there is and maybe there isn't.  I tried.  And my parent's tried. And my siblings tried.  And "the system" tried.  But, in the end, she pushed everyone away enough times that they either stopped trying to help....or they helped her in whatever little compartmentalized  way she'd allow....

And I wonder....what her last few hours were like....did it hurt?  Did she know she'd gone too far this time?  Did she cry? Did she beg for a reprieve .....just one more second chance....from her god, her mother, or any passing stranger? Or...did she just drift away peacefully on a happy cloud of numbness?  We'll never know.  The only way to find out is a one-way trip and it's not one I'm planning on taking. 

So....we hope it was....okay.  Because she was unhappy...and now her unhappiness is over.  Instead, it is divided among everyone who misses her....her friends and relations who look back upon her life and its unreached potential and hope we can take what we learned from our time spent with Jill to make the world a little better.....for ourselves, and for everyone else we love.

Oldies but goodies

In order to consolidate and simplify (and also to generate more content for people to read without doing any more actual work), I'm going to re-post some of my old writings from defunct blogs onto this one.  I think I'll do them under the original date (since my writing style has (hopefully) evolved since originally writing them.  And .... done.

Here's some links.

Four plus years of writing and this is all that I'm not ashamed to republish...?

One about my big-gulp cups.  Also...I make fun of the size of my penis.  Hilarious!
It's big?

A rant about music....music that I really don't feel nearly as strongly about as this post would have you think....
Harry Connick Junior?

Here's the one where I make the best analogy for relationships EVER....or something
Is that a skidmark or are you just happy to see me?

I didn't even write this one.....but I did erase a teeny bit of text from the original cartoon...so I'm like a DJ I guess
Ice Ice Baby?

Ooooh a pharmacy rant
Raaaaaaaage!!!!!

And possibly my most famous post (at least among people who had read it...haha)...
Love in an elevator