multi-post #4: shortest story, earth hour

the shortest story

sometime in the 1920's, ernest hemingway bet some of his contemporaries that he could write a short story in just six words. he did so, and collected his proceeds from them. he considered it his best work. having read it, was truly impressed at just how much he was able to convey in so few words. that he did in fact tell an entire story, evoked emotion, words ebbed and flowed and took the reader on journey in the most mcluhanist way. here it is, unabridged:

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

how i found out about this was through a recent article on wired where they approached 30 writers and 5 designers with the same task. the results mixed in my opinion. none really achieving the same essence as hemingway. while all good efforts and did capture each writer's own persona, they fell short in comparison.

here's my equally as feeble attempts at this exercise. i encourage anyone reading this to add their own in the comments for all to read.

"all computers gone. how to communicate?"
"brought a knife to gun fight"
"should've had sex before getting married"
"screeched to a halt. too late."

earth hour is upon us

today at 8pm-9pm, the world is to shut off the power. a noble pursuit, no doubt, and one that i support for whatever small difference it makes. it's more about the world banding together than it is about the small effect of turning off your lights will have. please don't get me wrong in the words below, i'm not belittling this effort, I just think it could have been executed better or sent a stronger message.

the first issue is that this is being done on the weekend. granted, at least it IS being done, but for a greater impact, it should have been done on a weekday when more electricity is being consumed. i understand it's about getting the everyday citizen involved, but isn't it the corporations that are really driving global warming? also from the perspective of corporate involvement, it says a lot more to shut down operations and offices during the weekday than on the weekend.

secondly, don't limit it just to the lights. turn everything off. hell, i may just turn all the breakers off at the source, but at the very least, i won't limit myself to a few lights. i know a lot of people will go above and beyond, but in our minimal involvement society, people will do just that and still feel good about themselves.

third, government support needs to be escalated. citizens can do all they want but climate change is a largely political issue. it's about the government stepping in and enforcing regulations that will put a halt to these negative environmental shifts. the ontario government, who is supporting earth hour, and all other levels of government need to do more than this symbolic gesture of preserving our planet. i'll give credit to them for taking the step, but it needs to go further to actual legislation.

i'd also like to see more corporate involvement and more vocal support for earth hour. my friends at molson have gone the extra mile and declared that they will be shutting down all operations for the hour in a number of their facilities. very commendable and an example of taking this effort to heart and going above and beyond. i hope that more corporations are doing the same, but i'm skeptical that they will be. and if they are, that it is genuine and not just a pr play.

i guess baby steps is the m.o. on this one. we haven't been able to radically change people's perceptions or habits in this matter, so i guess we need to start small and build from there. here's to a happy earth hour, and to it being bigger in the future.

multi-post #2: nader, weiner circle, kfc, kimmel's f'ing ben affleck

ralph nader opts to run for president... again


today ralph nader announced that he would again run for president as an independent. i commend ralphy for continuing on with his quest even though he must know to himself that it is futile. he is a serious candidate who really wants to make a difference and embraces democracy and the idea that there should be other alternatives to the stagnation of a two party system. but ultimately it is a fools errand.

this will mark nader's fifth attempt at the white house, and i would guess his last. the guy is 74 after all. his most memorable run would surely have been in 200 where he is widely regarded as tipping the scales in favor of george w. bush against al gore. nader's 2.74% of the popular vote would largely have gone to gore this ensuring his election. but alas, that was not to be.

of course the next 8 years of running the country into the ground could not have been fully seen at the time. nader was simply exercising his rights as a citizen. there is nothing wrong with that. at least there was some real political intent as opposed to all the other pseud-candidates who clutter up the ballot every year with no real desire for the job. i don't know yet (nor does anyone i imagine) exactly what role nader will have this year. with the party battles still so up in the air, it's hard to tell what impact he will have. i will venture to say though that the presidential election won't be as close as it was 8 years ago so nader's paltry number of votes likely won't swing it either way.


wiener circle hamburgers


just read an article in macleans about a new burger joint called the weiner circle in chicago. an interesting concept to say the least. basically go in and get berated by the staff while you wait for your order. sure you can jab back, but, it's literally these people's jobs, so prepare to be taken down. i can see why it's a tourist attraction, it looks like a real experience. it's admirable for the people behind this counter to be able to take it like they do. especially with all the shitheads out there who take this too far. but when you open the door to this type of activity, you will bring out the worst in people, without fail. the people who filmed this shouldn't have blurred out the faces of the more ignorant and offensive idiots who take what is supposed to be meant as fun and turn it into something vicious and derogatory. they should be exposed like those rv riding jackasses in borat. if you say it, especially when there's cameras around, you should be held accountable for it.


kentucky fried salmonella

while w're on the subject of questionable service, let me tell you the story of what is now my last experience at kfc (not a lifetime ban, but indefinitely for sure). a friend and i opted to hit the kfc for a quick bite. i opted for the big crunch as it is much less nauseating than getting a couple pieces of original recipe. you feel bad, but not as bad. we both asked for no mayo. as we stood by the counter witnessing the exceptionally slow service, we watched as the assembler bring out the large 'mayo dispenser' (ie caulking gun) and splurt out a generous dollup of mayo on each of our sandwiches. so as the slid the tray to us, we slid it back noting the non-absence of mayo and prepared to wait another eon.

of course they didn't have more than one already pre-made in a warmer, so my friend who ordered first got his while i continued to wait, assured that it would be 6 minutes. as the rest of my food got cold, i waited. finally the new sandwich was put in my hands and i walked to the table. i took a bite, chewed, swallowed, none the wiser. as i looked down to take the next bite, the sight of raw chicken confronted me.

now angrier, i marched ot the counter and threw down sandwich and launched into a tirade making sure eveyrone heard me. some highlights include:
- "this is fucking raw."
- "i want my money back, i'm not paying for this shit."
- "are you trying to fucking kill me?"

none of them would make eye contact and each puttered about trying feabily to rectify the situation. with the combo costing $6.99 + tax, i was only given $7 back but was so flabbergasted, that i didn't debate it. the hardest part was keeping a straight face as i could hear my friend laughing loudly at the scene i was creating. they offered to also replace my meal at no charge as if i still wanted to eat anything else they peddled. i walked back to my seat to finish the rest of my meal.

then someone brought me my replacement and made another insinscere apology. i said to my friend "i bet this has mayo on it." sure enough, as i opened it, mayo was everywhere. now completely incensed, i ate my remaining fries, picked up the sandwich and on my way out the door, pitched the mayo-laden thing against the wall where we were sitting, completely fed up.

now, everyone has a job to do, some more difficult than others. there is a reason that fast food joint employees make what they do, because it isn't rocket science. they have one task, to cook food properly. stick it in a fryer for the perscribed amount of time and serve it. simple, right? one key difference is when I screw up in my job, i don't make people violently ill or kill them. if i screwed up in my job, i'd get fired, but not these chumps. it likely won't even be remembered a week from now. fortunately i didn't get ill, but i won't be back there anytime soon.


jimmy kimmel gets back at his girlfriend

if you haven'te seen these already, you really should. there is actually some good stuff on late night tv. shocking i know.

here's the first from sarah silverman. i wasn't a fan of her show. i thought it was kinda dumb and unfunny. her standup was okay, but nothing impressive. but this is comedic gold.



and here's jimmy's response. while he directly rips off silverman, his execution was on a much grander scale and that is where this is comedic gold as well. i hope there is an unedited version of this somewhere, because there's a lot of bleeps

multi-post #1: castro, shreddies, hitman hangers & mario paint

in an effort to blog a bit more, i'm going to introduce a new style that is less long form and more a couple of things that i encounter, pique my interest or have a relatively strong bent toward writing about but none that warrant a full post unto itself. so i give you the multi-post blog. i'll still do the dedicated posts, but i find those harder to compose regularly.

fidel castro steps down
upon hearing that castro was stepping down as the leader of cuba, and reading some stories about it, i was immediately confused. i heard words like parlaiment, and legislature. we are talking about the same dictatorial, communist regime right? a quick stroll through the cuban government section on wikipedia confirms an enigmatic political structure that seems nothing more than a thin coat of pseudo-democratic paint over tyranny.


but man can castro rock the hell out of a track suit at political functions


diamond shreddies... for real?


has everyone seen the new ad campaign for diamond shreddies? the word audacity comes to mind. i'm well aware that post has their tongue planted firmly in their cheek on this one, but it does take some gall to invest that much money in a piece of faux news and to splash it across that many advertising channels. while it's kind of scratch-your-head funny, the risk to me is consumer perception of the brand veering toward "this is stupid." vs. "ha ha ha, that's kinda funny and clever."


better endings


on the weekend we saw another tale of hitmen called 'in bruges', the week prior having seen 'no country for old men.' while both were okay movies, both suffered from an unsatisfying ending. i won't spoil either, but they were sopranos-like in that there was no finality to either picture. i don't get this style of film making where the audience is left wanting more and will never get it. neither will have a sequel, and neither warrant one. so why can't the movie makers give us an actual ending that, as movie-goers, we require to complete our experience? and "in the sake of art" isn't a good enough excuse. movies are meant to give you a story and stories have endings. otherwise it's just an unformed thought and negates the existance of the picture altogether. why tell a story with no outcome?


mario paint mixer


anyone remember mario paint on the snes? probably not. not many people had it much less played it. i did though. it was a really basic proagram where you could draw 8 bit pictures that could have vitually no detail, make animations of no more than 8 frames and make music of 100 beats or less using the sounds from the mario games to date. well apparently there is a bit of renaissance around the music maker. i came across a number of youtube videos of people making popular songs using it. someone ported it to the pc and made a little program out of it that you can find here. as with any extremely limited and archaic form of production, i commend those who are able to recreate any semblence of the real thing with these bits of computer generated sound.