You don't want hairy palms!

Due to my moving, I won't be updating until at least tuesday, when my internet will be switched over. I know this will be hard on my loyal readers; that they will have an overwhelming feeling of sadness and many will feel bereft. Don't worry, I will be back. In the meantime you can study and memorize (i.e. worship) my past entries/archive.

Importantly, all of this idle time without a blog update may make your mind wander. You may even turn to thoughts of the flesh. But be strong. You can fight it. As a public service announcement I have included the following reminders, so that your free time is not filled with wanton and dangerous self gratification.

You move me

Well, I'm moving on saturday. And for over a week I have been "packing". No, not packing like normal people do, this type of "packing" is a technical term. It is similar to when I am in school and "studying". Put simply: "packing" and "studying" mean procrastination.
You know the feeling, you have a whole day to study for an exam or write an essay but the actual amount of time spent on that task is miniscule. Probably a ratio of 5-10 minutes working time for every hour spent procrastinating. Instead of studying, you find more pressing things to do, such as cleaning your house, flossing your teeth, or calling that aunt who talks too long on the telephone and you haven't called in months.
Well "packing" is just like that. Updating my blog, surfing the internet, watching some favourite movies, and other various activities take precedence over boxing up my belongings. So you see that nice pile of boxes in the picture above? Yup, taping those up and getting them ready to be filled took one whole day of "packing". Another day was devoted to boxing up my books. At this rate I think I should have my LLB before my address changes.
With that in mind, I have decided to strike out on my own and start a business (busnass?). I call it "Sloth Moving Co". For a largely sum, you will notify me three months in advance of your moving date. I will come to your home and "pack" for you. My day will be devoted to making snacks from your cupboards, watching your TV (you better have good cable!) and pleasuring your wife (extra fee applies here). Somewhere along the line your things will get boxed up and you will be moved.

If you are moving in the future and think that Sloth Moving Co is just what you need, please feel free to email me your address along with an 8x10 full-length photo of your wife.

D.Q.

Everyone has a bad day now and then. Case in point:

sag IS the new pink says:
ungh ungh ungh
sag IS the new pink says:
i'm hot, i'm cranky, i'm pissy

In an effort to cheer her up...

this is for you Jess:

DUI...but not while driving a car

And in today's news:

http://www.startribune.com/462/story/520474.html

"A man has been arrested for allegedly driving while intoxicated — on a riding lawnmower.
St. Cloud Police said they got a call just before 11 p.m. Tuesday of a severely intoxicated man driving a riding lawnmower through several neighbors' yards, and up and down the street.
Police said they found him passed out on his lawnmower in a neighbor's driveway.
The 24-year-old registered a blood alcohol level of 0.23 percent, nearly triple the legal limit of 0.08, police said. He's being held on second-degree DWI charges, and police seized his lawnmower due to prior DWI convictions."

"It feels like the first time..." (though it's really the second)

I was happy to note this milestone in the young life of my blog:

1000 hits. Here is photographic evidence.





Yes 1000 hits, for the second time. The second time you ask?

The morning of the milestone I noted that I hit 1001, and after I shouted out with animated glee and high-fived all of my imaginary friends, I subsequently popped open a bottle of Cristal Champagne, scarfed down beluga, and invited over some dancing girls to celebrate. An hour later I looked in horror as my hit counter had spun backwards to 930. So I was like "hey, what the eff?!"
It has since came back to those four happy digits, but I'm still super-miffed at my site counter. I mean, it's SOLE job in the universe is to count things. That is why it is there. And when it fails at its only job, what else does it have to fall back on? That's right, nothing.

So I think it's safe to say that Mr. Bravenet site counter you are useless. Oh yes I did.
Just like the light bulb that doesn't turn on, or the cup that leaks you can't even do the one job that you are here to do. So in summary, you suck at life. Harsh I know, but it had to be said.
But don't fret, if all goes well, maybe you can be reincarnated and come back as a (much more reliable) abacus. Or I bet that the Bush administration would love to have you as a Democratic vote-counter in Florida.
Until then I'll probably keep you around, because I'm loyal like that, and partly because I pity you. Just don't expect things to be as rosy as they once were; i.e. no more latenight walks in the park or Saturday morning cartoons together. Anyways, I've got to go, I have a date with my friends Mr. Slide rule, Mrs. Electronic calculator, and Mr. Comptometer.
But before I go, I will leave you with this scene from Monty Python and the holy grail. The theme may strike a chord with you:

Second brother: And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, 'O Lord, bless this thy hand grenade that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.' And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats and large chu...
Maynard: Skip a bit, Brother.
Second brother: And the Lord spake, saying, 'First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then, shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.'
Maynard: Amen.
Knights: Amen.
King Arthur: Right! One... two... five!
Sir Galahad: Three, sir!
King Arthur: Three!

The recipe of random fun

Recipe for Haphazard 2am pictures:

Ingredients
>1 boring night
>1 friend/accomplice/hostage
>1 Digital Camera
>Transportation
>List of 5-6 random city landmarks

Preparation
>Take 1 boring late evening, add 1 person with yourself (whomever you can drag along). Put one camera (for best results use digital) in your pocket/backpack. Preheat transportation and bring to operating temperature (if applicable). Use your chosen method of transportation (car, bus, hang glider) to arrive at 5-6 randomly chosen city landmarks. Take pictures of yourselves in various poses in front of the landmarks. Rinse and repeat. Ignore the last step.

Original recipe yield: 2 servings.

These are the landmarks that I chose, but you can vary the ingredients to suit your tastes:

1. The starting destination, my friend Jen's apartment.
2. Our favourite city white-trash diner.
3. The provincial legislature buildings.
4. The city law courts.
5. The city police headquarters
6. The local university law school building.

Here are the results of this recipe:



Jen's Apartment


Keegan's Restaurant


Legislature Buildings


Edmonton Law Courts


Edmonton Police Headquarters


Outside the Law Building (which sadly, is closed at 2am)



Optional extra ingredient:
Garnish your recipe with freshly picked flowers.



Nutrition Information:
Servings Per Recipe: 2+
Amount Per Serving

Calories: 0
Total Fat: 0g
Cholesterol: 0 mg
Sodium: 0 mg
Total Carbs: 0g
Dietary Fiber: 0g (12g if you eat the flowers)
Protein: 0g

A Tale of Two Landlords

So when I first decided to go into law school I knew beforehand that based on public opinion the legal profession is one of the least reputed in society and that many people believe lawyers actually work to exacerbate conflict or are only interested in making money regardless of whether justice is done. And not surprisingly, the general public would rate having to deal with a lawyer somewhere between "avoid at all costs" and "necessary evil." (though in reality the Law Society closely regulates the conduct of lawyers and public opinion has been based on only the worst of the bunch).
I didn't know that this public disdain would extend to law students or those wishing to join the profession. Here are two different experiences I had this week, dealing with the perception of lawyers.

Example #1:

This past week I was looking for a new apartment, closer to the the University. I find something that looks interesting and dial the number. The landlord answers (who will henceforth be referred to as 'idiotic landlord') and tells my about the unit.
Then he asks if I am a student, which I confirm and then asks what I am taking:

Me: I am a law student.
Idiotic Landlord: ohhhh. Actually I don't really like lawyers.
Me: Well that is great, I'm not a lawyer. I am a law student. [the model of equanimity and sang-froid that I am, and thinking that maybe Idiotic Landlord can differentiate the two and also realize that not all law students become lawyers; some in fact become professors, writers, politicians, etc.]
Idiotic Landlord: Well I have had some bad dealings before with lawyers. So, ya...how about you call me back at the end of summer and if there is anything left I might think about it. And really, I mostly just rent to international students.
Me: *mouth gaping open in disbelief of what I just heard*

Talk about judging a group by its worst specimen.
So because idiotic landlord rents out apartments at escalated prices because they reside close to the university do I automatically assume he is a land hoarding, evil capitalist? Well, I probably do, but that is beside the point.
Notice the sophisticated double-discrimination that he employs: not only is he hesitant to rent me the apartment because of my nationality, but also because of my chosen future profession.
I know that as a landlord (and as mentioned, an idiotic one) he can choose whoever he wishes to live in his building. But isn't there a general societal principle that says we can justify treating people differently only if we can show that there is some factual difference between them that is relevant to justifying the difference in treatment? (an example of a factually relevant difference would be a University choosing one college applicant over the other because of superior grades).
Can Idiotic Landlord point to any difference between me and other potential tenants that isn't unacceptably arbitrary that would justify treating us differently? (unacceptably arbitrary differences = country of origin + future chosen profession).
It is sad to think that he is so unintelligent that just because he had bad dealings in the past with a minute fraction of a specific profession that he should typecast all subsequent members of that profession which he meets, or members wishing to possibly join that profession.

Maybe he was scared of getting a late night call from me along these lines: "Hi there, I was just reading over article 432.1a(iv) of the Residential Tenancy Act and these nails used in this apartment aren't up to safety standard. Also, these light fixtures aren't up to code, plus in the recent ruling of Schyster v. Doe Canadian law states that these doorways aren't wide enough. So I'm going to have to get you to come up here tonight and replace all the nails, light fixtures, and widen the doorways. Thanks."

Example #2

We will refer to this landlord as "More reasonable landlord" denoting a prevalent lack of asinine, mind-numbingly doltish and idiotic behaviour prevalent in the Idiotic Landlord. Though he too has his imperfections:

As I am filling out my lease today on an apartment that I decided to choose, he regales me with this tidbit:
"I don't think there are very many ethical lawyers. It seems that once they leave law school and get into the big law firms they lose any ethical notions that they had."
Why thank-you for that.
However, you can see that while he still carries the same stereotypes, he at least has the enlightenment to differentiate law students and lawyers.
And also if he should be reading this, my new landlord is a stately, well respected and selfless man of good taste and (according to the ladies) dashing good looks
.............................

Addendum:

"The first thing we do," said the character in Shakespeare's Henry VI, is "kill all the lawyers."
That hasn't happened so far, but the legal profession was abolished in Prussia in 1780 and in France in 1789, though both countries eventually realized that their judicial systems could not function efficiently without lawyers. So there you have it, you are stuck with them!

Andrew Coyne of the National Post wrote this witty piece on why hockey reigns supreme, compared to other lesser sports:

"Why hockey rules (and other sports suck)"
With the just-completed hockey playoffs coinciding this year with the World Cup of soccer, as well as the overlapping basketball and baseball seasons -- also Canadian football, the US Open of golf and, later this week, Wimbledon -- we are afforded a rare, eclipse-like opportunity to compare the major spectator sports at close range. Compare, and declare: There is one game that stands out as objectively, scientifically, mathematically superior to the rest. I am of course talking about “the best game you can name,” le sport des glorieux, the gentlemanly sport of hockey. Let’s break it down.
The game. There is more action in five minutes of hockey than in your average 90-minute game of soccer, whose fans live for the moment when, by some mischance, the ball strays within fifty yards of the net. Basketball suffers from the opposite affliction: as the comedian David Brenner argues, they should start both teams at 100 and make the games two minutes long, since that’s what every basketball game comes down to. Only hockey combines frequency of scoring chances with the difficulty of actually scoring: fans, especially at playoff time, are kept in a state of near permanent hysteria, the prospect of a game-altering goal ever present.
Hockey is fluid, where baseball and football are static. It has been calculated that a 60-minute football game, though it takes nearly three hours to complete, adds up to no more than about 10 minutes of actual playing time. The rest is huddles, signal-calling, etc. Baseball players spend half of every game sitting around on the bench, chewing tobacco. The rest is spent standing around in the field, chewing tobacco. But oh, the geometry.
“The beautiful game?” I’ll tell you what’s beautiful: a perfectly timed hip check at mid-ice, sending the other player cartwheeling onto his head. It’s ice dancing, only with more bruises and fewer sequins.
The championship. There is no greater test of endurance in sports than the Stanley Cup playoffs -- four consecutive best-of-seven series, as many as 28 games, each one an all-out war. To be crowned NFL champion, you have to win at most four games, total: about 20 minutes work for the average team member, offensive or defensive, less for those assigned to the risible “specialty teams.”
Baseball players go through a similar process to reach the top, but, well, it’s baseball -- how hard can it be? Basketball? I don’t see any playoff beards on those pampered egomaniacs. The only thing I can think of that comes close is the Tour de France -- if there were hip checks.
There’s also the matter of the cup itself. The Stanley Cup, I have observed, is the object of some considerable fascination, even reverence, among Americans. You can see why: it’s the oldest of the major sports trophies, and the classiest. It’s not the Burger King Stanley Cup, after all. You’re looking for a suitable trophy for your major-league sporting event? Ask yourself these questions. Can you remember its name? (I don’t even know what they give the NBA winners.) Can you drink champagne out of it? Does it have engraved upon it the names of every team and every player to ever win it?
The culture. One of the oddities of soccer is how light the penalties are. You trip a guy as he’s about to kick the ball, and … he gets to kick it again. If it’s a particularly flagrant foul, the referee might show you a yellow card. You trip a guy in hockey, and you lose 20% of your skating manpower for two minutes or more.
But then it hit me: it’s a matter of incentives. Soccer has a serious problem as it is with players taking dives in hopes of being awarded a free kick. Imagine the operas of agony they would perform if the penalties were more severe.
Diving is not unknown in hockey, and may be getting worse, but it’s still frowned upon. It’s not -- yet -- part of the culture of the game, the way it is in soccer. There’s still an honest, workaday quality to hockey, even as played by millionaires. Of course, what I really mean is: it’s Canadian. Everyone’s moaning about American teams winning the Stanley Cup, Americans taking over our game. I prefer to think of it as an example of reverse cultural colonialism, a little piece of Canadian culture that has conquered the hearts of millions of Americans.
Mind you, there is one area where hockey falls short: colourful nicknames. There is no hockey equivalent to baseball’s “Oil Can” Boyd or “Catfish” Hunter. Hockey nicknames are formed in one of two ways: by dropping the last syllable of the player’s name, or by adding -er or -ie (sometimes by a combination of the two).
There’s a simple reason for this: exhaustion. It’s all a hockey player can do to gasp out “go Wayner” or “attaboy, Mess” between shifts. Baseball players, on the other hand, have all the time in the world.

U.S. court tosses lawsuit over "In God We Trust"

-"A U.S. district court judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by a California atheist against the U.S. government for its use of the phrase "In God We Trust" on its coins and currency. Michael Newdow, the Sacramento, California lawyer and doctor who had previously launched a court challenge on behalf of his daughter over the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance said in schools, had argued that "In God We Trust" on monetary instruments violates his rights. Newdow claimed that by using coins and currency bearing the phrase, he is forced to carry religious dogma, proselytize and evangelize for monotheism. Judge Frank Damrell of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California held in his opinion that "In God We Trust" is secular in nature and use, and its appearance on coins and currency does not show government coercion on behalf of monotheism. Newdow told Reuters he would appeal to the San Francisco-based U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled in his favor in his "under God" lawsuit, a decision later overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060613/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_life_atheist_lawsuit

-The Judge's decision follows the 1978 case by American Atheists founder Madalyn Murray O'Hair. In the case of MADALYN MURRAY O'HAIR et al. v. W. MICHAEL BLUMENTHAL, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY, et al. (462 F. Supp. 19 -- W.D. Tex 1978), the court stated: "Its use is of a patriotic or ceremonial character and bears no true resemblance to a governmental sponsorship of religious exercise."

-The motto In God We Trust was originally placed on United States coins largely because of the increased religious sentiment existing during the American Civil War.
It wasn't until 1957 that the motto was permanently adopted for use on United States currency.

This is one funny audio clip:
This individual is leaving a message on an answering machine when he suddenly witnesses a traffic accident. He gives a detailed description of what happens next, after the accident, as hilarity ensues:

http://www.kqxy.com/voicemail.mp3

A Vancouverites prayer

"Jesus, please bring the Stanley Cup to Vancouver next year..."

Tip your glass to the Oilers

It was a fantastic run. A valiant effort. Though they came up just short last night, there were some great memories/moments created throughout this year's playoff run by the Edmonton Oilers. And as a result, the energy in this city was electric. For this, I propose a toast to the 2005-2006 version of the Oilers. So raise your glass high, but what shall you recite? Here are some suggestions. Some old, some new. Some well known, some not so much:

Starkle, Starkle little twink,
What the hell you are I think,
I'm not as thunk as drink people bet,
It's just the drunker I stand the longer I get.
.................
Let us have wine and women
Mirth and laughter
Sermons and soda-water
The day after. —Lord Byron
....................
Here’s hoping you live forever
And mine is the last voice you hear.—Willard Scott
....................
Fill the glass
Pour me some
Drinking makes happy
What sobriety makes glum.
...................
When you’re bleeding in the sand
Don’t let your courage fade
When life deals you a bad hand
Throw hand grenades. —Pre D-Day Toast
...................
Let us drink with impunity
Or anyone else who’s buying. —W.C. Fields
...................
Here's to being single, seeing double, and sleeping triple
...................
Another day down the mines of our lives.
A day without seeing the sun.
We drink 'til we stink
and smoke 'til we choke
because that's how we get things done.
..................
Here's to friends we may never meet
and to love we may never know
Here's to bridges we'll never build
and to seeds we'll never sow
Here's to places we'll never see
and to the things we'll never do
Here's to faith found to be misplaced
and to beliefs proven untrue
Here's to dreams left unfulfilled
and to opportunities we may miss
Here's to the times of sorrow
so that we may enjoy the times of bliss
Here's to every woman my lips shall touch
and to every man who proves a loyal friend
Here's to every life that we may save
and to every life that we may end
Here's to living fast and living hard
and to living without regret
Here's to experience long forgotten
and to those we could never forget
Here's to the good timest
hough they never seem to last
So let's make tonight worth remembering
because come tomorrow, tonight will be the past.

The bearable lateness of being.

Well it is saturday morning. I am off on a 3-hour drive to go and visit my sister this morning. The original plans had me leaving at 8am so as to arrive around 11am and thus have a full day to spend. But now, as I sit here at my computer eating breakfast and obviously not having left, it is 10am and I still have to pack my clothes, shower, take out the garbage, get gas and whatever else strikes me as important before I leave. Oh and don't forget a couple Nature Valley Sweet & Salty Chewy Nut Bars (peanut flavour) for the drive. And the most important component of any road trip: the road trip CD(s). No car should leave the driveway without a "jammin" assortment of driving tunes. Maybe I should actually burn a new CD for the drive right now? Hmmm....looks like I may be driving in the dark at this rate.

Have a great weekend everyone, and if you have a father, give them a big hug on sunday.

"I'm not drinking any apostrophe-ampersand-at-number-sign Merlot!"

The other night I watched the magnificent movie, "Sideways" for probably the dozenth time. Though this time I listened with the commentary of the two main actors, Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church, turned on. I am glad I did. The pair have an unmistakeable chemistry and this translates into the commentary which at times is hilarious, and other times just plain endearing. Thomas Haden Churchs drops comments with "Avuncular”, “Tendril of Obviouscation” and “Firm of Haunch” like a freshman in college trying to impress his girlfriend.

The actors compete with self-mocking descriptions of themselves and others. For example, when describing Giamatti and Madsen, they call the former "boyishly jowly" and the latter "bejugged and brainy." Many other comments focus on their middle-aged flaws - Church, at one point, goes over descriptions of his own ass, such as "like two pillows filled with milk".

Here is some other sample witty commentary:

Paul Giamatti: Isn't it interesting that the first thing you see me doing is lying, in this picture, and a picture about lying isn't it?
Thomas Haden Church: It is in fact a picture laden with canards as the great Samuel Beckett would have reckoned.

PG: Who's that handsome fellow in the background?
THC: There I am in my thickened middle-aged...
PG: Craggy leathery...
THC: My fertile crescent of middle-aged doughy-ness
PG: You're the young Lee Marvin here, I like to think.
THC: My head, the width of my head is always surpassed by the girth of my belly.
PG: Oh, I think I've got you beat in the belly department.

THC: You know what I've noticed in this scene? How many times I scratch my face.
PG: I hadn't noticed, I'll watch for it next time.
THC: Like facial tourettes. I'm constantly rubbing like I have a rash.
PG: If I was you I wouldn't be able to keep my hands off myself either. I would be fondling my craggy features.

As Miles and Jack are walking towards The Hitching Post for a night of drinking wine:
PG: I'm working on a pair of perky man breasts aren't I?
THC: You do have man cans of the first order that America is enjoying as we speak.
PG: It is my gift to America, frankly.

As Miles and Jack are leaving The Hitching Post after a night of drinking wine, Giamatti comments on how low his pants are riding:
PG: I don't know where my ass begins and my lower spine ends.
THC: It looks like the north face of K2
PG: non-interrupted, smooth connection from spine to glutious
THC: and any minute little gnomes will rappel down your backside...
PG: ...and nestle in the warm downy hair,
THC: ...that sits atop your fleshy French scoops.

THC: You're the underwood deviled hammed guy of incredulity in this scene.
PG: I need a pitchfork.
THC: All you need is a trident

As Virginia Madsen's character comes to their table, Thomas Haden Church points out what he is looking at in the scene:
THC: Now I make a very pointed, downward glance, watch...I will stare directly at her breasts. I get monocular at that moment.
PG: The old orbits just settle in for a good long drink of that.
THC: And there, going even farther south of the border.

Photographic evidence

Two random instances of (photographic) levity for June 14, 2006:

Gas Prices


Spock Laurier

Rock, paper, scissors....motion denied!

Here is a funny story on how a judge ordered two acrimonious attorneys to settle a dispute over where to hold their deposition, by playing a round of 'rock, paper, scissors'.

http://howappealing.law.com/PresnellOrder.pdf

This is the text of the order by the judge. I love how he characterizes it as "a new form of alternative dispute resolution" :

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA ORLANDO DIVISION
AVISTA MANAGEMENT, INC., d/b/a Avista Plex, Inc.,
Plaintiff,
-vs-
WAUSAU UNDERWRITERS INSURANCE COMPANY,
Defendant.
______________________________________
ORDER
This matter comes before the Court on Plaintiff's Motion to designate location of a Rule 30(b)(6) deposition (Doc. 105). Upon consideration of the Motion – the latest in a series of Gordian knots that the parties have been unable to untangle without enlisting the assistance of the federal courts – it is
ORDERED that said Motion is DENIED. Instead, the Court will fashion a new form of alternative dispute resolution, to wit: at 4:00 P.M. on Friday, June 30, 2006, counsel shall convene at a neutral site agreeable to both parties. If counsel cannot agree on a neutral site, they shall meet on the front steps of the Sam M. Gibbons U.S. Courthouse, 801 North Florida Ave., Tampa, Florida 33602. Each lawyer shall be entitled to be accompanied by one paralegal who shall act as an attendant and witness. At that time and location, counsel shall engage in one (1) game of "rock, paper, scissors." The winner of this engagement shall be entitled to select the location for the 30(b)(6) deposition to be held somewhere in Hillsborough County during the period July 11-12, 2006. If either party disputes the outcome of this engagement, an appeal may be filed and a hearing will be held at 8:30 A.M. on Friday, July 7, 2006 before the undersigned in Courtroom 3, George C. Young United States Courthouse and Federal Building, 80 North Hughey Avenue, Orlando, Florida 32801.
DONE and ORDERED in Chambers, Orlando, Florida on June 6, 2006.

The tourist excuse.

Here it is, my entitlement to drive like an ass with impunity:


Why does this license plate give me the ability to disregard norms of the road and abandon all common courtesy when I get behind the wheel? Some astute readers might guess because the number of the beast is displayed upon this plate? Nope, that isn't it (though Christian drivers seem to tailgate me less when they think I have Lucifer riding shotgun, but I digress...).

The real reason my British Columbia license plate allows me to drive any damn way I please is because I am currently in Alberta.
And you know what that means? The tourist excuse!

Cut somebody off? Whoops, sorry I'm a tourist.
Weave in and out of traffic? Ooops, I'm not from here, I must be lost.
Slamming on my breaks and turning without signaling? Ohhh, I'm from BC and that means I'm a tourist, so better give me the benefit of the doubt.
Not wearing a seatbelt? Hmmm, I'm from BC, I don't think they wear seat belts there.
Driving 130km on the wrong side of the road through a school-zone, with a girl on my lap while smacked up on PCP's and Jack Daniels? Uhhh...nevermind, you get the picture.

So moral of the story: this doesn't just apply to Alberta. It doesn't matter where you live, I recommend that you go to a neighbouring province/state to register for insurance. Come back, and you too will be driving with exemption and freedom from all traffic laws thanks to the venerable tourist excuse. Just remember: after every infraction just give either a conciliatory wave, or a shrug accompanied with a 'sorry, I didn't know better' glance and all will be forgiven.

Every student is rich.

Well I came back to my car after an hour at the gym to find this lovely present awaiting me underneath my windshield wiper. Yep, that reads $50 bones.

......................
The going daily parking rate on campus: $10
Price-gouging captive parkers with
exhorbitant parking rates: Priceless.
......................

A professor in first year once advised his class that Saskatchewan Drive was the best place on U of A campus to get parking tickets. Why? Simply because tickets on Saskatchewan Drive are given and administered by the City of Edmonton and not the spawns of satan in Parking Services.
......................
Interesting article on price discrimination (economic analysis) regarding parking at universities:
http://askedgeworth.typepad.com/askedgeworth/2004/10/price_discrimin.html

The incredible adventures of Snaggletooth Dunst

Most annoying celebrity of the month (most probably leading to a lifetime achievement of irritation award), goes to Kirsten Dunst. If there is a whinier, smarmier, more pretentious person I have yet to see her. That's right, I'm looking at YOU Snaggletooth:



Why did you have to infect one of my favourite movies of all time - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - with your grating voice, bad acting and sabertooth? Now you are trying to wreak havoc with a comic book institution - Spiderman.
Here is a magazine quote from Dunst about the future of her character in Spiderman 3.

"I don't think they should kill Mary Jane off. That would be pretty typical if they killed the girl at the end. Why doesn't the superhero ever die? It would be so sad and beautiful ... I think if Mary Jane was alone and pregnant and he died, she could give birth to a spider-baby and carry on the series with another young boy or something like that. I hope she doesn’t die. I just think that’s kind of an obvious way to go: ‘We have to end it, so lets just kill her’. Mary Jane is a huge important piece of this film, as its all about the love story."

RIGHT. So let me get this straight: Snaggletooh manages to belittle the creativity of the writer, producer, and director, but she also tries to throw Tobey Maguire to the wolves. Because all that matters is Kirsten Dunst. Wait, isn't the title of the movie Spiderman? And isn't the movie actually about Spiderman? No. Of course not. You would be 100% wrong to make that assertion. It's actually all about Kirsten Dunst.
And now with her fantastic movie ideas, it looks like Dunst is headed for writing and producing fame as well in Hollywood. Just picture it: the movie "Spiderman" though there is no such character in the movie, about the adventures of Snaggletooth, aka Mary Jane, and her weird spider-baby. Hollywood blockbuster anyone?

I'm not saying that I'd have an Acme anvil fall on her head outside an LA nightclub. But I'm not not saying it either. Please Oh Lord, your humble servant asks but one favor: please please smite Kirsten Dunst down with a meteor. Either that or a dentist to fix whatever that is in her mouth.

To answer my previous query...

I have to admit, for the last number of nights I have been tossing and turning in bed unable to sleep. Why? I couldn't help but wondering: If the chicken came first, then didn't it hatch from an egg? And if the egg came first, wasn't it laid by a chicken?



http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/05/26/chicken.egg/index.html

"It's a question that has baffled scientists, academics and pub bores through the ages: What came first, the chicken or the egg?
Now a team made up of a geneticist, philosopher and chicken farmer claim to have found an answer. It was the egg."

Well now thanks to these fine gentlemen, I can finally rest easy. And the experts can move on to conducting other profound chicken-related inquiries, such as 'why did the chicken cross the road?'

Tomorrow! Don't forget...

I know most of you have had this date marked on your calendars for awhile, but I just wanted to give a quick reminder for the forgetful among us.

Freaks and Geeks

In the news today Goro, of Mortal Kombat fame (pictured above) was the proud father of this newly born bundle of joy:



Word is that they are forming a 2-piece rock band, with Goro playing lead guitar, bass, and handling lead vocals, while his son will play drums, keyboard and backup vocals. Look for the CD in stores this fall.
Nike is also actively seeking the possibility of employing the boy in one of their sweat shops, as they would get 150% of the production out of him compared to the inferior two-armed co-workers, but at the same $0.35 a day wage.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5032906.stm

In reality, doctors are baffled on what to do with the extra limb:

"We have no record of any child with such a complete third arm...
It's quite difficult to decide how to do the operation on him."

Note to doctors:
Such comments do not exactly inspire confidence in your patients.

Finally, I would be amiss if I didn't give a special call-out to this other freakish father/daughter duo: Igor and Jess.




You can read more about the beauty pictured directly above at her blog: http://fluffica.blogspot.com/

30 Old Beginnings Become Anew

The first line. How many writers have stared at their computers/typewriters/paper/parchment and agonized over the first line of a novel? You're ready to write but nothing happens. You need the perfect first line; the hook that will pull the reader in. Writers want their first line to be engaging, compelling, shocking. Readers have been moved, provoked or appalled by a first line, so much so that the line stays in their memory; this is what all authors strive for.

It is rare to be hooked by the first sentence, but was there ever a greater opening line than 'A Tale Of Two Cities' by Dickens?...

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

In homage to the opening sentence, I have taken 30 of them at random out of great books, and combined them into a short story of sorts. Not the easiest endeavour. See how many you recognize. The list of the books where these first lines came from is posted in my 'comments' section.

p.s.
The opening line of this blog took me precisely 7 seconds to come up with.



A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead. If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.‘To be born again,’ sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, ‘first you have to die.’
Santiago, Chile, May 10, 1968: In April of 1966, a little more than two years ago, I tried to commit suicide. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. There was no hope for him this time: It was the third stroke. I’m a sick man…a mean man.
If I am out of my mind, it’s all right with me, thought Moses Herzog. Grandfather said: this is the kind of a man that Boon Hogganbeck was. Odd that mankind’s benefactors should be amusing people.
- - - - - - - - - -

“What’s it going to be then, eh?”
At nine o’clock in the morning, towards the end of November, the Warsaw train was approaching Petersburg at full speed.‘I have been here before,’ I said; I had been there before; first with Sebastien more than twenty years ago on a cloudless day in June, when the ditches were creamy with meadowsweet and the air heavy with all the scents of summer; it was a day of peculiar splendor, and though I had been there so often, in so many moods, it was to that first visit that my heart returned on this, my latest.
- - - - - - - - - -

During my recent journey back from Italy to England, not wishing to waste all the time I was obliged to be on horseback on ‘idle gossip’ and small talk, I preferred to spend some of it thinking over some topic connected with our common interests or else enjoying the recollection of the friends, as learned as they are delightful, whom I had left here. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
It was Wang Lung’s Marriage day. The writer, an old man with a white mustache, had some difficulty getting into bed.
When Caroline Meeber boarded the afternoon train for Chicago, her total outfit consisted of a small trunk, a cheap imitation alligator-skin satchel, a small lunch in a paper box, and a yellow leather snap purse, containing her ticket, a scrap of paper with her sister’s address in Van Buren Street, and four dollars in money. That old bell, presage of a train, had just sounded through Oxford station; and the undergraduates who were waiting there, gay figures in tweed or flannel, moved to the margin of the platform and gazed idly up the line.
It was love at first sight.
Good morrow, and well met.
- - - - - - - - - -
In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace. To get there you follow Highway 58, going northeast out of the city, and it is a good highway and new.
Who’s There? The knocking sounded again, at once discreet and peremptory, while the doctor was descending the stairs, the flashlight’s beam lancing on before him down the brown-stained stairwell and into the brown-stained tongue-and-groove box of the lower hall. It was clearly going to be a bad crossing.
‘Was anyone hurt?’
Dusk – of a summer night. Mother died today
- - - - - - - - - -

All this happened, more or less.

Which came first...

I don't know about all of you, but personally I'd love to find bacon in my egg.

Have no shame little pig! No shame!

The last post of this blog. Ever.

LAST POST EVER!!!

My loyal readership (which has swelled to three or four):

The time has finally come to say goodbye to my blog. It has been the best of times and it has been the worst of times, but it has always been interesting (well, interesting so long as we are including in the definition of 'interesting' the tedious, the monotonous, or the irrelevant). So alas, this will be the final post from 'For Whom The Blog Tolls'; the last will and testament; the swan song; today the self-destruct button is being pushed.

In appreciation to the many years of great service this blog has rendered to me, I will conclude my last ever post with a farewell letter of sorts: a goodbye letter to my blog.

Dear blog,

Your metamorphosis from the kernel of an idea in my head to actual blog was, of course, precipitated by a long-forgotten flash of creativity and the newly created boredom due to the combination of summer break and unemployment. But my trusty friend, you have grown through the years to accompany me in times of curiosity, introspection and self inspection as well as tedium, repetition and apathy. Yet the slides in the movie reel of my memory are still, today, as colorful and rich as the multitude of flowers punctuating a blossoming springtime garden, and this is in some part to you. When I read over the words that you hold safe like a vault, my memory is triggered back to that moment in time. Even the random and inconsequential memories:

Spring 2008. Convocation from law school. That wasn't the random and inconsequential memory that I left to you oh blog. No. Instead I wrote how the next day, eating sushi with a friend, I sat back listening to the soundtrack of people and white noise inside of the restaurant. To all of the idle chatter, plates crashing, feet stomping, and cafe stereo systems playing American pop music with Lenny Kravitz playing, urging me to know that "yesterday is gone". And the feeling that swept over myself that while a large portion of my life was over, I had accomplished something special and for myself, significant.

Winter, 2007. Carbolic Smoke Ball proved to be one of the most enjoyable evenings of the year, for the second year in a row. Strangely though, this time my date didn't end up seeing her professor later in the semester. In this instance, history did not fully repeat itself, and that was a good thing.

Springtime 2009. Cheering in delirium my favourite hockey team, the Vancouver Canucks, onto a Stanley Cup win. Okay that one I made up. Those lovable losers, the Canucks, are still the exercise in futility they have always been. Some people were just intended to play the part, and for that reason, we still love them.

Every one of us has a scrapbook of such memories. At some point we learn, to our astonishment, that we aren't the center of the universe and that there is a world of knowledge that we haven't even begun to tap and there are experiences we haven't been introduced to. The first time I saw my favourite band in concert, reading 1984, seeing the mountains after being away from them for 4 months, gave me that sense of awe and wonder that can make you feel alive and lucky. And you, ever faithful blog, helped me document and remember such experiences; and reading the disjointed bits together seems to provide a sort of narrative of my life.
And that is your greatest strength dear blog: reflection. We as humans have great interest in ourselves, and reflection and introspection help us to learn more about our fundamental natures, purposes, and even essences. You are an aid in exercising this essential process that we as humans do.

Yet, all good things come to an end. Well, maybe not an end, but a long pause, or a substantial hibernation, or a ride off into the sunset never to be heard from again. We learn early on as babies that if something hurts, stop it. Same goes for something that isn't fun. And, currently, you aren't fun anymore. Interesting, time consuming, yes. But not fun. There are other things going on in the world that I'm missing out on, and they are beginning to take a higher priority. For me. Blog, your usefulness to me has become stagnant, and I am selfishly ending this relationship.
Do not be sad, for it was a great run. It had to end sometime.

No one can quite capture my feelings right now on ending this blog as much as the comments of Wilhelm II, Kaiser of Germany when making his farewell upon abdicating his throne:

"I herewith renounce for all time claims to the throne of Prussia and to the German Imperial throne connected therewith."

Wait. My mistake, wrong quote. Perhaps instead I meant Voltaire. Near the end of his life, Voltaire was advised to forswear Satan. He declined:

"This," he explained, "is no time to make new enemies!"

Much more fitting. So with the devil upon my shoulder, and a feeling of melancholy in my heart, I bid you adieu.


And so to bed.



(Actual date of post indeterminate).