Granted, not all of it is totally "scientific," at least according to "scienticians" (or is it "scientologists"?), but hey, science was never my strength anyway. My strengths lie in writing and bitching about stuff.
So that said, welcome to my Science for Torontonians!
FACT: Honking your horn will not make other cars disappear.
Practical application: imagine you're on King Street during rush hour and some poor chump's minivan breaks down, blocking your whole lane (as I saw yesterday). The driver was acutely aware he's in the way, even without people honking at him, Furthermore, the concentrated honking of several cars complete failed to miraculously levitate or disintegrate the minivan so traffic could move. Rather, the honkers just sound like obnoxious dicks.
FACT: Faith is no match for physics.
Practical application: as my good buddy and loyal reader Phil and his mattress-mobile can attest, there's no substitute for a length of rope or bungee cord if you have some cargo sticking out the back of your vehicle. Don't trust that your two-by-fours or boxspring won't fly out of your car and kill somebody. Try tying it down.
FACT: Gum is not water soluble.
Practical application: you'll discover that spitting in your gum into a urinal is strictly disgusting and obnoxious. Since pretty much every washroom in the world has a garbage container within several feet of the urinal, you can spit your gum there. Urinal gum does not disappear; rather, some poor bastard has to go and pick it out at the end of the
day.
FACT: Space has the same value throughout an entire subway car.
Practical application: if you see space in the middle of the subway car, it's not an illusion; it's actually there! You can stand in that space just as easily as you can stand right in front of the door, but it also allows other people to get on and makes you look less retarded! Try it sometime!
FACT: It is not physically possible to walk across a street, no matter how narrow, in less than 3 seconds.
Practical application: So you won't get run over because you're slow and stupid. There's a reason the city installed those crosswalk timers at a bunch of intersections. It's because it used to be impossible to know how much time you had to cross. Well, now that people can see, they've
developed this idea that, no matter how fat or slow they are, their superhuman walking ability will take them across the street with a couple of seconds left, or that time will slow down to accommodate their stupid self.
FACT: A bike helmet only protects your head if you wear it.
Practical application: it's so you won't die the amazingly ironic death (or suffer an ironic crippling) when a car runs over your head or you're pitched headlong over the handlebars and dash your brains on the asphalt while your helmet was tied to your backpack. Exactly why
would you bike down major streets with a helmet in your bag? If you bothered to bring it, wear it! Similarly, wearing a helmet with the straps undone will also not protect you. Theoretically, a helmet is useful on what we scientists call "impact". This "impact" will cause your helmet to fly off. This may cause your unprotected melon to "impact" with a car windshield causing possible "death." Of course, if you die that way, it's really just natural selection at work, jackass.
FACT: There are no commercially available bikes that emit force fields.
Practical application: perhaps you'll think twice before biking along Yonge Street without holding the handlebars, or sending a text message and drinking a coffee while on your bike. You are not invincible when seated on a bike, Once again, people who die that way are no great loss, but I'd rather not have to pay for a car wash just because some fool's brains are caked on my windshield wiper. Lately, I've seen at least three people biking along major streets
in heavy traffic with their arms crossed smugly across their chests like a Swami, showing off their great balance. Well, guess what? Nobody's impressed, there's no practical reason to bike like that and hubris is eventually going to drive up in a range rover and run over your face.
FACT: Sunglasses are only designed to protect your eyes.
Practical application: this is mostly for aesthetics and mostly for women, who have been inexplicably seduced by the idiotic fad of wearing sunglasses that look like they were designed for people with eyeballs the size of Homer Simpson's. I'm talking saucer-size. Apparently some people now think sunglasses are supposed to cover as much facial skin as possible while still keeping your nose free. They manage to seamlessly combine the ugly, the impractical and the ridiculous while diminishing none of these. To the best of my understanding, this fad has
been muchly popularized by socialite fucktowel Paris Hilton, and exactly why the hell would anyone want to look like her?
I hope that was useful! If you've got any suggestions, let me know. I may branch out and offer these little education sessions in many different fields. Except math. Keep that evil black magic bullshit to yourself.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Public info blog 1: Science for everyday life
In the interest of public service, I present you with my online information forum on science, designed exclusively for the people of Toronto. Of course, many of these lessons will apply to many people inmay cities, but these facts and handy tips are based on my observationsof the denizens of the Big Smoke (whatever the hell that means). To makeit as easy as possible for many of the mouth-breathing dunderheads inthis town, I've given you useful scientific facts and a tip on how toemploy it!
Monday, September 24, 2007
The blog at the center of the universe
Toronto's vague and pointless ambition to be important took a serious hit this month when the Burj Dubai, a towering and majestic eyesore in the United Arab Emirates reached 1,822 feet, eclipsing the equally unattractive CN Tower to officially become the tallest free-standing structure on the planet.
Aside from having to rewrite a lot of Toronto's tourism pamphlets, this will have little impact on the world in general, at least until somebody realizes that building the world's tallest skyscraper in the Middle East might not be such a clever idea. Existing artist's conceptions don't actually show a giant bullseye painted on the building, but it might as well be there.
Also irrelevant is any talk of Freudian phallocentrism and how cities build huge phallic towers. Calling skyscrapers (or just about anything) a phallic symbol is really just the most pathetic and clichéd refuge of the stunted pseudo-intellectual.
Personally, my favorite impact of the CN Tower story was that it once again brought out the childlike jealousy of Canadians who live in other cities, who are obsessed with why Toronto sucks.
In watching and reading a couple of news stories about the CN Tower's now second-place status, the reporters talked to people from other major cities in Canada, who generally had not terribly clever comments about how Toronto, "the center of the universe" will just have to stop crying about it. Most of this comes from western Canada, for reasons I'll delve into shortly.
I love to listen to these rants from non-Torontonians the way a schoolyard bully likes to hold a shorter kid at arms length while they throw punches with arms to short to reach the target. They get really hotted up and angry, but the bully just stands there and laughs.
Or maybe it's more like an angry retarded kid trying to break a brick wall with his face. The wall didn't do anything, it's just sitting there, but the kid gets angry anyway and throws himself against it in an impotent rage that doesn't harm the well but makes the kid look stupid. Toronto is that wall and many residents of B.C., Alberta, and to a lesser extent the other provinces, are the retarded kid.
Why?
I've now lived in Toronto for nearly 3 years and I've met many many people from Toronto. And never once have I heard a Toronto resident or a native Torontonian call the city the center of the universe or anything similar, unless it was completely, obviously tongue in cheek.
Yet people from many other parts of the country have this obsession with how Toronto is so vain and overblown, it thinks it's so important and that it's the most important place in the country. It's the equivalent of putting words in someone else's mouth, then getting angry at them for what they "said." Lots of non-Torontonians tell each other we think this place is the center of the universe and they laugh and froth and rage at how pompous and self-absorbed we are.
As to motives, there be many (and all those who rage at the concept of a Toronto-centric universe will interpret this as exactly the smug attitude they believe we have), but it's mostly size, since that's a big part of Toronto's importance. By virtue of its size and location, it's arguably the best-known city in the country. It's the only one that has sustained teams from all major pro sports, has the most high-profile hockey team (even though it sucks) and is the biggest draw for concerts, events and tourists. Simply put, Toronto is very popular and very important and boy, does that piss a lot of people off. Sure, Vancouver, Calgary, Banff, Winnipeg, Regina, et al are fine cities, not without their charms, but they're not as well-known or significant on an international scale. But the non-Torontonians don't want to admit that they're feeling inadequate. No, it's way easier to accuse us of being smug assholes.
Of course, some folks out east feel the same way, but it's no so pronounced. Why? They're not trying to compete on the same level. Places like PEI and Newfoundland are more about provincial charm and natural beauty than about big cities with lots of attractions. People from Charlottetown don't care as much about Toronto's size or status because they're not trying to be like Toronto. A lot of Quebecers don't care either because they know that Montreal is plenty cool, as is Quebec City. But places like Vancouver want to compete on that scale; the problem Vancouverites have is that they're not winning.
But take heed, you anti-Toronto-ites: all the complaints only have ironic effect: your rants about Toronto's vanity only expose your pitiful attitude, not ours. Neutral people don't believe that everyone in Toronto is of some smug hive-mind. When you bitch to them about us, it just makes you look stupid.
So if we want to outdo Dubai and get back on the map, I have a suggestion: the city should build the world's tallest free-standing rotating hand with extended middle finger so all the petty pukes who bitch about this city will know how we feel about their stupid attitude.
Aside from having to rewrite a lot of Toronto's tourism pamphlets, this will have little impact on the world in general, at least until somebody realizes that building the world's tallest skyscraper in the Middle East might not be such a clever idea. Existing artist's conceptions don't actually show a giant bullseye painted on the building, but it might as well be there.
Also irrelevant is any talk of Freudian phallocentrism and how cities build huge phallic towers. Calling skyscrapers (or just about anything) a phallic symbol is really just the most pathetic and clichéd refuge of the stunted pseudo-intellectual.
Personally, my favorite impact of the CN Tower story was that it once again brought out the childlike jealousy of Canadians who live in other cities, who are obsessed with why Toronto sucks.
In watching and reading a couple of news stories about the CN Tower's now second-place status, the reporters talked to people from other major cities in Canada, who generally had not terribly clever comments about how Toronto, "the center of the universe" will just have to stop crying about it. Most of this comes from western Canada, for reasons I'll delve into shortly.
I love to listen to these rants from non-Torontonians the way a schoolyard bully likes to hold a shorter kid at arms length while they throw punches with arms to short to reach the target. They get really hotted up and angry, but the bully just stands there and laughs.
Or maybe it's more like an angry retarded kid trying to break a brick wall with his face. The wall didn't do anything, it's just sitting there, but the kid gets angry anyway and throws himself against it in an impotent rage that doesn't harm the well but makes the kid look stupid. Toronto is that wall and many residents of B.C., Alberta, and to a lesser extent the other provinces, are the retarded kid.
Why?
I've now lived in Toronto for nearly 3 years and I've met many many people from Toronto. And never once have I heard a Toronto resident or a native Torontonian call the city the center of the universe or anything similar, unless it was completely, obviously tongue in cheek.
Yet people from many other parts of the country have this obsession with how Toronto is so vain and overblown, it thinks it's so important and that it's the most important place in the country. It's the equivalent of putting words in someone else's mouth, then getting angry at them for what they "said." Lots of non-Torontonians tell each other we think this place is the center of the universe and they laugh and froth and rage at how pompous and self-absorbed we are.
As to motives, there be many (and all those who rage at the concept of a Toronto-centric universe will interpret this as exactly the smug attitude they believe we have), but it's mostly size, since that's a big part of Toronto's importance. By virtue of its size and location, it's arguably the best-known city in the country. It's the only one that has sustained teams from all major pro sports, has the most high-profile hockey team (even though it sucks) and is the biggest draw for concerts, events and tourists. Simply put, Toronto is very popular and very important and boy, does that piss a lot of people off. Sure, Vancouver, Calgary, Banff, Winnipeg, Regina, et al are fine cities, not without their charms, but they're not as well-known or significant on an international scale. But the non-Torontonians don't want to admit that they're feeling inadequate. No, it's way easier to accuse us of being smug assholes.
Of course, some folks out east feel the same way, but it's no so pronounced. Why? They're not trying to compete on the same level. Places like PEI and Newfoundland are more about provincial charm and natural beauty than about big cities with lots of attractions. People from Charlottetown don't care as much about Toronto's size or status because they're not trying to be like Toronto. A lot of Quebecers don't care either because they know that Montreal is plenty cool, as is Quebec City. But places like Vancouver want to compete on that scale; the problem Vancouverites have is that they're not winning.
But take heed, you anti-Toronto-ites: all the complaints only have ironic effect: your rants about Toronto's vanity only expose your pitiful attitude, not ours. Neutral people don't believe that everyone in Toronto is of some smug hive-mind. When you bitch to them about us, it just makes you look stupid.
So if we want to outdo Dubai and get back on the map, I have a suggestion: the city should build the world's tallest free-standing rotating hand with extended middle finger so all the petty pukes who bitch about this city will know how we feel about their stupid attitude.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Attack of the 50-foot slut-clown
Just when I dared hope that Sarah Jessica Parker had mercifully disappeared, an idiotic ad for her new perfume has now upped the obnoxiousness ante of the current movie theater-going experience.
If you haven't been to the movies lately, you may not have seen this donkey-faced and makeup-laden tartlet dressed in one of her standard circus outfits, shilling her crap. Well, you're lucky. But as terrible and annoying as this ad is, it may serve some purpose: perhaps more of you will recognize the pure awfulness she embodies.
Since I'm a journalist, and aspire to provide an objective and informed piece, here is the ad of which I speak.
What's that you say? This piece doesn't sound objective? Well, let me tell you: this woman and the idiotic show that somehow propagated the idea that she's attractive, are objectively awful and wrong. I say that with no bias whatsoever.
I would not recommend watching this ad. Let me sum it up for you: imagine Skeletor had his head crushed in a vise, grew a deranged afro-perm hybrid, then dressed in an giant loofah. He acts sexy, gets arrested, I vomit, the end.
While not my intention, I expect that this entry will polarize my readers distinctly along gender lines. Of course, I only know who three of my readers are, since barely anyone subscribes to this blog but dozens of people read it.
Most guys, at least those who aren't whipped, don't like Sex and the City. Well, even the whipped ones don't like it but they still watch it. Girls, in my experience, love this show without exception.
Several girls I know say that all guys should watch Sex and the City, since it will give them insight into what woman want. Well, even if that is true, I don't want to know what women want badly enough to watch that twisted show.
What's wrong with it? Well, first of all, it's probably the most insulting show in the universe. Is any reasonable person supposed to believe that Sarah Jessica Parker (hereafter referred to as "Piglet" because it's apt and her name is a hassle to type over and over) and her cadre of navel-gazing bourgeois sluts are actually attractive and get more sex than George Clooney with a pocketful of Rohypnol? Right.
I've been to New York City several times, and there's nothing about the men there that makes me believe they line up to have sex with a woman who looks like a clown, only with more ridiculous outfits. Plus, some guys might be threatened by the fact that her nose is longer than most men's arms, much less their dicks.
But aside from providing a platform for the sheer repellence of Piglet, the show provided a niche for an utterly untalented freak. A quick look at her pre-Sex and the City acting resume shows a less than triumphal parade of cinematic bombs and some TV appearances. Since then, she's getting more work, but it's the exact same role. Even her perfume ad is just Carrie Bradshaw all over again, except you don't get some inane voice-over about the great debate over how many dates before she opens up her used-up sausage wallet to some random guy. Her newest film projects are the creatively titled Sex and the City Movie and another one where she sleeps with an older guy, then discovers he's her future father-in-law, which sounds like a rejected script from her stupid show.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that those in the movie business might finally realize that Piglet serves no purpose and kick her ass to the curb. What's the point of a gross-looking and untalented "star"? Sure, Catherine Zeta-Jones is a crap actress, but at least she works as eye candy. Piglet, on the other hand... well, she's married to Matthew Broderick and Ferris
Bueller's Day Off sure was a good flick, wasn't it?
Gleeful update: about a month after this entry, Maxim placed Piglet atop its list of unsexiest women. I was surprised to hear that since I thought Maxim had been publishing the exact same magazine for years, just with a different lingerie-clad tart on the cover. Maxim is still unadulterated shit as magazines go, but I have to give it points for the fine choice.
If you haven't been to the movies lately, you may not have seen this donkey-faced and makeup-laden tartlet dressed in one of her standard circus outfits, shilling her crap. Well, you're lucky. But as terrible and annoying as this ad is, it may serve some purpose: perhaps more of you will recognize the pure awfulness she embodies.
Since I'm a journalist, and aspire to provide an objective and informed piece, here is the ad of which I speak.
What's that you say? This piece doesn't sound objective? Well, let me tell you: this woman and the idiotic show that somehow propagated the idea that she's attractive, are objectively awful and wrong. I say that with no bias whatsoever.
I would not recommend watching this ad. Let me sum it up for you: imagine Skeletor had his head crushed in a vise, grew a deranged afro-perm hybrid, then dressed in an giant loofah. He acts sexy, gets arrested, I vomit, the end.
While not my intention, I expect that this entry will polarize my readers distinctly along gender lines. Of course, I only know who three of my readers are, since barely anyone subscribes to this blog but dozens of people read it.
Most guys, at least those who aren't whipped, don't like Sex and the City. Well, even the whipped ones don't like it but they still watch it. Girls, in my experience, love this show without exception.
Several girls I know say that all guys should watch Sex and the City, since it will give them insight into what woman want. Well, even if that is true, I don't want to know what women want badly enough to watch that twisted show.
What's wrong with it? Well, first of all, it's probably the most insulting show in the universe. Is any reasonable person supposed to believe that Sarah Jessica Parker (hereafter referred to as "Piglet" because it's apt and her name is a hassle to type over and over) and her cadre of navel-gazing bourgeois sluts are actually attractive and get more sex than George Clooney with a pocketful of Rohypnol? Right.
I've been to New York City several times, and there's nothing about the men there that makes me believe they line up to have sex with a woman who looks like a clown, only with more ridiculous outfits. Plus, some guys might be threatened by the fact that her nose is longer than most men's arms, much less their dicks.
But aside from providing a platform for the sheer repellence of Piglet, the show provided a niche for an utterly untalented freak. A quick look at her pre-Sex and the City acting resume shows a less than triumphal parade of cinematic bombs and some TV appearances. Since then, she's getting more work, but it's the exact same role. Even her perfume ad is just Carrie Bradshaw all over again, except you don't get some inane voice-over about the great debate over how many dates before she opens up her used-up sausage wallet to some random guy. Her newest film projects are the creatively titled Sex and the City Movie and another one where she sleeps with an older guy, then discovers he's her future father-in-law, which sounds like a rejected script from her stupid show.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that those in the movie business might finally realize that Piglet serves no purpose and kick her ass to the curb. What's the point of a gross-looking and untalented "star"? Sure, Catherine Zeta-Jones is a crap actress, but at least she works as eye candy. Piglet, on the other hand... well, she's married to Matthew Broderick and Ferris
Bueller's Day Off sure was a good flick, wasn't it?
Gleeful update: about a month after this entry, Maxim placed Piglet atop its list of unsexiest women. I was surprised to hear that since I thought Maxim had been publishing the exact same magazine for years, just with a different lingerie-clad tart on the cover. Maxim is still unadulterated shit as magazines go, but I have to give it points for the fine choice.
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