Pretty dry white guy

Breaking the Oprah barrier

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:15:00 +0000

Our celebrity-obsessed culture devours news about who's fat, who's fucking, who's failing, drunk, drugged up, etc. There's no shortage of gossip rags that continue their unfortunate and embarrassing existence covering all aspects of the lives or rich, beautiful and stupid people who don't give a crap about us.

Celebrity egos also get more and more attention these days, especially since the word "diva" was inexplicably co-opted by the gossip-media and has been distorted to an extent that the word's incorrect usage is far more common than the correct one.

Many of the biggest egomaniacs in showbiz are well known. The gossip rags often publish lists of the biggest egos in Hollywood or the music industry, or the growing industry of being a worthless oxygen-bandit who actually doesn't do anything (You know who I'm talking about).

Search for celebrity egos on the ol' interwebs and you'll find a lame hodgepodge of big names, but they're usually just an excuse to talk shit about Kanye West and Paris Hilton, as if there was already any shortage of that.

Inexplicably missing from such discussions is the one of the smuggest, preachiest personalities in all of North America, who flies her self-satisfied face in tens of thousands of bookstores and newsstands each month.

Who else but Oprah Winfrey.

Oprah has unequivocally established herself as one of the most reprehensibly self-congratulatory blowhards in all media and she's done it with her disgusting O: The Oprah Magazine, which features her face on the cover every month.

Let me repeat. Oprah's magazine has her on the cover every month.

By herself.

This April marks the 9th anniversary of her rag's first publication. It's a monthly magazine, so that makes 107 straight covers with just her.

I say 107 because this month, she made the shocking move of deigning to appear with someone else. That's what motivated today's entry. This is some of the most earth-shaking news in the magazine industry. Oprah shared her cover!

This might sound insignificant to you, but really, I can't stress this enough; for nine years, this

woman has been on every single cover of a magazine already named after her. How full of yourself do you have to be to pull a stunt like that? Even Rosie O'Donnell's self-aggrandizing pap showed her with another celebrity each month. Even Penthouse doesn't show tits on the cover every month.

Oprah's already got a high enough profile. Her cachet won't suffer if she featured someone else on the cover, maybe even by themselves.

Well, shut my mouth! Here she is, god forbid, sharing the limelight. Except … wait a minute!

As years of shameless self-promotion and wrong-headed "guidance" to her viewers should indicate, even this is just a calculated move that indicates no deflation of ego on Oprah's part. This is not to laud or promote her guest. It's a slightly more subtle way for Oprah to show off.

The first person who Oprah ever shares her cover with is Michelle Obama. For all her grace, good looks and intelligence, the plain fact is that Mrs. Obama hasn't really done a whole lot, certainly not enough merit a magazine cover. Oprah has interviewed winners of Nobel Prizes, Pulitzers and Oscars, far greater achievements than being the wife or a president. Why don't they merit a cover?

Because none of them serve Oprah's ego the way Mrs. Obama does. It's well documented that Oprah has been a big Obama fan since 2004, cajoling him to run for president, and being prominently shown crying on the cameras after Obama's victory.

Obama's election was the subject of more eye-rolling hyperbole than any other event in recent memory, and Oprah rode that wave of hysterical rhetoric. She's gotten in on the ground floor of Obama-mania and she's attaching herself, leech-like, to the new president. Not content to be one of the biggest media presences in North America, Oprah is now trying to worm her way into history as an close friend of a historic president. And just you watch, that association will come in handy when she decides to run for office or at least finagle some government appointment.

Naturally, the president is too occupied to appear on the cover of Oprah's self-serving rag, but his wife will do quite nicely.

And it may go down as one of her greatest achievements, being the first person to break the Oprah barrier on the cover of the world's most arrogant and insufferable magazines.

Oliver Twits

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:22:00 +0000

Rest easy, everyone! Yes, the North American economy has well and truly shit the bed and our government is poised to resume its massive clusterfuck status after a nearly two month-long hiatus, but there's some very heartening news in the papers these days as well!

A recent study released by the British Medical Journal found that Oliver Twist's diet was entirely adequate from a nutritional standpoint. I don't know about you, but that's a huge fucking load off my mind.

Forgetting for a moment the more overwhelmingly stupid aspect of the study, let's look at some of the smaller issues raised by this ingenious and entirely worthwhile piece of work.

In Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens describes the workhouse menu as three meals of "thin" gruel a day, an onion twice a week, half a bread roll on a Sunday. Using a methodology that becomes worthless as soon as its embarked upon, the sharp minds behind the study decided to change the one piece of evidence they had to go on and then use their substitute information to arrive at their conclusion. Referring to surviving evidence from period workhouses as well as existing laws in England, they've concluded that this gruel wasn't thin (take THAT, Chas!), and the 1.75 litres of gruel had enough nutritional content to sustain the Dickensian whiner.

Of course, they're going on the assumption that there was any sort of standardization in such workhouses and completely missing the point that Dickens was trying to convey as miserable an existence as possible. And by unilaterally deciding the gruel was thick and hearty, despite what Dickens said, the whole study is redundant. Oh, and that 1.75 litres a day? They plucked that handy statistic out of nowhere. Nice research!

See, if you have one primary piece of evidence and some vague possibilities, you don't go with the latter. If that's how they figure out problems, it's scary to think that they're doctors. The lead researcher, one Sue Thornton, pediatric dietitian, likely isn't the sharpest diagnostician.

Hypothetical medical emergency:

Your kid eats a rusty nail. You rush him to the doctor. The nail is sticking out of his stomach.

Dr. Sue Thornton: "What's the matter?"

You: "My kid ate a rusty nail!"

Your kid: "I ate a rusty nail!"

Dr. Sue Thornton: "Ate a rusty nail, eh? No, you're wrong. He has scurvy. Eat more fruit."

Your kid dies.

Dr. Sue Thornton: "Yup, scurvy."

You stab the doctor in the eye with a syringe.

Dr. Sue Thornton: "Oh my God! You broke my leg!"

In fact, my own literary study of A Christmas Carol finds the story has numerous flaws. Dickens often refers to snow and cold. However, I chose to ignore that he said the story takes place in England. My own research shows that it occurred in Havana. Therefore, the whole tale is bullshit.

As I alluded to before, there is an overwhelming stupid aspect to this study as well. That is, of course, that Oliver Twist is a fucking work of fiction. British scientists and researchers actually took the time and effort to conclude that a fictional character's diet was nutritionally adequate.

Meanwhile in the U.K., one person dies of lung cancer almost every 15 minutes.

7,950 people die of AIDS every day.

And we have doctors researching the possible diet of a fictional character.

"Studies" in general can be a fount of completely useless and pointless information. The Oliver Twist one is just stupid because it's a waste of everyone's time. But also very common are the really obvious ones.

For example, a 2008 study by two American University profs found that as gas prices go up, car accident fatalities go down. Thank God we have university profs to fill in that cryptic middle step that people drive less when gas costs more.

And here's another; parents are generally found to be happier when their kids leave the home and are no longer a drain on the parental resources. Who would have guessed? Until they shed the light on that issue, I always figured my parents were heartbroken when I left home and became financially independent.

Another brilliant study released in 2008 concluded that, had Al Gore won the presidency of the United States, he also would have invaded Iraq. That one might be even better than the Oliver Twist one, because there's nothing to base it on. At least the Oliver Twist guys had some evidence to work with. The Gore study is bulletproof because it can never be proven wrong.

It's dispiriting that we live in this day and age when academics and scientists a) continue to receive funding despite being incredibly fucking lazy, b) get such lax oversight on their funding that they can research such worthless things when there are more important issues and/or c) think that the general population is so goddam stupid that we need to have these less-than-startling "truths" revealed to us.

Of course, another, unintentional consequence of the Twist study is that it's ruining this esteemed work of fiction. It turns a bold, starving boy into a whiner. Adhering to the same intellectual rigour as the Oliver-studiers, I've concluded that, as the employee of the wealthy Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit would have made a lot of money. However, he lived in a cold house and wore tattered clothes. Where did the money go? I'm forced to conclude he spent it on whores and opium. There goes the warm fuzziness of A Christmas Carol, lying dead before the sword of my ingenious research! No character must be spared!

Next week, I'll present the damning evidence that Bambi actually killed his own mother, since you don't see any hunters do it onscreen. Stay tuned!

Unintelli-vision

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:07:00 +0000

I recently watched the movie Idiocracy, a middling satire where an average guy is cryogenically frozen then wakes up 500 years later and finds that western society has become so stupid that he's now the world's smartest man. One of the best examples is a family restaurant called Fuddrucker's eventually evolves into Buttfucker's. The #1 movie in the nation is Ass, a two-hour shot of a person's ass and Ow, My Balls! is a wildly popular TV show.

Fox, which distributed the movie, pretty much buried the thing. If it hit the theatres here, it was probably in and out in the blink of an eye. But it's not because it’s a bad movie; hell, way worse pieces of shit become blockbusters. It's because it's scary as hell.

Dystopian stories have long been popular fiction fodder. Look at Children of Men, V for Vendetta, Logan's Run, Blade Runner, Soylent Green, Brazil, Escape from New York – these are (mostly) well-regarded dystopian tales. But Idiocracy blows them all out of the water because it's far and away the most plausible.

In the last couple of months, I've gotten a frightening look at how stupid our culture is becoming. That's right, I got cable TV.

Aside from maybe visiting Cambodia, it's one of the most unsettling things I've seen in quite some time.

I can't say it's overwhelmingly shocking, since no one expects TV to be some sort of educational device. I mostly got it so I could watch more Raptors games this season. But even the ostensibly intelligent programming has disappeared.

On Remembrance Day this year, I had my own moment of silence by sleeping until close to 11 a.m. I snapped on the TV at 11 and flipped over to the History Channel to see what they're showing at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the precise moment when the First World War finally ended. A war which changed the world as we know it, a black mark in human history. What did they have on?

CSI: New York.

Apparently it was the day for remembrance of fictional murder victims and honouring their memory with forensic skills that track down their killers.

Of course, being the responsible and conscientious reporter that I am, I wouldn't just use this one example to condemn the whole channel. It's more the straw that broke the intelligent camel's back. Prior to Remembrance Day, the last three times I switched to the History Channel, it was airing movies: The Fugitive, Twelve O'Clock High and The Quick and the Dead. Exactly how does a God-awful girl-power western with Sharon Stone and Leo di Caprio count as history?

But hey, at least there's another entire channel devoted to intelligent fare right? God bless The Learning Channel! It has all you could ever want to learn about weddings, babies, house-flipping, babies, nannies and house-flipping.

Oh wait, that's not fair. They also show What Not To Wear, which is wholly educational.

It makes little difference to me that these idiots choose to fling their credibility out the window; it's their product to run into the ground if they want to and to some extent, I don't blame them. These be lean times and intelligent programming doesn't pull in as many viewers as something with lots of tits and explosions.

(Full disclaimer here: I like tits. And explosions. I didn't get cable just to watch documentaries about Proust or question period. I like a good action movie and sometimes you just want to veg out in front of the tv and watch something brainless. But TV is full of brainless content. Can't there be a least a few stations that have something better?)

It probably makes me a bit of an elitist, but a small part of me resents that idea that these channels show brainless content while also bolstering egos. Showing piss like The Quick and the Dead allows Little Johhny Mouth-breather to sit at home and fap to Sharon Stone, but he can still say he spent the afternoon watching The History Channel. It's already hard enough to be a teacher without mass media dumbing down the concepts of what "educational" really means. This society of ours already re-brands everything (retarded = special, fat = big-boned, etc) so that nobody gets offended, but we have to draw the line somewhere. I'd draw it at calling stupid "smart."

A guide to avoiding cinematic crap: again!

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Mon, 26 May 2008 19:43:00 +0000

In my last entry, I happened upon a concept so rich in material that it demands at least one sequel; that is educating the movie-going public about the readily apparent but too often ignored signs of shitty movies. I'm not going to waste your time or mine telling you to avoid Olsen Twins movies or flicks based on video games, because you really ought to know that by now.

A good deal of my warning signs come from movie posters, so some readers may take me to task for judging a book by its cover. Well, as George Bernard Shaw pointed out, "You don't need to eat a whole egg to know that it's rotten." Besides, judging a book by its cover is often very effective.

That being said, here are some more warning signs to keep watch for:

The point

Mutually pointing co-stars is a rare, but strong red flag. It's a sign that the stars themselves feel awkward and embarrassed about the film and whether they know it or not, it's a reflexive motion to deflect blame for what a pile of dung the movie really is. The bad comedy face says "Sorry about this!" while the point says "Hey, he's in this too! It's not all my fault!"

It's a quick attempt to show chemistry between the wackily mismatched leads. It shows hilarious camaraderie and silliness. It shows that the movie sucks.

Example I: Wagons East! That's a deadly poster. A 2007 statistical analysis by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and MIT shows that 98.7 per cent of points are accompanied by bad comedy faces, a deadly fusion of lame stabs at hilarity. I need not even include the Rottentomatoes rating for Wagons East! Because there's an even stronger indication of how bad this movie is. John Candy, a fun comic actor who nonetheless starred in many, many shit movies only did this movie out of contractual obligation. Forced into the role, took the only graceful alternative: he DIED. Yes, this movie is so awful that even a non-discriminating actor like John Candy was too embarrassed to finish it and continue life with a name forever associated with this disaster.

But just to add insult to injury, here's the tomatometer rating for Wagons East!: Zero

Did you catch that? ZERO.

Also note: exclamation points in the title? Stay away!

Example II: Showtime. From a marketing standpoint, this may be the worst movie poster of all time. It's got two bad comedy faces, the double-point, Robert de Niro and Eddie Murphy, one black guy and one white guy obviously exasperated with each other and the brutally lame and uncreative tagline of "Lights. Camera. Aggravation." There are so many bad comedy conventions in this one poster that it's hard to think up a good simile for how much you should avoid this movie. I'm thinking along the lines of a naked Gilbert Gottfried throwing water balloons filled with diarrhea.

Robert de Niro showed the world his great comedy chops in Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers, where he alternated between "looking constipated" and saying "Focker" a lot. Simply put, he can't do comedy. Eddie Murphy is hit-and-miss at best, but he's mostly miss since the mid-1990s. Buddy-cop comedies are torturously overdone and wisecracking interracial buddy comedies are among the worst genres of all time.

Showtime's tomatometer rating: 24 per cent.

Example III: What Happens in Vegas. The headliners are one charmless dolt and one gorgeous airhead. The trailer shows the gorgeous dolt in her underwear, so we know the filmmakers know what their big asset is. So here you've got the dolt - knowing many people will not pay to see him - pointing, essentially saying, "Yeah, but she's in this too! Doesn't THAT make you want to come?" Not a good sign.

What Happens in Vegas on the Tomatometer: 28 per cent.

Jim Carrey

The Truman Show was simultaneously a very good and absolutely awful movie. It's good in the respect that it's well, good. It's bad because it gave Jim Carrey the idea that he's actually a good actor and it gave him a taste of Oscar glory he's been gunning for ever since. That's not to say he was bad in The Truman Show; it's more like he made like F. Murray Abraham in Amadeus – somehow the stars aligned just right to pull out the one great performance they had in them.

Note that I'm not saying Carrey's one good performance was anywhere near Abraham's. F. Murray Abraham in Amadeus is about as good as acting gets. Jim Carrey in Truman was just about as good as Jim Carrey gets.

Anyhoo, The Truman Show started a shameless Oscar-grab campaign that included ridiculous fare like The Majestic and the amazingly, hilariously, mind-bogglingly awful The Number 23. Interestingly, Carrey has made 11 movies since The Truman Show and you could make a strong argument that he wasn't good in any of them. Yes yes, people love fawning over Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but Carrey? Not so good. He was playing his typical low-key, mournful-eyed, sad-sack role that marks his "serious" work. And if you look at his whole resumé, you could make a good argument that F. Murray Abraham and Jim Carrey have had the same career: a parade of awful movies bookending one good show.

Eddie Murphy (post-1988)

Here's a poster for Eddie Murphy's upcoming disaster Meet Dave. What's great about this is it totally sums up his career since Coming To America. Playing multiple characters and beaming at the audience with an ear-to-ear grin. Fact is, you could take that poster and use it for practically every movie he's ever been in. The only decent movies Murphy has whored himself for since 1988 were the first and second Shrek movies and Dreamgirls. Three movies. In two of those, his face does not appear onscreen. In the third, he's a supporting actor. No coincidence. All his other movies are awful vanity projects designed to show you he's still versatile and hilarious. Yeah great, you can play four characters in one movie. That would be way more impressive if the movie wasn't trash.

There's part two. Possibly more to come.

A guide to avoiding cinematic crap

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:54:00 +0000

For reasons impossible to fathom, people keep going to see shitty movies. Dreck like Meet the Spartans and You, Me and Dupree does well at the box office, even though they're just terrible, terrible movies and, as much as I grow increasingly convinced that the movie-going public is a bunch of tasteless stupid oafs who'll laugh at anything involving poop, I also need to believe things can change.

For that reason, here's a public service piece about how to avoid shitty movies. You might say it's about judging a book by its cover but, hey, sometimes that works. In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell explains how "thin-slicing" - making conclusions based on very small pieces of data - can be often be more accurate than seeing the big picture. Well, it works for movies too. Things like posters or specific actors can tell you a lot.

Of course, a terrible movie comes down to taste, and how does on measure that? Box office receipts don't work, since, as I said, the movie-going public are morons with too much money to spend. Individual critics don't mean much either, but a collective opinion can tell you a lot. So, I'm relying on Rottentomatoes.com and its tomatometer, the yardstick it uses to rate how well a movie is received. Interestingly, I wrote this whole piece, then checked the ratings and sure enough, every movie that I claim is shit (without having seen) is also, by critical consensus, shit. And many of these shitty movies share certain characteristics that you should keep an eye out for.

The Bad Comedy Face

This is a universal sign for "Shit comedy! Flee!" It's an expression that shows degrees of shame, embarrassment and ineffectual wackiness. It's a plea to be forgiven for appearing in a shit movie and it's a sign that you don't know how to be funny. It typically incorporates a weary smile, raised eyebrows and/or eye-rolling.

Example the first: Matt Dillon from You, Me and Dupree. This bad comedy face says, "Boy, I'm not even ready for the wackiness in store, and neither are you!"

You, Me and Dupree's tomatometer rating: a whopping 22 per cent.

Example the second: Steve Martin in Cheaper By the Dozen. Similar to Dillon, this is the BCF of the hilariously embattled but endearing chump. It sucks to see it, but Martin is an expert at the BCF, because his recent spate of terrible, terrible movies have necessitated it.

Cheaper by the Dozen's tomatometer rating: 24 per cent.

The BCF can also be a sign to indicate that the movie is supposed to be funny, and if that's the best way the promoters can find to communicate that fact, it's a disaster. If a comedy is genuinely funny, it's obvious. If the actors have to wave these flags at you to indicate it's a comedy, you know it's trash.

Example the third: Leslie Neilsen from 2001: A Space Travesty. I mean, Jesus Christ, look at that. It's hard to even verbalize why that's so bad. Just trust me, when you see shit like that on the poster, save your money, your time and your brain cells.

2001's tomatometer rating: N/A (most critics didn't even bother to rate it, although some comments are found here.)

Possible exception: Bill Murray's Bad Comedy Face.

Bill Murray is a great comedic actor, but his major downfall is that he makes this face all the fucking time. He's tricky that way though, because he does it on the poster for one of his best movies (Groundhog Day), and one that I never saw, but I'm sure is irredeemable crap (The Man Who Knew Too Little).

Prominent crotch jokes

If you're promoting a movie, you need to put your best foot forward. You put some of the funniest parts in the trailer and the poster. And if someone getting hit in the balls is in the funniest thing they can find to promote, the movie sucks.

Look at this poster for The Big Green. Now that you're in the know about the Bad Comedy Face, you should know that this movie is only good for violating other peoples' human rights. This poster features five, count 'em, FIVE Bad Comedy Faces. The only thing not making the BCF on this poster is an animal, and Disney execs had a long debate over weather to photoshop a dumb grin on its face.

The Big Green's tomatometer rating: ZERO

Similarly, testicular plays on words are another bad sign. Take a movie like Balls of Fury, which crams two stupid "balls" references into one poster. Or Mr. Woodcock, using a hilarious one-two punch of cock and a visual representation of giant balls. If you're a 13-year-old idiot, your comedic cup runneth over.

Mr. Woodcock on the tomatometer: 13 per cent

Eugene Levy

It pains me to put him here since he's a gifted Canadian comic actor, but Levy is now a strong indicator of cinematic shittiness. Take a glance at his IMDb listing of say, his last ten movies. You've got three American Pie spinoffs, one movie with the Olsen Twins (with a terrible Bad Comedy Face on the poster - seen at right) and another where he stars as Mr. Nerdlinger. It's indisputable, empirical truth that those all suck, and even by abandoning all reason and giving Curious George and The Man the benefit of the doubt, it means at least 60 per cent of his recent movies are grotesque abortions.

Exception: Anything also starring Christopher Guest. Those collaborations give you stuff like Best in Show and A Mighty Wind - good flicks.

TV remakes

Movies based on TV shows are always to be avoided. In all of cinema history, there are just two good movies based on TV shows: South Park and The Muppet Movie (The Muppet Christmas Carol, while awesome, does not count). Otherwise, it's a parade of mind-numbing garbage that was approved at drunken board meetings of the respective film companies. Some are shameless money-grabs (The Simpsons) and some are wrongheaded attempts at nostalgia bucks (Bewitched), but they (almost) all suck.

The sheer ratio of good remakes to awful ones make the movie-going decision for you. The odds are largely on the side of the movie being a craptacular waste, so don't bother.

This is by no means an exhaustive manual, but it really should make a difference. There are so many good movies out there, why waste your time on the crap ones? Hopefully, this will help improve your viewing experiences. And if you find these warning signs are common to your favourite movies, you're just a hopeless mouth-breathing dolt anyway, and who helped you read this far?

Eternal life, the musical way!

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:20:00 +0000

I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying.

-Woody Allen

Guess what? You're dying. In the time it's taken you to read this line, you've inched 3 seconds closer to death (depending on how fast you read - if this line has taken you ten seconds already, you may as well give up and die now). If that thought actually bothers you, you might be able to take some sadistic pleasure in knowing that writing this has cost me more time than you'll lose reading it.

As much as people seem imbued with a certain feeling of immortality, -the "that could never happen to me" feeling - most mature people are keenly aware that the icy black hand of Death waits and watches as we smoke, drink, drive, jaywalk, breathe, be born and do the other stupid things we do that lead to our eventual demise.

Because of that knowledge, a great may people do their best to create a lasting legacy for themselves. People spend millions to have buildings named for them, they build statues and monuments, name their kids after themselves. And that's just for starters.

The disgusting, money-sucking leviathan that is the North American recording industry can also ensure your name lives on through the ages. Unfortunately, the trade-off for you is that you've got to die an untimely death. But hey, that's the price you pay for immortality!

But you've got to do more than just die. There are criteria to satisfy before you blow your head off or OD and choke on your own vomit. Fortunately, the music industry offers no dearth of case studies. Here's a rundown of which sort of musician burnout to emulate, complete with a handy grading system of who's best to emulate. So let's dig in!

Kurt Cobain
Grade: A+
Albums (pre-death): 3
Albums (post-death): 4

As much as I loathe how slobbering Cobain fans have canonized him in the years since his death, I've got to give him credit: he had all the right elements for musical immortality. First, Nirvana became the darling of brainless rock critics everywhere when it "saved rock and roll" (whatever the fuck that means). Cobain and Co. arrived at just the right time to shift music from the garish excess of 80's rock to the age of insufferable po-faced mope-rock we endure today. Next, he did a lot of drugs. Then, he married a grasping harpy who quickly exhausted her limited talents and was then forced to exploit her dead husband's name for drug money. Finally, he committed suicide, instantly endearing him to thousands of grunge losers and mopey adolescents.

Cobain's modest postmortem output is surprising, but it's mostly because Love and Cobain's bandmates have engaged in a long, drawn-out battle over who holds the rights to exhume Cobain's corpse and make it dance for money. He'll put out more albums and you'll continue to see his soulful, sad-bastard face (seen at right - that contrived mournful expression makes me want to smack him in the skull) on t-shirts and posters as long as so fans and rock journalists continue to lament the man who's been inexplicably elevated far beyond what he might have achieved.

Jimi Hendrix
Grade: B
Albums (pre-death): 8
Albums (post-death): 58

How hard did you work today? Well, big fucking deal, because you were still less productive than a guy who's been dead for over 40 years. Most people can't even slam out 8 productive hours a day at work when we're young and vital, but Jimi Hendrix's record output has gone up 625% since he died. I may not put out one album in my lifetime, and he's got 58 postmortem albums to his credit

Jimi gets extra points for dying in somewhat mysterious circumstances, but he does forfeit some pizzazz for possibly choking on his own vomit. The reason he only gets an B is this: he's not a good legacy role model. Lots of decent bands would be hard-pressed to churn out eight albums and in doing so, you'll run the risk that people will recognize what a no-talent you are before you die. Chances are that you're not nearly as talented as Jimi Hendrix, so don't put out this many albums before you kick the bucket.

Tupac Shakur
Grade: C
Albums (pre-death): 5
Albums (post-death): 21

Another shabby role model, this tatted-up bullet magnet nevertheless has some redeeming features. Pros include being a capable rapper, pre- and post-mortem sales and dying. Cons? Well, he was murdered, which you probably don't want to put up with. That was the second time he was shot too, so he might have left a much small legacy for the rest of us to hear about had the first shooting worked.

Also, lest we forgot that Tupac was a twat. Any Tupac apologist must be referred to the brilliant album cover for The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory, released under the pretentious pseudonym "Makaveli." Using an utterly contrived and ham-fisted metaphor for Tupac's self-affected suffering, it shows a crucified Tupac, a reference to how the oft-maligned rapper was crucified by the media. Shame on you, media! So what if he once shot two cops and had separate convictions for sexual and physical assault? Geez, give him a break!

So there you have it: he left a lot of material and mystique for record-industry whores to exploit, but he's also an undeniable asshole. Is that what you want to be?

John Lennon
Grade: C
Albums (pre-death): 13
Albums (post-death): 27

What? A C for John Lennon, you say? Another prolific and talented musician, sure, but also a titanic asshole. Of course, that in itself isn't enough to preclude your musical legacy. His other mistake was turning into a numb and pretentious hippie, producing middling music on his way out. Every artist is entitled to a weak period but you've gotta bounce back; Lennon's work tailed off, then he stopped performing, then he died. Bad exit.

Nick Drake
Grade: D-
Albums (pre-death): 4
Albums (post-death): 13

The all Music Guide sums Drake up quite well: "A singular talent who passed almost unnoticed during his brief lifetime." Nick Drake was a talented and morose kid, which plays very well to some audiences. But as good as he may have been, his legacy sucks. He was a total recluse, which makes it harder to build a following. A good deal of his contemporary fanbase comes from a Volkswagen commercial and you can bet the a great percentage of his fans are poseur twits who love pretending they knew about him before that ad. He'd probably be spinning in his grave to hear some of the twats who claim fandom now, the poor bastard.

Brad Nowell
Grade: F
Albums (pre-death): 3
Albums (post-death): 2

The quickly forgotten lead singer of Sublime, which shat out some quickly forgotten frat-boy pop in the mid-90's, Nowell is no a role model for you musical legacy seekers. His heroin-fueled death was a good move, but it's totally annulled since Sublime became famous after he died, allowing the band to either achieve flash-in-the-pan status or soldier on with a new frontman (To their credit, the band called it quits). Making matters worse, Sublime employed ska and reggae influences, an unholy fusion of the world's worst musical genres, which would endear it to no one. Since the band didn't achieve fame until after its third album, it was already a proven non-entity. You need to prove potential first, kids.

Of course, we all face the obstacle of having to break into the music industry in the first place. But hey, I firmly believe that if Nickelback and their greasy hermaphrodite frontman can be a success, anyone can.

A World-class waste of space

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:03:00 +0000

Even though making fun of people and bitching about things are two of my greatest skills, I don't always enjoy doing it. Sometimes I hear about things so inane and stupid that I feel compelled to write about them even though I sort of dread it. Think of it like a movie reviewer going to see Meet The Spartans; they know it will be awful, but that's what they do (and yes they get paid while I don't, so you should appreciate my efforts even more). Sometimes I hear a story that I want to write about even though I hate it.

Today's entry is one of those. Several Toronto news outlets were straining themselves for various Elvis jokes today to celebrate local dork Suresh Joachim who just set a world record by impersonating Elvis for 55 straight hours.

Bad enough that Joachim's life is pointless enough for him to blow 55 hours on this fruitless exercise, but this marks the 53rd time he's set a completely pointless, worthless record.

I've never followed it closely enough to pinpoint when it happened, but there's no doubt that the Guinness Book of World Records has descended so far past the point of irrelevance that it couldn't catch a bus back to that point, and Suresh Joachim's resume illustrates that fact.

The father of two holds the following records:

* Continuous ironing: 55 hours, 5 minutes
* Balancing on one foot: 76 hours
* Continuous TV watching: 69 hours
* Non-stop crawling: 56.62 kilometres

One thing Joachim does not hold:

* A JOB

Any entity that lauds 69 hours of TV-watching or ironing obviously has no credibility at all. Why? Because any worthless idiot could do that. Many people probably have done it, but they don't want to brag about it because at least they recognize what a non-achievement it is. Why reward a moron who spent six days setting a record for escalator-riding (Joachim again)?

The Guinness Book still celebrates worthwhile and interesting records, but it's also polluted with stupid shit. Case in point: I went to the Guinness page and typed in "fastest." Do I get Olympic sprinters? Racehorses? No, I get crap like "fastest furniture" – some idiot driving a motorized sofa. It does have stuff like a dog that was trained to open a car window, which is kind of cool. But it's mostly trash.

It's not that hard to set a record for driving a motorized sofa or continuous ironing, because your only competition are losers. As long as you're creative enough, it's not hard to set a world record. My next blog entry will cover my record-setting attempt for Longest Time Spent Holding Down The Semicolon Key On A Black Keyboard While Facing East and Wearing Sunglasses In Toronto.

I was almost prepared to give Joachim a free pass today when I saw a glancing mention to how he does this to raise awareness for suffering children around the world. But in glancing over 10 newspaper articles about this idiot, I saw one quick mention of his cause. It smacks for of a justification for his being a total oxygen-bandit.

Much more prominent is the fact that he's really just a shameless attention whore.

He made his own wedding into a ridiculous record circus by having 79 bridesmaids, 79 groomsmen and the world's longest bouquet. Too bad you can't measure something like World's Most Tolerant Bride.

He's also amazingly deluded, somehow fancying himself an inspiring and impressive hero.

"God created everyone with the same talents. But so many don't like to try in case they fail," he told the Toronto Star. "People can achieve anything but they have to bear the pain."

No, most people don't like to try watching 69 hours of TV or 84 hours of drumming because it's a stupid fucking waste of time and we have better things to do. Yes, people can achieve anything. But most people apply themselves to achieving something that's not completely worthless.

Adventures in bias and misappropriation

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:05:00 +0000

As much as I enjoy my job, I must say that the responsibilities are heavy. Being a journalist is sometimes taxing, but being a CBC journalist is even more so. Why? Because aside from the Nazis and the Bush administration, I can't think of any other employer for which every single employee is taken to task for the perceived sins of the group. At any given time, in any social situation, I can expect to be harassed because of the CBC's obvious liberal (or conservative) bias, its pro- (or anti-) Israel stance and just how it generally has no credibility and wastes a billion dollars of taxpayer money per year.

It's unfortunate that CBCWatch died, but there are the ever-vigilant, ever-incisive, not at all hysterical and ignorant goons at places like the National Post and Smalldeadanimals.com who have us all figured out. Their ludicrous-sounding theories have never really caught on, but I gotta tell you: it's all true. The guilt has finally eaten away at me, and I must confess: the CBC truly is a shamefully biased white elephant that deceives Canadians and gleefully wastes their money.

I quit my job there today and as a form of public confession, I offer my work diary from last week as a heartfelt apology to all Canadians. My hubris has come back to haunt and embarass me.

MONDAY
Mondays are none too difficult here. After two days off, our overlords worry that we may have forgotten our secret mandate, so we spend most of the day in political re-education. It's never boring though; since the CBC steals millions of dollars from Canadians, there's always some to spare for making propaganda films.

Today's movie was like Leni Riefenstahl meets A Clockwork Orange. Images of Stephen Harper and the Conservatives juxtaposed with rats, nuclear explosions, dead bodies and other chaos with ominous music in the background (soundtrack highlights at 1:30).

Following that are clips from various action movies, with Stéphane Dion's head edited onto the heroes' bodies. He saves children from gruesome deaths, stops forest fires, saves the world, etc… and the taxpayer-funded production values are amazing, lemme tell ya.

A typical indoctrination sessions takes around six or seven hours, including group chants, lie-detector tests and an uplink to the CBC's computerized hive-mind (via various cables that hook directly into our brains). Those get pretty exhausting, so we don't have to work too much after that. Just run a couple of stories propogating the lies of climate change and brazenly slandering the Conservatives, and I call it a day.

TUESDAY
Today I was making a run to Tim Horton's, and asked the folks in my section if they wanted anything. I took a multiple coffee and food orders. As the list grew, I said, half-joking, "Woah people, I can't afford all of this! I'm just a CBC employee."*

Jaws dropped, eyes widened, and everyone disintegrated into uncontrollable laughter. Tears flowed, farts broke out and everyone tore up at my expense for several minutes.

When finished, my boss took me aside and explained.

"We get a billion dollars a year from the taxpayers! We don't pay for anything with our own money!"

We took a brief walk down the hall to a plain closet I'd often walked past and ignored. He opened it up, revealing shelves piled high with stacks of hundred-dollar bills. He handed me five, took five or six for himself and shut the door. I noticed no lock on the door and he explained that there's no need for security. "We're all entitled to that cash," he told me. "If we run out, we can always extort more from the taxpayers."

In all, he gave me $19,000 for a quick run to the coffee shop. I was strictly cautioned not to come back with any of it either. So I tipped the cashier $900, went to Steve's Music and bought myself a guitar (I don't play guitar, but what the hell), then spent the rest on bottles of Dom Perignon, which I threw at homeless people for a few minutes.

I came back and walked straight into a money fight in my office. People were running and ducking as bundles of cash were thrown about. Looking into my boss' open office, I saw him making origami figures and lighting a cigar with hundred-dollar bills.

*For the record, I make $10,000 a week to work from home ($15,000 if I come to the office), with bonuses for extra Liberal bias.

THURSDAY
I stayed home today to re-read The Communist Manifesto, then watch some Michael Moore movies and brush up on the general socialist/communist/liberal attitude that all Fort Dork employees must have.

Oh, and I drank two bottles of Château Mouton Rothschild Pauillac ($610 a bottle, using public funds, natch).

FRIDAY
CBC employees don't work on Fridays! Listen, Johnny Taxpayer, you're lucky I even worked three days this week!

Torts of all sorts

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 21:02:00 +0000

Canadians have long obsessed over Americans. Many of us love to hate the U.S. and we spew our maple-flavoured vitriol at it every chance we get. Of course, Americans don't care much about this, and not just because we're just one of a plethora of countries that despise the Greatest Country in the World©.

Neatly coupled with our U.S.-hatred is the eternal national debate about what it means to be Canadian. We love to talk about the Canadian identity and what that is. As a country, Canadians are probably even better at navel-gazing than we are at hockey.

Of course, you put those two together and what do you have? A nation of people who are scared to death that they're like Americans. We'll deny it to the grave, but every day, we become more and more like them.

It's most obvious in our popular culture, where recent years have seen us produce staggeringly original products like Canadian Idol, MVP (Desperate Housewives + hockey = CanCon!) and Are You Smarter Than a Canadian Fifth Grader? Still no word on the premiere dates for CSI: Regina and The Canadian Bachelor, but it's only a matter of time.

But now we're striking out in newer, dumber directions. Saskatchewan native Sandra Bergen has struck a new blow in the war against personal accountability by successfully suing her drug dealer after she overdosed on cystal meth, went into a coma and experienced lung, heart, kidney and liver failure.

She doesn't have to point out that she suffered brain failure as well, since that's obvious.

Lost in this whole carnival of the inexplicable is how someone so stupid managed to convince a judge that she's deserving of damages.

Bergen, a self-confessed alcoholic who was also a pot and cocaine aficionado at the time of her overdose, apparently also experienced a complete loss of self-awareness somewhere along the way.

“I have gotten sober. I think that’s taking responsibility for my actions," she told CTV."I don’t think I should have to take responsibility for both of our actions. I think he should meet me half way."

CTV's cameraman was immediately hospitalized after choking on a cloud of irony.

I won't waste much more space commenting on the non-existent merits of the case, as they should be obvious to anyone capable of logical thought. And as much as Bergen may be a reprehensible crybaby and hilariously naïve idiot, the fault lies more with a court system that even hears this cases. If I drive drunk, drive into a building and sue the landlord, it's just me being stupid. But once a court agrees to acknowledge my lawsuit, our entire legal system becomes stupid as well.

Bergen, of course, would deny she's stupid. Writing on her website, she notes that her multiple organ failure escaped one vital area. "My brain still works good," she says.

To its credit, the criminal courts refused to hear Bergen's case, meaning it has far more credibility than the civil courts. It also employs something called logic, which poor victimized Bergen doesn't get.

"The criminal law didn't see me as a victim in this case, they just seen (sic) me as another drug addict," she told CBC-TV.

Bergen channels Stella Liebeck?

Aside from invading a Middle Eastern country, this trend of ridiculous lawsuits is the most insidious way we could more closely resemble the U.S. Since 1992, the whole country has become obsessed with lawsuits, multi-billion-dollar torts often based on amazingly stupid claims.

Of course, the whole thing started with 79-year-old Stella Liebeck, a New Mexico resident who won a $2 million in a civil suit against McDonald's after spilling scalding coffee into her lap.

Liebeck has been continually derided for opening the floodgates of stupid lawsuits that has gradually turned the U.S. into one of the most paranoid places on Earth. As authour David Sedaris said, the country's motto has become "You can't say we didn't warn you."

To be fair, Liebeck did get things started, but it's not really her fault. As much as I hate people who blame the media for everything, that's where a lot of the culpability lies. Liebeck actually had a genuine case, but the general public understanding was that some idiot spilled coffee on herself and managed to convince a judge that she deserved some 2 million clams. This convinced the litigious public that courts would accept ridiculous suits and the torts began to pile up.

The concept of tort reform has developed some momentum in the U.S., now that the tort system costs the U.S. government more than $800 billion per year. But look at that number! They let it get that out of control before they started talking about it. Canada can't make the same mistake. We have to prevent more idiots like Bergen from wasting people's time and money because they're accountability-averse.

In yet another staggeringly clueless statement, Bergen trumpeted her victory over her dealer, saying, "He can't go to court now and say 'I'm not responsible.'"

Funny, neither can she. But she did it anyway.

Alas, poor English; I knew it well

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 21:00:00 +0000

It's been a week of awful, disheartening and un-Christmas-like news. Someone in Brazil tried to kill Santa Claus, an old man was murdered while delivering Christmas cards and, proving that cultural hypersensitivity is gradually making us all into morons, an Ottawa school has edited a classic Christmas carol, removing the word Christmas from it. Brilliant.

But there's worse news. It's the worst news story of the year, and probably the worst thing in media and culture since TIME magazine's sausage-spined decision to make YOU the 2006 Person of the Year. That is that me and approximately 300 million other people like me have just become essentially irrelevant.

Why? We speak English.

For those of you remaining blissfully unaware, The English language was essentially declared moot on December 12, 2007 when the charlatans at Merriam-Webster - a dictionary publisher, mind you - declared "w00t" the 2007 word of the year.

It's actually hard to diagnose what's wrong with that BECAUSE IT'S SO OVERWHELMINGLY WRONG that I scarcely know where to start.

I guess I should start with the broadest strokes, that being that it's not even a fucking word. It's an expression of exultation, an acronym used by online gamers that means "we owned the other team." It's part of the "l33t" (another non-word, a bastardized form of "elite") lexicon, an online game language.

It's spelled with two zeros instead of the letter o, which instantly disqualifies it as a word. Words are spelled with letters. The zeroes are used for no logical reason, it's just to look cool and computery.

Furthermore, the word was concocted by hackers and gamers, the same subhuman mouth-breathers who concocted pwned, absolutely and irrefutably the stupidest pseudo-word of all time.

Not surprisingly, the word of the year was decided by an online poll, so slug-like computer nerds can stay congealed at home and make their mark on the world without venturing too far from the World of Warcraft tournaments. That doesn't let Merriam-Webster off the hook by any means, though. It accepted nominations for the word of the year, and it probably could have exercised the barest amount of editorial discretion and disallowed words that, you know, AREN'T WORDS.

For your edification, here's the list of word of the year finalists:

· facebook - as a verb, a vile usage. "Did you Facebook today?"
· conundrum
· quixotic - you're not hallucinating; that's two real words! In a row!
· blamestorm - fuck off. A stupid neologism; more on these shortly
· sardoodledom - a real word, as unlikely as it sounds
· apathetic
· Pecksniffian - a great Dickensian word. I'm gonna start using this.
· hypocrite
· charlatan - noun: fraud, fake, Merriam-Webster editor

Look at that, English users. A list of the top ten words of the year, and only seventy percent of them are real words. Facebook works as a noun, but using it as a verb should qualify you for summary execution. It's only slightly more inexcusable than "texted."

As for "blamestorm," it's a product of another great scourge of then English language: neologisms, or wannabe-clever "words" concocted by idiots. Examples include:

awkword, noun - a word that's difficult to pronounce
lexpionage, adj - Lexical espionage; the sleuthing of new words and phrases
multidude, noun - The collective noun for a group of surfers

Terms like those are worthless on so many levels. Remember the Rob Schneider character on Saturday Night Live who made wordplay with peoples' names? That's exactly the kind of retard who thinks up things like "lexpionage." They're designed for maxiumum cleverness, but who the hell is ever going to use a word like "multidude"? If you liked any of the examples above, please please stop reading this and go to hell.

Of course, languages must change and evolve. English is a constantly growing and changing thing, and it has changed for the better in the past. I'm a fan of non-idiotic new words and co-opting foreign-language terms like schadenfreude or carte blanche. English rules can also be unnecessarily anal. I don't yearn for us all to simply speak Shakespearean English. I don't care that you didn't spot the split infinitive in the last sentence. But we have to have limits.

And w00t definitely fucking crosses them.

My art project: recontextualizing an idiot

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 18:27:00 +0000

As proof of my potent powers of prescience and my superior soothsaying skills, a strong new statement has been made against the tasteless and talentless ghouls who churn out contemporary art. You may recall my rant about it from some weeks back, but a Toronto-based idiot has thrown new fuel on the fire.

If you pay attention to Toronto news these days, you probably heard that the police found a fake bomb at the Royal Ontario Museum, courtesy of colossal idiot/art student Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson. His "art" project consisted of the fake bomb itself and a YouTube video showing a fake bombing of the museum.

Jonsson reportedly checked with a lawyer before carrying out the project and was told that it was fine so long as the fake bomb was identified as fake. Applause applause to the lawyer for his due diligence, but perhaps the conversation should have gone a different way, more along the lines of "How the hell is this art?" or "Can't you do something, ya know, worthwhile?" and "Get the fuck out of my office."

Jonsson defended his worthless project by calling it "recontextualization," one of the half-baked art theories created to allow worthless empty-heads to flourish in the art world. The premise of recontextualization is that placing an item in a different context changes its meaning. Or, to put it another way, it's a sophisticated-sounding pretense for really lazy people with no abilities, since it allows you to take any object, place it in an unusual context and say that it's art. For example, I might put a microwave on a church altar or Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson in a bonfire.

This explanation leaves me torn as to whether Jonsson is more lazy or just stupid. The project was obviously a simulation of a terrorist action and terrorists usually attack public places. Putting a "bomb" in a public place is not a matter of great unusual context.

Hell, he didn't even put much effort into it, hiding the package in a corner and slinking away. Let's recognize the real heroes of recontextualization: people like Matthew Murray, who brought a handgun into a church last Sunday and killed a few people. Bringing a handgun into a church… wow! What an unusual context! Or so many suicide bombers in the Middle East who bring real bombs into public markets and other unusual contexts. Now that's art!

Further complicating the "lazy or stupid" debate is this remark he made to Icelandic newspaper Fréttabladid: "This wouldn’t have been such a big deal before September 11, 2001. Everything has changed since then. The timing of the work is therefore important.”

Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson, how are you an idiot? Let me count the ways:

Somehow, I suspect that bomb scares were still a big deal before September 11.
September 11 of which year? Oh right, 2001. Six years later, Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson comes to blow the lid off everything and show us how the world has changed! Thank God, I was afraid we were unaware of the new climate of fear and terrorism. Forget that Hollywood's already had time to produce at least half a dozen movies relating to the subject, countless books have been written and rebuilding work on the site of the World Trade Centre began over a year ago. You're not late to the party at all.

Okay, maybe that's only two ways. But they're pretty big ways.

Jonsson's work is only art in the loosest sense of the word, like Carl André's stacks of bricks and wood or Christo and his idiotic wrapping. It's art because nobody can satisfactorily define art. But Jonsson's bullshit isn't really art; it doesn't make a statement, it's not interesting or compelling in any way, it isn't beautiful and it didn't take any talent.

Anyone who watches movies could probably come up with a reasonable facsimile of a pipe bomb and his crap YouTube video of the ROM "bombing" shows no effort at all. After the "explosion," the screen just goes black. With all the movie editing technology available these days, he could have done something visually interesting. Anyone could have done this garbage.

One Jonsson apologist was quoted in the National Post as saying, "It's art because it makes us think," an irredeemably lame excuse. Staring out a car window can make you think. A Toronto Maple Leafs game can make you think. Maybe it's what you think that counts. When I hear about Jonsson's trash, I think all sorts of things, like:

"What a moron."
"What the hell is wrong with OCAD that it admits this guy?"
"Was he going to blow up the ROM Crystal? Maybe he's not all bad."
"No, he's all bad. What a jackass."

Adding injury to idiocy, Jonsson's scheme also ruined a fundraising dinner for the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research that was projected to raise $100,000.

Just in case you're not fully convinced that this guy is an utter fool, take a look at this here video. In it, he explains that the police shouldn't have taken the package seriously since he thoughtfully attached a note reading "this is not a bomb." Just as car thieves used to be thwarted by those foolproof "No radio" signs, the police should have just trusted the anonymous note and gone on their way. Why do the police have to be so goddam suspicious?

Jonsson sure as hell isn't an artist, but he might be a work of art in itself, created by the admissions people at OCAD through the magic of recontextualization. They took a trite object (him), placed it in an odd context (an art school) and changed his meaning (into an artist). Well, not really an artist.

Incidentally, the Toronto Star's Christopher Hume just wrote an inspired indictment of this sort of worthless shock art. Have a look.

Pretentiousness penthouse: through the looking Gläs

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:55:00 +0000

Toronto is just Cleveland in Rhinestone drag. The city is drowning in its own pretensions.

- art critic John Bentley Mays

But how can a city be pretentious? People who've been to France might consider that a stupid question, but seriously; remove the people from a city and how do you classify its character?

Here's a test I devised today: look at condos.

Condos are fast becoming the bellwether of unbearable pretentiousness in this city. Today while walking along King Street, I saw the site of a new building called Gläs.

Fucking Gläs? What is that?

Several months ago, I went to a friend of a friend's apartment, situated in a building called Element. Upon seeing this sign, we both immediately remarked on the ridiculousness of the name. Aside from the fact that the building probably contains things found on the periodic table, there's no decent reason to call it Element.

That one struck me as stupid, but harmless. But as time goes on (and it has), I've noticed more and more. Here's a sampling of some other names I've seen lately:

Icon
Solara
Crystal Blu
Zenith
The New Yorker (in Toronto, natch)
Infinity

Names like this serve no purpose but to make the building sound cooler, allowing for inflated prices. Some people are likely willing to pay more to live at Crystal Blu than 66 Anywhere St., even if they're exactly the same. But those people are worthless, so who cares what they think?

Because I have nothing else to do, I spent a touch of time deconstructing the idea of naming your building something ridiculous like Gläs. Here's what I got:

Glas is Swedish for glass. But neither the architect nor engineers behind Gläs is Swedish.

It sure as hell isn't some tongue-in-cheek kind of joke. Condos and cars are some of the most humorless products there are (As an aside, it's worth noting that Element, New Yorker and Solara are also car names. So is Infinity, but, like Gläs, it's intentionally misspelled for maximum hipness: Infiniti).

That name is the deformed brainchild of a numbskulled marketing exec looking for something hip-sounding. He was shopping at IKEA one day and saw something made of glas, and thought "Wow, that' s so hip-sounding!" But it's too pedestrian to name a building after an IKEA product, so he throws an umlaut over it in hopes that it'll sound cooler. By adding it, he instantly makes it meaningless and throws credibility out the window for two reasons: 1) a real word would be more meaningful and 2) umlauts have not been trendy or cool since Mötley Crüe deployed them to similarly pointless effect.

But enough about Gläs and back to my original point: these names are nothing but awful, pretentious idiocy. Giving a residential building some hip name is completely pointless.

Here's a bet: try getting into a cab in Toronto and saying "Take me to Gläs." If the can driver actually knows what you mean and takes you there without rolling his eyes and smacking you upside the head, I'll give you $20. And then I'll smack you upside the head.

Canada and Toronto have an established history of boring names. Canada is just Iroquois for "village" and Toronto is Mohawk for "where there are trees standing in the water." Man, those natives sure can tell it like it is! Two of the city's most high-profile buildings have devastatingly boring-ass names: the Rogers Centre (neé SkyDome, a far more majestic name) and the CN Tower. Know what the CN stands for? Canada's National. Some cities have The Louvre, The Hermitage or the Prado and we have the Art Gallery of Ontario. Inspired names are not our style!

So I guess the important question is this: are these names just part of Toronto's desperate need for pizzaz? Well, I'm willing to bet that your average condo marketing idiot doesn't know the etymology of Canada and Toronto, nor do they care about the names of existing structures here, so they're just being a bunch of pretentious fucking dicks.

Our home and humourous land

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 22:02:00 +0000

This week, I'm continuing on my last blog's theme, that being funny things that aren't funny. My last entry was inspired by jokes that died before their time and some things that were inexplicably branded as funny and beaten to death. There's plenty more material in that vein, and I'll return to it another time.

If you read it, you know I tackled things like Chuck Norris jokes and ironic t-shirts, humor concepts that have been forged into a hard club and used to beat us all over the head. I omitted one really big one that deserves its own entry.

How big, you ask? Almost ten million square kilometers and 33 million people. It's ten provinces and three territories of hilarity! It's Canada!!!!

Canada has long been the fool's gold of the weak comedian: they see some glimmering potential of hilarity there, but they all dig in the same place, a place that was long ago stripped bare of its value.

In case you've never heard or read any Canada jokes, here's a brief recap of what you've missed:

Canada's cold.
Canada's small.
Canada is similar to the United States, but smaller.
Canadians play hockey.
Canadians drink beer.
Canadians say "eh."
Canadians say "aboot."
Celine Dion is from Canada.

Did any of those make you laugh out loud? They shouldn't, because those things are not inherently funny. But that doesn't stop countless idiots from using them!

Granted , comedians can usually find more amusing ways to phrase those, but at the bare-bones level these things aren't funny for a whole pile of reasons. Your standard Canada jokes are a healthy mix of comedy-killers.

First, the true. I can write things like, "Stephen Harper is boring and evil," or "The Sahara desert is really hot," and they're not funny because they're just facts. If stating the true and the obvious was funny, encyclopedias would be hilarious.

Second, the broad. Yes, Canadians play hockey and drink beer and we do it in a country that's sometimes cold. Boy, who else does that? LOL! Oh wait, I can think of at least 20 countries off the top of my head and there are dozens more that fit that description. The great irony is that most lame Canada jokes come from Americans, who do the exact same thing.

Third, the pointlessly dumb. This pertains mostly to the cold jokes. Most Canadians know that Canada is sometimes very cold, and sometimes really damn hot. Even if you live in Nunavut, you're probably aware that parts of the country get very hot at times. A surprising number of Americans and others think Canada is all cold, all the time. So, "Canada is cold" jokes sound stupid to those in the know, and for the ignorant, you're just telling them what they think they know. So it's the truth (just for stupid people). And the truth, as we know, is not funny.

Lastly, and most importantly, is the dead. Jokes about "eh," "aboot," and Canada's size are done to death. The immensely quotable Al Capone once said, "I don't even know what street Canada is on." I don't know when he said it, but he died in 1947, so he said it at least 60 years ago, probably more. So, it's an old, old joke. And even then, it's just bland. Canada's small…aaaaand? So what? How come nobody laughs when I crack jokes about Luxembourg and Togo? That's pretty small. Where are my laughs? Screw you guys!

"Eh?" is the least fertile comedic ground there is. Perhaps you're familiar with Strange Brew, the 1983 film disaster based on SCTV skits that played up Canadian stereotypes to the nth degree and acquired an insane, rabid following to the point where the stars avoided public appearances. In those skits, Bob and Doug just spewed out the ehs, putting them at the end of almost every sentence. The movie bombed because the Canadian stereotypes became a totally played-out, one-note joke, and that was 25 years ago.

But the most scathing indictment of Canada jokes comes from who uses them and when. Several years ago, The Simpsons did a Canada episode. This was in the midst of the show's "We have no ideas so let's send the family to a different location and hope to God the culture gives us enough material to fill 22 minutes" phase, which also saw them going to Brazil, Japan and a dude ranch. This was also the time of the show's humor strike, wherein you could watch a whole episode without laughing. The aforementioned travel episodes yielded about 10 mildly funny moments, or 2.5 funny things per show. True to form, the Canada show was wildly unfunny, including totally misplaced and irrelevant references to Canada's national basketball team and Paul Shaffer. Oddly enough, that episode is actually decent until they go to Canada, where it all falls apart. I don't watch The Simpsons anymore, but I'm told it's somewhat funny again. I don't buy it, given the almost laugh-free movie that came out just this year

The Onion, the rapidly declining and money-grubbing joke newspaper recently published a joke atlas, of which the Canada page's most predominant joke was about how cold it is. It's painfully weak writing from The Onion, which is now churning out books at a record pace, regardless of the quality of the product. Both The Simpsons and The Onion have resorted to weakass Canada jokes (among other things) as their general quality declines.

I know what you're thinking (because if you're a consistent reader of this blog, you're probably a somewhat smug, young asshole): I'm just a sensitive and hyper-patriotic Canadian who can't stand to be mocked.

Nope. I don't really think anything is sacred. I sometimes feel bad about it, but I have cracked tasteless jokes about pretty much everything I can think of. I'll make fun of Canada as much as anyone. I'm just sensitive to bad comedy and stupidity. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of that.

A compound fracture of the funny bone

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:46:00 +0000

When people take it upon themselves to describe me, the three most common terms would be "gorgeous," "asshole" and "funny." Even though I don't really take compliments, I know that two of those are meant to be. In some contexts, I even take all three to be complimentary, regardless of the speaker's intention.

Since they're good things to be, and also because I'm such a nice person, I present another public service blog. Now don't get excited; I can't teach you how to be gorgeous. You've either got it or you don't. Most people don't want to learn to be assholes for some reason, so this blog will teach you a bit about funniness.

Actually, it will teach you about funniness by subtraction. That is, teaching about some things that aren't funny. Things that may once have been funny, and now aren't or things that have been bafflingly mistaken for funny. And those are important. Much as gorgeousness can't be taught, funniness is also difficult to teach. But knowing what isn't funny is at least 1/3 of the battle.

Here we go!

The '80s: once funny
Humor level: extinct
Cause of death: beaten, raped, drowned, cremated, beaten and raped

People love to reference the '80s like it's a bottomless goldmine of hilarity. There's no shortage of "hilarious" t-shirts with '80s icons on them, '80s movies etc. Not that that was necessarily wrong. The 1980s was an era of reprehensible fashion, music and pop culture. Hair was big, music was terrible and clothes were an eye-bruising abomination. The '80s were funny. WERE.

Moment of death: Whenever Kickin' It Old Skool was released. The Wedding Singer mercilessly sucked the blood of the 1980s for every comic possibility, but it didn't kill the joke because the movie was somewhat funny. Rather, it turned the joke into one of the undead; shambling around, soulless, a shadow of its once-vibrant self. Kickin' It Old Skool represents not only the cyanide-tipped stake that was rammed into the joke's heart, but also the chainsaw that cut its head off and the shoes that danced on its grave. It was a long, slow death, with brutal blows coming when shows like The Golden Girls were released on DVD (?), but the joke is finally dead. Yes, the '80s gave us all some great, ironic laughs. But let it go.

Irony: still kinda funny
Humor level: endangered

Irony is far too enduring a device to ever die. It's almost invincible. Think of it as the Superman of humor. But you can still stab Superman in the urethra with a kryptonite spike, which is exactly what our society has done in the last few years. The irony that we've done to death is embracing uncool things and touting them as cool. This is mostly done in t-shirt form, as deconstructed in this fine blog on the subject. But it's not limited to t-shirts.

The crippling blow to "uncool = cool"-style irony is hard to pinpoint. It could have been 2004, when Napoleon Dynamite, a never-ending carnival of quotable uncool-ness came out. Or maybe it's when they started selling Napoleon Dynamite-themed mints or "vote for Pedro" t-shirts. Or maybe it's when "hilarious" t-shirt stores sprung up like weeds throughout the world. I've seen them all through Ontario and Asia, so it's safe to assume they're ubiquitous.

The pivotal question in irony is, "Do I actually agree with this sentiment I'm expressing?" whether it's a literal statement on a t-shirt or elsewhere, or a metaphorical statement made through some other form of personal expression. If you can't answer yes, you're probably too ironic for your own good. So put away your D.A.R.E. shirts and leave irony alone for a while.

Irony part 2: Juxtaposing What a Wonderful World with non-wonderful things
Humor level: extinct

Anyone who's seen Good Morning Vietnam will probably recall the montage of violence that occurs while Louie Armstrong sings that famous song. Whatever the shortcomings of that movie, it's still a great and effective scene. But with the entertainment industry being as unoriginal as it is, this worthy concept has since been throttled by the wannabe-ironic. The joke died the first time someone stole the idea, but it's hard to pinpoint when that was. The most egregious offender was Bowling for Columbine, used to tacky effect by the jaw-droppingly insincere windbag Michael Moore (but he's a blog for another day). The song is currently being abused in a stupid ad for a Playstation game that shows some manner of futuristic coyote blowing up spaceships while a punk version of the song plays. Sure, the target demographic probably doesn't know you've stolen the idea, but that doesn't make you any less stupid, Sony.

Chuck Norris jokes: very briefly funny
Cause of death: crushed to death in a hydraulic humor press operated by 10,000,000 stupid fratboys and bloggers trying to squeeze every last bit of hilarity out of it.

I know at least one of my subscribers is unfamiliar with Chuck Norris jokes. If only I was so wonderfully ignorant. I suppose, for the purpose of informed discussion, I should include some here. Well, I won't. If you want that shit, you can find it elsewhere. These jokes are dead for any number of simple reasons.

Fact: a search for "Chuck Norris jokes" on Yahoo yields 2.4 million hits.
Fact: Some useless twat has published a book of Chuck Norris facts.

What do those facts mean? See "reason number 1 that Chuck Norris jokes are dead" below.

Here are two more reasons:

1) They were absolutely beaten to death through millions of emails and people who can't let go of a decent novelty joke. This is known to some as Saturday Night Live syndrome.
2) Family Guy used one. That's no an indictment of the show, mind you. Actually, it is. Anyway, it takes months and months and months to produce one episode of such shows. A joke has to be around for a while to make it into an episode and Norris jokes never had that kind of longevity.
3) It's a combination of an 80's reference and irony. No joke can survive that vicious combination for long.

Scottish accents: never funny
Cause of death: redundant, since it was never funny, but Mike Myers

Scottish accents seem to be a tool of choice for mildly talented actors with or comedians with poor impersonation skills to appear funnier, so they're springing up all too often for something that's not inherently funny. It started with Mike Myers, a wildly overrated actor/comedian who loves the Scots burr. He started it off with the "If it's not Scottish, it's CRAP!" joke that erupted onto Saturday Night Live in the era when any vaguely popular joke was quickly and efficiently beaten to death (Rob Schneider as the "Steve, Steverino!" guy is another great example). He continued flogging the dead comedic horse with the worthless Fat Bastard character from the equally worthless second and third Austin Powers movies. But don't give up Mike! If it ain't funny the first dozen times, try try again! Myers inexplicably insisted on giving Shrek a Scottish accent, an affectation that simultaneously adds nothing, makes no sense and isn't funny. Triple play!

It now appears without rhyme or reason in completely random places, including ads for money mart and Kellogg's Crispy Minis, the current offender being in a series of animated gum commercials. Since Scottishness has nothing to do with the gum or the ad, it's obviously a Myers-inspired "joke." It's also a terrible accent.

Nice work, ya bampot! (That's Scottish)

Whew! Once I get going on this, it's hard to stop! But in the interest of not making this entry just torturously long, I'll leave it there. For now. But part 2 is on the way, and will dispatch such painful phenomena as Vince Vaughan and jokes about "more cowbell!"

Stay tuned, and be funny.

Bullshit for art's sake

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 20:05:00 +0000

As many Torontonians spent Sunday recovering from the all-night abomination that was Nuit Blanche, newspapers devoted themselves to reviews of said event, dissecting the good and bad and lauding the city for becoming more cosmopolitan and cultural by hosting such an event.

Perhaps I'm going overboard in calling it an abomination, but it's pretty much a no-brainer that anything labeled "a contemporary art thing" should be avoided at all costs.

Here's why: contemporary art is possibly the most deranged cultural disaster since the dark ages. Calling it a "thing" is also just going for the wacky, unclassifiable nature of the art. So the phrase "a contemporary art thing" ought to set off some alarm bells. Well, at least 75 per cent of it. The "a" is okay.

Perhaps you're wondering what's wrong with contemporary art. Isn't it just art that people are making now? That seems like the obvious answer, but what you may not know is that the art people are making now is mostly bullshit and should not be called art.

Art as we know it died a horrible and undignified death in 1917 at the hands of an actual artist, ironically enough. Marcel Duchamp, a man with legitimate talent, totally upended the art world, started the insufferable debate over what "art" means and opened the door for a million untalented and pretentious twats to become "artists."

Duchamp did it when he unleashed his Fountain, arguably his most famous sculpture and one that was later voted the "most influential artwork of the 20th century" by 500 British critics. Keep in mind that "influential" does not mean "best." Despite the fact that Duchamp's fountain is the worst thing to ever happen to any cultural medium, I agree with those Brits. It's influential because it started the graceless collapse of a once-fine pursuit.

Although I despise the Fountain with every fibre of my being, I've included a picture of it here. As you can see, the Fountain is a urinal with the name "R. Mutt" signed on one side. That's all. It's not a great painting of a urinal, or even a sculpture of one. Duchamp found a urinal, wrote a pseudonym on it and ruined art forever.

Sound familiar? You've probably seen it before, but maybe you didn't know what it was, which should tell you something. There was a once a time when there was no debate over whether you were looking at art or not. It was pretty clear. Now you can never be sure.

In fact, someone has been arrested for pissing in Duchamp's urinal. Frenchman Pierre Pinoncelli took a leak on the thing in 1993, then attacked it with a hammer. This alone would make the man my hero if he wasn't a "conceptual artist," which is pretty much the lowest form of life on earth.

Why? Conceptual art isn't art. It's just scattered, pointless bullshit. You want a definition? Try "weird for the sake of weird."

Pinoncelli is a perfect example. In 1967, he sprayed the French novelist, and then culture minister, André Malraux with red paint. In 1975, he robbed a bank in Nice with a sawn-off shotgun and escaped with 10 francs. He also cut off his finger in Colombia, calling the act itself an artwork. His worthless digit is on display in a museum there.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. What was wrong with Duchamp's fountain? It drove home the point that "art" is pretty damn difficult to define, and that you could get away with labeling anything art.

And where does this lead us? It gives us morons like Piero Manzoni, an Italian who shit in cans and called it art. It gives us twits like Christo, who's made a career out of wrapping stuff. Yes, wrapping. Christo wrapped an island, the Reichstag and other buildings in various materials. Hell, exterminators do that. He also set up the creatively titled Umbrellas, a collection of several thousand umbrellas. That's it. The project cost over $26 million US and eventually killed two people due to shoddy installation.

How about the National Gallery in Ottawa spending $1.76 million on Voice of Fire, a huge blue canvas with a reddish-orange stripe, a soulless, brainless and worthless thing that anyone with a ruler could paint. Brydon Smith, the gallery's assistant director at the time, called the painting "a timely reminder for each of us what it is to be independent and free of oppression." No explanation of how it does that, but I guess it sounds more inspiring than, "It's a minor alteration to the Costa Rican flag."

Duchamp showed us that art can be pretty much anything. It probably wasn't his intention, but he basically ruined art forever, since it showed so many no-talents with weird ideas that they could make a career out of shitting in cans or setting up umbrellas.

Worse still, the art world has become aesthetically bankrupt by encouraging this kind of crap. Example: in 2001, idiot Martin Creed won the Turner Prize (a £40,000 prize named for an English painter who had actual talent) for The Lights Going On and Off, which is an empty room where the lights flicked on and off. Yes, someone got £40,000 for that.

It's been all downhill since Duchamp, with middling hacks like Andy Warhol and entirely worthless and pretentious wastes like Yoko Ono or Pierre Pinoncelli.

And it ain't gonna get any better. If you were anywhere near Ryerson on Nuit Blanche, you may have seen Porcelain Gods, a display of various-sized toilets. Not only is that pointless and empty-headed, it's not even original. Someone posed a toilet as art 90 years ago, moron!

I have a suggestion for all the conceptual artists, all the Martin Creeds and Pinoncellis out there: next Nuit Blanche, set up a giant canvas in the SkyDome, then throw yourselves off the CN Tower onto the canvas. You'll die, but what a conceptual statement! Wow! It'll satisfy the middling abilities of so many lazy wannabe artists out there and maybe it'll leave us with people who have, ya know, talent.

Public info blog 1: Science for everyday life

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 04:50:00 +0000

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!

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.

The blog at the center of the universe

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 20:39:00 +0000

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.

Attack of the 50-foot slut-clown

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 02:46:00 +0000

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.

Pride goeth for a fall

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 23:03:00 +0000

Yes, I am aware that Gay Pride Week is a couple of weeks past. I've taken the extra time before posting this to first distil the essence of my growing hatred for Pride and also because I don't have any good reason to post this stuff in a timely manner. I'm a journalist; I write stuff in a timely manner for work. I get paid for that, whereas this blog is only free entertainment for others and, until I'm paid for it, I'll post this stuff whenever I please.

That being said, there's something wrong with Pride. I knew it last year, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. I thought perhaps my feelings of Pride-malaise were triggered by the sight of 60-something men mincing about in assless chaps, but that was only part of it.

This year it hit me. Gay Pride is not about the right type of pride.

Yes, there are different types.

One is the kind wherein you feel good about yourself, whether because of an accomplishment or an experience. You mostly hold onto these things because they ratchet up your self-respect and give you a good feeling to remember.

Another is the dangerous kind, the Seven Deadly Sins-type. The kind for which the term "pride goeth before a fall" was coined. I'm talking obnoxious pride, where you bleat your accomplishments in everyone's face and you're generally thought of as an annoying windbag.

See, I have things I'm proud of. I once won a provincial Tae Kwon Do championship, I'm a pretty decent drummer, I can read Korean, I know how to scuba –dive. I take pride in all those things.

However, I carry those things with the dignified type of pride, where you don't throw it in everyone's face. Before I wrote this, very few people knew about my Tae Kwon Do feat. However, if I applied the Gay Pride type of pride to my accomplishments, I'd walk around in scuba gear, wearing a black belt and my gold medal and giving people roundhouse kicks to the head.

I'm also proud of being a journalist. I think it's a cool thing to be, and although my career is in a young state, I am currently making a living with writing. I get paid to do something I enjoy anyway, and it's a pretty decent profession, even if the money is crap. I'm sure many people don't get the same degree of job satisfaction.

But if I had Gay Pride-type pride in my chosen career, I'd wear one of those "Press" cards in a fedora and scream "STOP THE PRESSES" and other journalism clichés into people's faces for no reason. That's what Pride has become about. It's not about just feeling good about yourself; it's about feeling downright smug and obnoxious about it, and screaming your self-satisfaction in everyone's face, whether they're interested or not, which is the most obnoxious type of pride.

But I don't do that, and most people don't. Why? Because it's socially ignorant, it's arrogant and it pisses people off. It's obnoxious and it makes people dislike you.

Gay Pride is about ridiculous excess. Or sometimes the opposite, at least when it comes to how people are dressed. Since when does being gay require one to parade your disgusting and underclothed body around in public? Can't you just party and be gay without offending general aesthetics?

I've seen far too many girls with breasts that look like tube socks with baseballs in them, wearing tape over their nipples. Too many guys in thongs and assless chaps. There's no need for that, especially when you're gross-looking. And, more to the point, it has nothing to do with being gay. It's a type of pride though. But until the city has a "Pride in Your Disgusting-looking Body" Parade, people need to keep that crap under wraps.

But back to excess: pride is, for some reason, an excuse to just act like a jackass for no reason. On Sunday, Parade day, I saw 3-4 dykes snorting coke in the alley next to my building. As I left my place, the front lawn was full or partially clad leathermen sunning themselves, and gravity-ravaged topless girls forming a jiggly, droopy barricade of flesh right in front of my door. On Saturday night, the street party and maddeningly repetitive techno beats endured until well past 4 am.

A few years back, The Onion had a great article entled "Gay Pride Parade Sets Mainstream Acceptance of Gays Back 50 Years." That's almost what what Pride does for me. I have no problem with gay people and I like my neighbourhood for the other 363 days of the year that aren't Pride Weekend.

But it's not even the homosexuality that bugs me. It's the ridiculous belief that Pride is just an incredible free-for-all and a license to act like a jackass. It's not. It's about being gay and proud.

So hey, go ahead and do that. More power to you! Be gay! Just do it with your fucking clothes on, shut off the music after 1 am and stop snorting coke outside my window.

I'm resolved to move out of this neighbourhood before next year's Pride Weekend, since I now know I'd sooner encounter a different type of pride altogether, that being a hungry pride of man-eating lions, which would be altogether a much more peaceful and fun experience than the bloated, obnoxious horrorshow that is Gay Pride weekend.

Face-to-face with Mother Nature

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 01:07:00 +0000

Today, I achieved a spiritual oneness that many people have yearned for since time immemorial, but have not achieved.

I became one with nature and learned its secrets. Many a flower child and tree-hugger have gone unhappily to their patchouli-smelling grave wishing for what I have achieved. Well, today I earned the right to dance on their graves. And believe me, I will.

I biked to work today, a bright, warm day. At 1:30, I took my lunch outside and boiled in the sun. 'Twas a cloudless sky and the sun beat down strong and fine.

Two and a half hours later, I happened to glance out the window. Apparently nobody told me there was going to be a total solar eclipse today! Four p.m. today was probably darker than 4 a.m.

Well, perhaps I was fooled. Since a good part of the CBC Newsworld broadcasts come from my floor, the windows all have filters on them to help the production people control the lighting conditions. That always makes things darker than they appear, but I thought I was used to the effect by now.

Yep, I am. I went to the window, threw up the sash and saw an ominously dark sky.

Since my work for the day was done, I decided to bail out early before fire and brimstone, or at least rain, fell from the skies.

Well, in the two minutes it took me to reach my bike, the skies had opened up with a torrential rainstorm. I'm talking blinding, traffic-paralyzing rain.

After standing and waiting for some time to see if the clouds might run out of rain, I opted to hop on the bike and pedal through the downpour. And as I did, I came to understand the true nature of nature.

I may not be the most "green" person out there, but I try to do my bit. I recycle pretty conscientiously and I sometimes will clean up some other jackass's litter. I try not to waste power or water and try not to do any undo damage to dear old Earth.

And my effort today was in biking to work. A fine green method of transport. And how was I rewarded?

By getting fucking pissed on all the way home. Arriving soaked and mud-splattered.

Some other day, it might have been darkly amusing, but today I was pissed. See, if there had been any hint at all that ill weather was in the offing, I wouldn't have biked. Or at least I would have been prepared for it. But no: I'm lulled into a false sense of security by a beautiful morning. Then a beautiful afternoon!

Then, by 4:00, the sky is blacker than Oprah's heart and I'm hearing getting splashed and soaked as I suffer my green transport home.

So I learned. Mother Nature is not a warm, kind and loving old grandmother. She may have once been. But now, she's a wizened, twisted old hag who hates us all for the ravages we have wreaked upon her. She hates us all. Even those who try to help (like me), bear some brunt of her warped sense of humour.

Yes, today I became one with nature. I learned its secrets and its true nature.

Today I met Mother Nature. And oh my God, what a bitch.

Thanks a mint, idiots

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Tue, 22 May 2007 22:15:00 +0000

Today, while vacuuming my couch, I was pleasantly surprised to yank out the cushions and be met with an explosion of change. Since the advent of the toonie and loonie, even a bit of change can equal a lot of money, so when I saw several toonies and the bunch, I knew I had a valuable little surprise.

Imagine my surprise though, when I bend down to retrieve my modest fortune, and spot a piece of Turkish lira among my Canadian currency.

I've never been to

Turkey

and I'm pretty sure my couch hasn't either. So how the hell did Turkish coinage end up in my cushions?

Here's another puzzler: why, when I turned the coin over, was the stoic profile of Queen Elizabeth II on the other side?

Well, because it was actually a Canadian quarter. But not the regular old quarter that most of us know. Not the deer on one side and the Queen on the other. No, this was some star-laden monstrosity in the deer's place.

I was irked for two reasons: first, I thought I had some Turkish lira on my hands and, as any idiot knows, one Turkish New Lira is worth 83.47 cents Canadian, so I thought I had more than 25 cents.

Second, because those twits at the Royal Canadian Mint can't stop churning out gimmicky new designs every five minutes, to the extent that I didn't even know I had Canadian money in my hand.

Most of us are all too familiar with the Mint's clever little ideas. Back in 1995, The Mint threw the Toonie at us before ironing out that little design flaw that let you pop out the center piece. In 2004, we got the world's first coloured coin, that ridiculous quarter bearing a poppy that looks like it was coloured in with some kid using a felt-tip pen. At least they managed to stay inside the lines, but we all learned that the colours fade off pretty fast and the Mint was so stoked to show off its colouring ability that it vomited the coins out there before learning how to do it right.

I've considered the Mint fairly ridiculous for a while now. Last year, it spat out a rare three-dollar coin. Gold, square, gimmicky and pointless. Last week, it produced a 100-kilogram gold coin for no particular reason. And since 2000 or so, it has created roughly 700 billion new designs for quarters (estimates may vary). There were quarters for ever province, native tribes, veterans, farmers, breast cancer, the list goes on.

I can appreciate variety and I can also admit that some of the designs are cool. But there's such a thing as overkill. After finding my Canadian Lira, I took a look through my pile of change I stash away for laundry and found out of 140 quarters, nearly 25 were some weird-ass design with very few doubles among them. That seems a bit excessive.

Aside from the sheer gimmicky stupidity of it all, there are reasons why I'm sick of the flood of exciting new designs.

First, it will erode away a cherished method of choice. Some day, it won't be "Heads or tails?" anymore, but "Heads or… some native design… an owl? No wait, Gitche Manitou?"

Or, if you've got the newest Veterans coin, it's "Heads or… heads?" Then you're screwed!

The other problem will be familiar to those who read my kinda-recent gripe about Toronto's St. Patrick's Day Parade: when you start commemorating everything, the really important things lose their value. As time goes on, more and more things become Collector's Items, Special Editions and so on. Every one who dies is termed a hero. When everything is special, then nothing is.

All this coin lunacy has got to stop.

Right after they put me on a coin. God knows I deserve it.

Kiss me, I'm multi-ethnic

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 21:47:00 +0000

Let's start off this entry with a little culture quiz. I'll name a few things, and see if you can guess the cultural strand that unites them.

Jamaican steel drums
Vaughan, Ontario's Philippine Marching Band
A small motorized outhouse

Give up? So would I.

Apparently, they're all Irish. I wouldn't have thought so either, but there they were in Toronto's St. Patrick's Day parade, a culturally schizophrenic horrorshow that would have the IRA attacking this town if they had any self-respect.

Since I moved to this city, I've found it's not only the provincial capital and, to some degree, a cultural hub, it's far and away the nation's capital for navel-gazing and bellyaching about whether Toronto is a "world-class city" and if it isn't, why not?

Well, who knows what the hell "world-class" actually means, but I have a feeling there's got to be some degree of cultural sense in that sort of city. Awareness of other cultures as well as your own. Canadians are hamstrung by not knowing what the hell their own culture is but we're also retarded when it comes to other cultures as well. If today's parade was any proof, Toronto sums up Irish culture in three facets: Guinness, Lucky Charms and U2.

Now, lest you take issue with me as an obnoxious know-it-all, let me say two things: first, you're right, but shut up. Second, I don't pretend to understand much about Irish culture. I have been to Ireland, but I won't claim any degree of expertise on the culture, but I'm pretty sure it's not defined my motorized outhouses and double-decker buses. And I do have a sneaking suspicion that, over this weekend, many Irish folk lost sleep thanks to the national earth tremor caused by St. Patrick rolling over in his grave.

Now, the parade organizers would no doubt argue that multicultural as Toronto should celebrate its diversity, not limit this parade to stuff that's exclusively Irish.

Well, that's crap. And you know why? Because I say so, and that's it.

Seriously,

Well no.

The problem with that is that by inviting over-diversity, you're eliminating the uniqueness. It's becoming increasingly taboo to say "Merry Christmas" because it's too exclusionary to non-celebrants. But then you start inviting culturally irrelevant groups into an event, you're losing sight of what it is. Most people in Canada have no idea what St. Patrick's Day is about anyway, they just know you're supposed to get hammered for some reason. The day has almost lost its meaning anyway, and we're only encouraging the history and significance of it to abate even further.

And hell, if you're going to use the diversity excuse, why not go full-on? Why don't we celebrate the Fourth of July? Let's have Ramadan Parades! Bring out Santa Claus on Remembrance Day!

Today's parade already had Zanta, that moron publicity whore who, shamefully, still hasn't been euthanised by the city. While he probably wasn't officially invited, his presence discredits anything. If he'd been at Juno Beach on D-Day, I'd tend to believe the Second World War never happened. But that idiot is a blog for another day. Especially when today had so much other pointless and stupid things to take issue with, like a fire truck full of 50-year-olds doing the Twist, something with all the dignity and class of drowning in your own urine.

Couple that holiday schizophrenia with a newer phenomenon: the idiotic tendency to create "International ______ Day!" Some day last week was Hiccup Day. Some other moron created "Talk Like a Pirate Day." We have to start getting more discriminatory. Either we'll have stupid "holidays" every single day of the year, no one will work anymore and the economy will collapse, or we only embrace days that actually mean something.

I'm starting to envision a future where holidays have lost all meaning. As we get more anal retentive and politically correct, it will eventually be totally forbidden to refer to a holiday by name. Saying "Merry Christmas" will probably be a hate crime. Holidays can only be referred to by the date and nothing else. It'll happen, mark my words. But in the meantime, get hammered. If you get sick and need to puke, maybe the city can loan you that motorized outhouse they were using today.

Colour me racist

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 07:26:00 +0000

I would call myself non-PC. I still say "gay" and "retarded" and "janitor" (You're supposed to say "homosexual," "developmentally delayed" and "custodian").

Well, retarded is pretty bad. But another word that garners a lot of disapproval these days is when you call someone black.

Say "African-American!"

I say fuck that. Not only does it sound ridiculous, but it's also racist, because you're assuming that all black people come from Africa, or that they're American. What about African-Brits?

How about Pelé? Us racists might call him black. My critics would call him African-American. He's Brazilian, you racist! Steve Nash? Born in Africa, thank you very much.

Besides, many palaeontologists, anthropologists and the like will tell you that all humans come from Africa, so even albinos or Johnny and Edgar Winter could be African-American.

Besides, we're dealing with a double standard anyway since it's still okay to refer to white people as such. I don't know any white people who are bothered by being called white. "Caucasian," the more PC term is stupid for the same reason that "African-American" is stupid. It's presumptuous and ill thought-out. I'm not from the Caucasus.

Now some people will say the double standard exists because whites haven't had as hard a time as blacks or "the red man" and hey, I won't argue that. White people have an ugly history of treating other races like shit.

But still, what's wrong with calling someone black?

In my journalism school training, I've been told to avoid terms like "black days" since it casts black as a bad thing. Never mind that it can be good as well.

Sure, white has plenty of positive connotations to it. The old stereotype is that the good guys wear white, the bad guys black, etc.

But hey, black is also cool. Lest we forget all the good guys in The Matrix wore black, while those two ghostly assassins were white (white people with dreadlocks… that's how you know they're bad). AC/DC was Back in Black, and those insufferable twats the Beatles made the White album. The Black Knight is arguably one of the best characters in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Financially, all companies want to be "in the black."

White is not always good. In fact sometimes, it's downright evil.

As an epicure, my Dark Ages would have 1993-1998: the high school years. Five years of mysterious swill ladled out of troughs onto my plate in a boarding school kitchen.

One of the signature dishes of our kitchen was cvhicken with white sauce. Once, at my most flippant, I asked what the "white" sauce was. The troglodyte behind the sneeze guard answered, "white."

"Yes," says I. "But what's in it?"

"White."

I was dumbfounded. White had transcended mere colour. Now, it was not just a flavour, but an ingredient.

This was hardly new. The red juice was another kitchen staple, but it somehow seemed less creepy.

Needless to say, after that, pretty much anything could be defined by colour as far as I was concerned. Milk became the "white juice" and orange juice became… never mind.

Why were we being given foods defined by the colour?

My most stomach-churning theory is that the white sauce was probably the least low-maintenance for the kitchen because it could most easily hide the spit and semen that the resentful hick kitchen staff likely flung into the food.

Ironically, chicken with white sauce was also very popular. And lest you make some licentious connection between the potential semen content and the popularity, let me first assure you that my boarding school was not all boys.

I didn't eat the chicken with white sauce much, but after that, I never touched it again. Too this day, I'm suspicious and distrusting of anything white.

But importantly, it taught me that anything can be defined by colour, and it makes the most sense because any other label you devise will have problems.

Call me white, see if I care. What's the point in treading on social eggshells, calling someone African-American when it still sounds idiotic. Besides, I'm happier being considered politically incorrect than stupid.

So call me a racist if you like. I'll call you a hypersensitive reactionary, for two reasons. First, you're not taking into account my traumatic childhood wherein I ate chicken with white sauce. Second, you're not agreeing with me. What are you, developmentally delayed or something?

A user's guide to public transportation hell

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 03:14:00 +0000

First time in Toronto? Welcome! If you're here for any significant length of time and you plan to see much of the city, you need transportation. And unless you're a total glutton for punishment, you're not driving. That means you can enjoy the city's greatest blessing, everyone's favourite, your friend and mine, the Toronto Transit Commission.

The TTC consists of several disparate, but equally important elements. Cacophonic buses, ludicrous streetcars and lots of churlish employees. And who could forget our marvelous subway?

If you ain't from the big city, you might not be familiar with our subway system. This is a guide for all you subway neophytes, so you can ride just like a real Torontonian.

First, take a look at the map, a ridiculous bisected horseshoe that manages to cover very little ground in an admirably inefficient way. At the very least, the maps all have the station names spelled correctly, so it's not too hard to figure out where you're going. You've got to keep an eye out though. Practically every station is done up in some chipped ugly tile motif; they're all like dilapidated bathrooms from the 1960s.

Of course, you have to pay to get on. A mere piffle at $2.75… wait a second, that's actually a lot to ride the TTC. Well, enjoy it while you can, there's already talk of raising the fare again. Anyhoo, you can purchase tokens at the machine or collection booth. After trying the machines, which will be broken, go to the booth and try to communicate with the invariably surly and unhelpful person inside.

The collection booths have some absurd microphone-device which must be there for decoration since it serves no real purpose. When you ask for however many tokens you want, the booth-ogre will just look at you like you're an idiot and you'll have to repeat yourself at least once. This means that they are either stupid or that the microphone-thing doesn't work. It is likely a combination of the two, for you will notice that, when they talk to you, they sound like someone speaking sanskrit through a ball-gag. I thought microphones were supposed to amplify the voice and aid speech, not impair it.

My personal conviction is that they are just unwilling to help and also stupid. Case in point: after the most recent fare raise, the big bulk token deal is 10 tokens for $21. Last week, I went to a booth and pushed through a $20 bill and a loonie. I asked for 10 tokens, which was probably unncessary since there is only one reason I'd happen to hand over exactly $21. The TTC-drone stared at me and said "Whaddya want?" I got my tokens and walked off baffled. What did he think it was for, a Christmas present?

Now that you've paid far more than the trip is worth, it's time to get to the platform. Most escalators have small signs indicating which side is for standing and which is for walking. Most TTC escalators have these and, if the escalator is working, they will be totally ignored. Often, people prefer to stand on both sides, or, my personal favourite, in the middle.

As you board the train, you may notice that, if there are no vacant seats, most people will take two to three steps and stop, crowding by the doors and preventing more people from getting on. Don't worry; this is stupidity-based paralysis and it's very common. It's most in evidence during rush hour when half-full cars cannot be boarded because there are huge crowds by the doors while the sections in between are nearly empty. As the doors open and you are unable to board, at least one of the herd will give you a half-assed apologetic look, a look that says "That sucks you can't get on, and even though the solution is obvious (physically moving), our herd stupidity doesn't allow it."

There are two possible solutions: 1) Square your shoulders and charge into the crowd, or 2) wait for the next train (and probably the next one, too).

A third option, easily the least effective is to press yourself against the crowd and hope to be passively absorbed. This morning, I watched as one hapless guy just stood outside the train, up against the crowd as if he would just be sucked in, like the Blob. Instead the doors closed on his leg. I couldn't help but laugh, although I did manage not to point. Incidentally, I also had to pass up four consecutive trains today because people are too dumb and/or lazy to distribute themselves evenly throughout the car.

Most people believe that they should stand by the doors so they can get off quickly, regardless of how far away their stop may be. Of course, most people in Toronto are also the only people in the entire world, thus have no concept of when they might be, you know, totally in the way, or really obnoxious.

Last step! Get off the train. The is the last phase of selfish stupidity so endemic to the TTC; those waiting to get on the train will crowd around the doors, typically leaving a narrow passage for those disembarking. Even better, some of those waiting on the platform will start shoving their way onto the train before you leave.

At this point, you may want to take a moment to cough up your lungs. The air quality in the subway is only slightly better than outside, in the way that being stabbed in the chest is slightly better than being shot in the face. The TTC only recently abandoned the old mining trick of keeping a canary down in the stations… mostly because of the catastrophic death rate but also because the TTC doesn't give a rat's ass about its patrons.

So you've ridden the subway! At this point, you probably hate every single person in the city. Well, that's to be expected. And if you've read this before riding the subway, you might avoid it altogether. I've done you a big favour then. Merry Christmas!

Best two out of three

noreply@blogger.com (Steveriffic) — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 02:26:00 +0000

I'm disgusted. I just can't believe this!

I just watched Blade: Trinity.

Now I'm fully aware that some of you elitist types might take me to task for enjoying the first two Blade movies; well, the only aspect of your cultural tastes that I care about is that you read my blog. Otherwise, you can stuff your judgments. See if I care.

See, the first two Blades were pretty decent. Brainless fun really. Lots of good action, some good lines, some amusing characters. Then comes Trinity, where Dracula, lord of the vampires, is some Eurotrash pretty-boy and the protagonist is just an inscrutable dick. Sure, he was pretty much an inscrutable dick in the first two, but at least there was an iota of character development and some one-liners. Instead, it's just stone-faced assholery; makes it hard to get behind the hero. But when the villain is also crap, who do you root for?

I was rooting for me to turn the movie off.

As this cinematic crapfest played out in front of me, my brain went elsewhere. Random thoughts abound. Hmmm, my fans are howling for a new blog. So what about movie trilogies? Why does part 3 always suck?

In another superhero vein, the first X-Men movies were also quite good. Then, another director takes over and you've got a special effects-laden disaster with no depth but lots of explosions. What a disappointment that one was.

Batman Forever? Yikes! After the totally serviceable Batman Returns, they go off in some garish flamboyant carnival of awfulness, with a totally insufferable Jim Carrey screaming and mugging for two hours… no wait, that's almost his whole career.

Terminator 3! Superman 3… possibly the worst movie ever made! Ever seen it? DON'T.

What's up with this? Shouldn't people get better at making movies? You know, by the third time around, they ought to be pretty good at it.

But hang on. The more I thought, it came to me that part threes aren't always terrible. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was pretty damn good.

But the second one sucked. HARD. Steven Spielberg's idiot wife just screamed and broke a nail for the whole damn thing.

Maybe it's trilogies they suck at. And, since I brought up Superman, anything beyond a trilogy. The only thing worse than the Superman franchise is the Scary Movie one; somehow those disasters keep getting greenlighted, even though they're not funny and they have no new ideas. The Wayans brothers are simply the most brainless and sadistic bastards to pollute this Earth since the Khmer Rouge.

At this point, I'd like to take a quick break to tell you to shut the hell up. I bet the bulk of people who read this are readying some smug comment about how all three Lord of the Rings movies were good, not a weak link to be found. Well, you know-it-all cock, those may have been released as three separate movies, but they were filmed concurrently. That's right, wipe that grin off your face and deflate. Me 1, you 0.

Hollywood, heed my words. Stop making trilogies. Somehow, you're just not good at it. Yeah, Spider-Man 3 is already finished, there's not much we can do about that. But you can still stop Ocean's 13! Come on, deep down you know that Ocean's 12 was the worst A-list wankery since Robert Altman's last abortion, turning 2 minutes of cleverness into a two hour crime. Yeah, ha ha ha, Julia Roberts is playing someone who everyone thinks is Julia Roberts! How wacky! Whatever, piss off.

It's only going to get worse!

Of course, these damn fools won't stop making sequels as long as people pony up the dough for them.

You have the power to stop this! Do you really want to see Baby Geniuses 3? Or Bill and Ted's Tubular Quest?

I think we both know the answer to that.

SMUG UPDATE: as you'll note, I wrote this in November of 2006. Well, it turns out that the following summer was a barrage of filmic part threes, which, just to prove how prescient I am, almost all stank. Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third, Ocean's Thirteen, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Rush Hour 3 and Resident Evil: Extinction were all universally panned. And yes, I'm aware of the Bourne Ultimatum. Well, there can be exceptions, can't there? Besides, that's one good part three out of a whole crappy avalanche of them that came out in 2007.