From the Truth in Advertising Department

Deer – nature’s gluttons

Well it’s that time of the year again when our carefully planted and lovingly tended gardens become nothing more than a big deer buffet.

 

This is GM under government management

I’m having a tough time with this whole notion of the Conservative government having a seat at the boardroom table of General Motors. Aside from the fact that I think we should be running, not walking, away from any taxpayer investment in this losing proposition, I can’t help but despair at the thought of a business (any business) being run by the same folks who manage to waste most of my tax dollars with such blithe ignorance of the concepts of accountability and value for money.

But the die seems to have been cast, so here are some of the implications of which you need to be aware.

GM Canada headquarters will be moved immediately to Calgary.

The company will be subject to the Official Languages Act. All documents, working papers, blueprints, etcetera will be translated into the second official language. All assembly line robots and senior level plant managers in Windsor must be able to converse fluently in French, English, and IRL (Industrial Robot Language) . 

All parts purchasing will now come under Public Works Canada, the department best known for its inability to get contracts in place in a timely manner – and for pissing off every potential supplier in the process. The “just in time” manufacturing methodology will now be known as the “just some time” manufacturing methodology.

All new model names must be vetted by the Canadian Human Rights Commission to ensure that they are not potentially even vaguely offensive to any obscure special interest group that may or may not exist, now or in the future.

To help “new Canadians” integrate, an appropriate ratio of right-hand to left-hand drive vehicles will be built based on the percentage of immigrants arriving from right-hand drive countries.  Once they become citizens, their vehicles must be immediately converted back to left-hand drive, else the owners risk being labelled “not real Canadians” by Jason Kenney.

Regional benefits will be mandated. GM’s Canadian operations will be split up so that at least 50% of the jobs go to Alberta, 30% to Quebec, and the rest are divided up between the other provinces on a per-capita basis except Newfoundland which has no sitting Conservative MPs. When the Harper Conservatives are given the boot, the allocations will of necessity change with Alberta’s share dropping to 0%.

The product line will be changed to better represent the Conservative’s new Canadian logo – From Sea To Sea To Sea. Consequently the highest production vehicle will be the electric Woodie featuring pine beetle lumber from British Columbia, seats made from PEI and Nova Scotia seal skins (Newfoundland skins are too thin), and batteries from… well, somewhere, ideally up North. A hidden agenda will replace the glove box. It will be available in any colour but red.

On the plus side, GM’s corporate colours are already blue, so that won’t have to change. At least not until the next election.

Danger lurks everywhere!

To prevent my cookie habit putting undue strain on the food budget, I started baking my own. And once I discovered that the number of cups of chocolate chips called for in any recipe is merely a conservative (of the non-political variety) suggestion, I was in cookie heaven.

But I needed new baking sheets because the ones we have all bake at a different rate so it’s 11 minutes on this tray or 13 minutes on that tray, and if you use them both at once an advanced degree in thermodynamics is required to figure out when and for how long each tray should be put in the oven so that all the cookies come out that perfect brown colour, crunchy on the outside with a soft, mushy inside.

So today I bought my new baking sheets. You know the kind - stamped metal, 12” X 20” or so, raised lip to keep the cookies from sliding off prematurely. They came with instructions. Detailed instructions. I’m not sure why we need instructions. I mean, they are cookie sheets. You put raw cookie dough on them, slide them in the oven, and then remove the tray of baked cookies after 12 minutes or so. But someone (or more probably, some LAWYER) decided that these baking sheets required instructions, which leads me to believe that it’s time we took some of those tax dollars out of law schools and put them back where they belong, in High School Home Ec classes. 

Anyway, once I got through reading the instructions (some men do, you know) I came to this warning. “Failure to follow these instructions can result in personal injury or property damage.” (“If you’re going to have instructions you’d better make sure they are followed” – another LAWYER.)

Personal injury? From a cookie sheet? Only if the spousal unit uses it to brain me after I take the last cookie out of the tin. (She too has a cookie problem, albeit not as serious.)

And property damage? There are no moving parts. It’s not flammable. Highly unlikely to explode. Not brittle. Unless I break the coffee table when falling after being brained – see above - what possible property damage could be done by a cookie sheet?

So now I’m worried because since I have been blissfully unaware of the potential lethality of these benign-looking baking tools, what else have I been missing that could, with extreme prejudice, prematurely terminate my cookie habit? Perhaps I’ll just go have a few cookies while I ponder that question and this one: How much chocolate in a chocolate chip cookie is too much?

Two less excuses

Every time I’ve had the insane thought that it would be cool to climb Mount Everest I trot out a long list of reasons why it will never happen. In addition to the blindingly obvious such as the exorbitant cost and a fear of heights, there are dozens more on a seemingly endless list destined to ensure that I will never, ever risk life and limb to go where only 2,700 or so people before me have gone and from which only about 2,500 have returned. (Yes, a 10% chance of dying is close to the top of the list.)

But even with my fevered imagination crafting one disaster scenario after another, the lack of cell phone service on the summit has never been a major concern. Nor has the absence of team sports at the base camp ever been a factor.

However if they were, I would now have two fewer excuses to stay down where the air still actually contains some oxygen.

According to this news item Nepal Telecom is going to expand its cell phone service to the top of Mount Everest by installing 4 more cellular telephone towers. Once that’s completed in June of this year, you’ll be able to take telemarketing calls to new heights (or should that be “at” new heights?).

And if a few weeks away from watching your favourite sport is all that’s keeping you from acclimatizing at base camp, the first ever cricket match has now been played at that dizzying altitude (16,495 feet).

So if either of those was all that was keeping you from strapping on the crampons and grabbing the oxygen bottle, you are  now out of excuses. Put $20 on Team Tenzing for me, and call me from the top when you get there.

“On the rocks” on the rocks?

According to this story, “Between 20 and 30 young seals have washed up on the shore; their bodies in varying states of decay. Some had crushed skulls, others were missing their eyes.”.

Of course this immediately prompted a flurry of calls from the “concerned public”, but it turns out that the culprit was, in all likelihood, sea ice.

According to Allan MacLean of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, they were likely killed by sea ice that broke up and crushed them in the water. "Most often the trauma from ice kills is in the head area," [MacLean]said by phone from Baddeck. "This is not unusual — it happens really frequently in Cape Breton."

If further investigation reveals sea ice to be the true cause of death, PETA has vowed an international boycott. According to a spokesperson, “You don’t need ice to enjoy a good single malt.”

European manufacturers of refrigeration equipment have also announced the likelihood of further corporate losses should the boycott take hold. “This is all we need, to have a reduced demand for ice on top of the world economic challenges we are already facing.”

John Baird, Canada’s Environment Minister further opined, “This could be a good thing. A lowered global demand for ice will ensure that the Arctic ice cap remains in place for at least a few more years.” He added, “Unlike the Liberals who simply let it melt away, we’re getting it done for Canadians.”

Yeah, that would be it….

Every so often I get the desire to read some mind-numbing pulp fiction for a change. This time I picked up Terminal Freeze, by Lincoln Child. I had never read anything of his so I thought it worth a try.

The general premise is that a team of researchers discovers an ancient cat-like animal embedded in the northern ice. The block of ice containing the animal is cut out and stored in a locked wooden vault, to be shipped south. The cat is stolen from the vault by way of a hole cut in the bottom of the container. One of the researchers determines that the hole was cut from the inside and not the outside, leading to this dialogue:

Marshall glanced at Faraday. “You know what this means?”

Faraday nodded. “It means whoever stole the cat knew the combination to the vault.”

Child must be an Unger fan.

Fox News?

With all the brouhaha over the recent Fox News Red Eye segment, this seemed timely.

(Source: Page-A-Day Calendar, March 25, 2009)

No one gets out alive

It’s been a couple of years, so time again for one of my favourite rants.

In today’s Ottawa Citizen  the lead sentence in a story about the health risks associated with eating too much red meat states, “Eating large amounts of red or processed meat increases the risk of dying.” Later on the reporter says that people who “eat about four ounces of red meat per day … had a higher risk for overall death.” Even the study’s author, a scientist who should know better, claimed that “the consumption of red and processed meat was associated with a modest increase in total mortality.”

Since the mortality rate for the human species is, as far as we know, 100%, that would be an increase to … what? 105% of all people will die? 110%?

Now obviously that’s not what the study’s authors intended. Clearly diet can affect longevity, and it can be a determining factor for disease and eventually the cause of death, but diet choices will never change your “risk of dying”.

I just wish that they’d get it right for once. Is that too much to ask?

One man’s whoopee cushion…

As reported here, the French island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean is in the grips of a religious fervour over a wrinkled seat cushion.

THOUSANDS of people have flocked to a Roman Catholic church on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion after believers said they saw the "face of Christ" in the pleats of a church cushion.

…

Antoinette, an 82-year-old parishioner, said the face was a "divine phenomenon" as tears welled up her eyes.

"This church is a holy site," added Lise-May, another worshipper.

…

"This is not a miracle, it's a sign of God," said parish priest Daniel Gavard.

No comment from the person who was most recently sitting on the “face of Christ” however.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

Anyone who has been kept awake by that sound at night will appreciate this story in The Sunday Times.

AMERICAN scientists are making a ray gun to kill mosquitoes. Using technology developed under the Star Wars anti-missile programme, the zapper is being built in Seattle where astrophysicists have created a laser that locks onto airborne insects.

…

The laser – dubbed a weapon of mosquito destruction (WMD) – has been designed with the help of Lowell Wood, one of the astrophysicists who worked on the original Star Wars plan to shield America from nuclear attack.

…

The WMD laser works by detecting the audio frequency created by the beating of mosquito wings. A computer triggers the laser beam, the mosquito’s wings are burnt off and its smoking carcass falls to the ground. “

Sounds great, right? Especially the bit, “its smoking carcass falls to the ground.” The mere thought of being able to fry the little bastards brings a flutter of joy to the heart as mosquito season approaches.

But is this a realistic solution to a serious problem? Who will pay for these outrageously expensive (because you know they will be) high-tech fly swatters controlled by a computer probably running Microsoft Vista? (Bill Gates is backing the research.) How will they be powered in the villages of darkest Africa? Who will maintain them and keep the hackers at bay and avoiding the blue screen of death? What will happen to the birds and bats that depend on mosquitoes for their food if the populations are decimated or seriously reduced? What happens if the mosquito is sitting in the tip of your nose when the laser locks on?

There is no doubt malaria is a huge problem, especially since the banning of DDT, but there is a very good, low-tech solution out there that has far fewer unintended consequences – the mosquito bednet. For a mere $10 (3 latte’s) you can protect one or more children for up to 5 years. Check it out here, at www.spreadthenet.org.

Wok racing

In keeping with the winter sports theme of late, I offer up … Wok Racing, in which seemingly normal people race down a bobsled run sitting in large woks. That’s right – Chinese cooking appliances – on a bobsled run!

For some reason, this seems to be particularly popular in Germany (insert your favourite stereotypical justification here), but you have to admire any sport for which preparation apparently involves consuming a few beers and having a smoke or two, all for medicinal reasons and to calm the nerves I’m sure.

Unfortunately this video has had the soundtrack disabled, but the subtitles make up for it.

Can bobsledding the Great Wall be far behind?

You knew this was coming.....

It's what month?

Here on the eve of yet another New Year (they do seem to be coming fast and furious these days) I made the mistake of looking forward to what was coming our way in January. It is going to be a busy month indeed once tomorrow’s hang-over has gone and the realisation sinks in that one more year has passed and we’re not healthier, wealthier, or even necessarily any wiser.

Did you know that January was Clean Up Your Computer Month? I certainly didn’t. Whoever set January aside for that task clearly did so in 1972. Today, with multi-terabit disk drives and Microsoft applications, a month is not nearly enough time - Clean Up Your Computer Quarter would be more appropriate. Or in my case, since I’ve been trying to get this done since about 1972, I think I’ll simply designate 2009 as Clean Up Your Computer Year and resolve not to simply solve the problem as I have in the past, by buying a faster computer with more and bigger hard drives.

Still with the clean-up theme, January is also Get Organized Month. Ah, yes. Start the New Year off with a clean slate. Resolve to be better organized and not miss as many dentist appointments. Have more free time to partake in Family Fit Lifestyle Month, and be sure to keep January 14 open as National Clean-Off-Your-Desk Day as well as Organize Your Home Day. (See comments regarding Clean Up Your Computer Month above.)

Lest you think the entire month will be spent in a real-life version of some bad TV reality show, January is also designated as California’s Dried Plum Digestive Health Month, Oatmeal Month, and Resolve to Eat Breakfast Month. Starting the day with all those prunes and that fibre in your diet means even if you don’t get your computer, desk and house all cleaned up in a month, your innards certainly will be, and I’m sure you’ll feel better for it.

I’m also hoping that the global economy pays attention as January is Financial Wellness Month. After 2008, my financial wellness is on life support, so I’m looking forward to an uptick in January and being able to at least crawl, if not leap, out of bed fiscally speaking before February (Return Shopping Carts to the Supermarket Month) rolls around.

For business folks, January 7-11 is National Thank Your Customers Week, followed ten days later on January 17 by Get To Know Your Customers Day. Perhaps part of the problem businesses claim to be trying to solve could be addressed by simply reversing these two events. Then at least they’d know who they were thanking. But then again, I’m not a marketing whiz, so what do I know.

And you have to wonder who picked the coldest month of the year for National Cut Your Energy Costs Day (January 10). Let’s see, it’s 20-below and the wind is howling but I’m still going to turn off my furnace because it’s Cut Your Energy Costs Day? I don’t think so. At least if it was July you could set the air conditioner a couple of degrees higher and still feel good about saving energy without the risk of freezing to death.

Yep, lots to look forward to in January, so best to get the celebrations out of the way tonight so you can get to work changing your life tomorrow.

Happy New Year!

Perhaps they could be used to wax eloquent.

Christmas is a festival of light and candles have traditionally played a key part in decorating for, and celebrating the season. But in recent years Christmas candles have become problematic: there are just too many of them and you can’t get rid of the damned things.

Every year we buy new candles because last year’s are too dusty, melted from the summer attic heat, or just aren’t quite right for this year’s decorating theme. And then friends and relatives add to the inventory because candles are the ultimate gift – safe and suitable for all ages and sexes and relationships, and inexpensive enough that the recipient doesn’t necessarily feel compelled to reciprocate. Meanwhile, the old ones just get put back into storage, and the candle supply grows, year after year, at a rate we could only dream would be matched by our stock market investments – an indestructible bubble that will never burst.

Now if we actually burned our Christmas candles this wouldn’t be a problem, but Christmas candles never, ever get burned.

Her: “Don’t light that candle!”
Him: “Why not? They’re candles. They’re supposed to be burned.”
Her: “But then they won’t look nice.”
Him: (rolls eyes) “Okay. “ (turns on the lights)

So by the time Christmas actually rolls around every flat surface in the house is festooned with these virginal wax creations. To eat dinner at the table, you first have to remove the candle centre-piece. If you want to open the window, you have to move the candles off the sill. Bed-side tables, bathroom counters, coffee tables – even the fireplace mantle gets the treatment.

(Let me interject a word of caution here for the novice candle decorator. Rising heat from a fireplace will soften the candles leaving them looking like the ‘before’ image in a Viagra ad. If you don’t want Aunt Mable blushing and tittering into the back of her daintily-gloved hand, you’d better have a fresh, stiff set of replacements handy before the family arrives for Christmas dinner.)

By New Year’s Eve we have enough wax of various colours and shapes lying around to open a local Madame Tussaud’s. However since that’s not going to happen, I need a way to get rid of our dusty, our melted, our old, and our droopy so I don’t have to pack them all up again for next year.

Procrastination is something best left until tomorrow

But eventually, in spite of my best efforts to delay, Christmas cards have to be sent.

And so with suitable prodding by the spousal unit (“Here are the cards and a pen; what are you waiting for?”), and the accompaniment of a very large tumbler of scotch, the process begins.

First you have to write the dreaded Christmas letter. That’s the letter in which you summarize a year’s worth of family news of absolutely no interest to anyone but yourself, and perhaps your mother, onto one double-sided page to be foisted off on the unsuspecting Christmas card recipient. The Christmas letter used to be the exclusive domain of immediate family back in the days when a stamp was cheaper than long-distance and Christmas was the only time folks found out what their grandkids had been up to for the past 12 months. But times change and the replacement of the trusty Underwood by word processing software means that it is now but an extra click or two to print 100 copies to send to EVERYONE. It also means the font can be reduced as necessary to ensure that the entire message still fits on the single page which will keep the envelope within size and weight limits for first-class postage. Just be aware that a 4-point font is totally illegible to anyone whose eyes have been on this earth for more than 4 decades.

Once your letter of exciting news, brilliant witticisms, and the requisite out-of-focus family snapshot taken during the summer vacation at the lake is ready to go you have to select the correct card to stick it in. As when crossing a minefield, one must tread very carefully in this regard. There are 3 distinct types of Christmas card out there – religious, secular and humorous, to be sent to religious, secular and odd friends. And you should never – NEVER – mix them up. A Christmas card with Vixen in a thong doing a pole dance while being cheered on by Rudolph and a bunch of drunken elves should never be sent to the Pastor, for example. It’s not that your Pastor is this dour person with no sense of humour; it’s just that humorous religious cards are simply not to be had. Which is a bit odd, really, as one would think 3 dudes showing up on camels, carrying something called Myrrh and calling themselves Maggie would have all sorts of comedic possibilities. But alas religion and humour remain mutually exclusive, so it’s angels and ginormous stars and baby Jesuses in mangers with biblical quotes for the religious sect. Everyone else gets a laugh, a cartoon of Santa in a compromising position, and a Happy Holidays greeting.

So you’re done, right? Just throw them in the mail and you can go back to watching Charlie Brown’s Christmas or Vixen doing her pole dance ... wow it's amazing what you can find on cable these days ... er, sorry, lost focus there for a moment. Yeah. Mail. Well not quite, because now the game of Christmas chicken begins. Everyone has people on their Christmas card list who they don’t really want to send a card to, and who they suspect feel the same way towards them. But you don’t want to be the first to break with tradition so you delay sending them a card until (if) one from them arrives in your mailbox. When it does, you quickly toss a reply card in the outgoing mail as if you intended to all along. And because Canada Post can take anywhere from 2 days to 2 weeks to deliver, they will never know with certainty that the cards didn’t simply cross in the mail, thus extending for at least one more year the period during which folks you don’t really care about that much still feel an obligation to send you a Christmas card or else suffer the humiliation of being first to break the chain.

By the way, this is similar to the technique to be used when a card arrives from your Aunt Mabel who you hadn’t heard from for 12 years and assumed was dead but was really just chillin’ with some trucker in a trailer park in Tennessee and has now decided it’s time to renew family acquaintances in the hope that someone has a spare room. On second thought, in that case it’s probably best to let Aunt Mabel think you’re the dead one. But you get the point, which is always keep a few extra cards around for the last minute panic mailing that’s sure to occur right up to the big day itself. Besides they'll still be good next year.

Yup, sending out the Christmas cards is one of those traditions that help us celebrate this most joyous occasion. I wouldn’t miss it for anything, but why can’t it wait until tomorrow?

Sarah Palin pranked

Methinks someone needs better telephone screening.

The Party

I was re-watching Peter Sellers' The Party last night (one of my favourite Peter Sellers flicks)and it occured to me that the opening bugle scene is a perfect metaphor for the health of my pension fund over the past 10 years or so. First it struggled through the the tech meltdown in 2000. Just when it was starting to recover from that, 9/11 hit. Got through that, painfully. Then it was nuked by Flim-Flam Flaherty's Income Trust backtracking. Nearly recovered from that just in time for the sub-prime fiasco. And now the market meltdown with its daily swings - usually 10% down but only 5% up. Being a good little investor I still follow my broker's guidance to hang in there, but the repeated blows are taking a heavy toll and I'm beginning to feel a little a lot like Sellers' character in that opening scene.

Regardless, The Party is a classic and, all metaphors aside, good escape for 90 minutes or so from all the goings on in the real world where, unfortunately, you can't just jump up and wash out the fake blood stains.

Sarah Palin and Michigan explained

It's all coming clear.

This story might go a long way to explaining why Sarah Palin felt so strongly about visiting Michigan. Clearly this whole witchcraft thing needs to be dealt with immediately, don'cha know? There are teachers to fire, and books to ban, and religious nutbars who need legal assistance.

Yup, fer sure.

We are truly sorry....

Apparently Sarah Palin has Canadian ancestry, so....

Dear Steve:

While you are apologising (sort of) to the arts community for your misguided Bill C-10 which you now say you didn't really mean, and to Canadians for your ill-advised and callous remarks today about the stock market crash creating a "buying opportunity", perhaps you could also shed a tear or two for our American friends and apologize to them for Ms. Palin, aka Mooselini, aka Caribou Barbie, aka The Pitbull in Lipstick, aka The Alaska Maverick, aka.... well, you get the point.

You now have but 6 days left in which to present the US with a formal apology on behalf of all Canadians for this historical wrong of truly monumental proportions.

And the way I figure it, you're pretty much wasting your time from here on in given that Canadians seem to be finally figuring out that when your lips move you're lying, so why not use that time productively and try to save Canada-US relations. Gosh durn it, it's the right thing to do don'cha know?

(Signed) A concerned citizen.