Carbon Dating Service

From CBC Radio 3's Bucky Awards

Best new band name: Carbon Dating Service

Website: www.myspace.com/carbondatingservice
Download: Carbon Dating Service - 2006 Press Kit

Things that go click in the night

An acquaintance is grappling with a mystery. Her television frequently turns on by itself in the middle of the night. Prime theories to explain this odd phenomenon:

1) The TV was manufactured on a Monday
2) North Korea's Kim Jong Il is beaming electromagnetic waves at North America to mess with our minds and our home appliances
3) Gnomes
4) People are wandering around on the sidewalk with remote controls, randomly zapping away
5) The TV, unable to start a blog, has found another way of expressing itself

Publog Research: Café Paradiso

Based on fieldwork by the Independent Observer, Agatha, AODWF (Aggie's Off-Duty Waiter Friend), Coyote, and the Research Director, on 23 December 2006:

The Pluses (or things we'd rip off wholesale our spot)

• Garage door windows that can be opened onto the street in fine weather (They were closed when we were there...) ;
• Funky future-deco curved ceiling and wall details;
• Nifty light fixtures that looked like little Sputnik satellites, that 4th Dwarf would've liked a lot if he'd been there;
  
• A well-handled fusion menu (Butternut Squash Chili and Apricot and Chorizo Stuffed Chicken Supreme were sampled and judged excellent);
  
• A superior live jazz trio playing selections by Vince Guaraldi;
  
• Service that blended attentiveness and efficiency without becoming presumptuously chummy (We believe waiter-waitee relationships desirable, but best when cultivated over time);
  
• Enough beautiful/handsome/rich patrons to create an exclusive atmosphere.
  

The Minuses (or things we should avoid)

• No convenient watering dish for thirsty dogs at the entrance;
• A waiter who was shocked (Shocked!) to discover that the Paradiso in fact sold pitchers of draught beer -- although he did manage to unearth a clean pitcher and serve it up, once informed that this was the case;
• A decided lack of solo French fry or potato wedge items on the menu, although these could be had with main dishes. AODWF also noted the absence of an intriguingly exotic comestible he called 'deluxe poutine' (don't ask);
• Portion sizes that certain circumferentially-enhanced, low-altitude, high-attitude ESI members would have considered most disappointing, had they been in attendance, and;
• Atmosphere perhaps a little too upmarket and exclusive for ESIs and their usual circle.

These work against it being a regular hangout for our target market, although it's certainly a nice place to dress up for and visit occasionally. Assuming, of course, that you're not wearing permanent fur already.

Publog Research: 4th Ave Wine Bar

Based on fieldwork by Coyote, 4D, the Chair, Audrey, Conchie, the Research Director, Painted Stick and Aggie on 19 December 2006:

The Pluses (or things we should try to copy in our spot)

• Huge fish tank;
• Excellent red wine; and
  
• Full-size robot sculpture made of junk (at least I think it's a sculpture and not just a robot that's been switched off).
  

The Minuses (or things we should avoid)

• Diabolically uncomfortable bar stools;
• $ 5 for a tiny plate of spindly little fries that arrive without salt (instead of a large basket of big potato wedges);
• Waiter takes one person's drink order, ignores others with empty glasses, (and is apparently anti-dwarfistic); and
• A croque-monsieur with fries (spindly little ones) and a salad takes an hour to make.
  

Publog Research: The Parliamentary Restaurant

Based on fieldwork by the IO, Coyote, 4D, Audrey and the Amazon on 19 December 2006:

The Pluses (or things we should try to copy in our spot)

• Put all guests through metal detector and x-ray their belongings to give them confidence in their safety and a heightened sense of exclusivity;
• Gold crest on all china;
• Great view of Ottawa River, Parliament Buildings, etc.;
• Strong possibility of seeing famous people;
• Big selection of desserts;
• Friendly service; and
• When seating people in remote corner with no view of celebrities, tell them "this is the Prime Minister's corner but it's yours today".

The Minuses (or things we should avoid)

• Staff should know whether diet ginger ale is available or not; and
• People with empty coffee cups should be offered refills.

[See: Business Case for the Brilliant Idea]

I was spifflicated, okay?

'Twas the week before Yuletide, and all round the wharf
Not a creature was stirring, not one hyper dwarf
Though his britches were hung from the bowsprit with care
In hopes NASA'd mistakenly crash a shuttle in there

Meanwhile, down fathoms beneath the ship's keel
Conch Shell was saving the world with great zeal
Using ploys and devices considered quite salty
Though no one could argue the outcome was faulty

And The Chair was reclined beneath fresh Naugahyde
For which dozens of innocent Naugas had died
While visions of choo choo trains danced through his slats
City councillors abandoned the O-Train like rats

The IO was polishing personas in his lair
The Don Cherry one wore a plaid-laden glare
That sputtered and stuttered against the formalities
Ya gotta love a hard checker with multiple personalities

The coyote had chronicled it all in bad doggerel
(Something to do with overproof rum and egg noggerel)
When what to his unfocussed eye should appear
But a Mini full of chinchillas, and a cat dressed as reindeer

"They're fake antlers," said Aggie, "And I'll see you later
I'm off for a fling with a much-younger waiter,
And while I'm not certain it'll qualify as intimate,
I can say without doubt that I'm totally into it."

By now all our readers were dazed and confused:
"Hey, wasn't this metablog about that nice young Fifth Muse?"
But Agatha clarified as she jumped on a bus
"Merry Christmas to her -- but it's all about us!!"

...and from somewhere close by, but concealed from sight
Harmony hummed a few bars of O Holy Night...

Newsflash: Conch Shell and Aggie's Brilliant Idea!

Conch Shell and I went to the "Regular Place" (also known as "the usual spot"), and it was too busy, yet again. We realized that Ottawa needs another "regular place". In fact, Ottawa needs the Irregulars PUBLOG. It's more than a pub, more than a blog; it's a lifestyle. You heard it first here, folks.

I faxed the business proposal (that we hashed out last night) to the Chair this afternoon, and we hope he will make a powerpoint presentation laying out some features of the plan. An Emergency Meeting may be called, so do stay tuned.

Ottawa Transit Plan B's

So it looks like Ottawa’s transit plan is about to be de-railed. Anyway, if it looks like Mayor Lex Luthor and his posse are about to fully capitulate on the whole idea of public transit, I offer the following plan B’s for consideration.

Idea#1 – Very, very, very-light rail



Did any of you ever visit Upper Canada Village as a kid? Or maybe even as an adult? It seems every year of my life between grade 2 and grade 7, our annual school trip took us to that wonderful pioneer world just off the banks of the St. Lawrence River. I hated it, of course. At the time, I wasn’t into history and found it all very boring. But the cool thing was the miniature train. I’m sure it doesn’t cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build. Once the Feds and the province back out, it may be all we can afford. On the plus side, I imagine we can build enough track to cover all major coordinates on the compass. Imagine taking the North by Northeast Line and transferring to the West by Southwest line to get from Vanier to the Airport. Cool. Of course, we would have to have mandatory tunnels on all lines to appease the coolness factor for the kids. I imagine most of the materials could be provided from a mini-putt supplier.

Idea#2 -- Everyone Loves a Parade

What is the only fun one can have while driving at 5 mph? Answer: when it’s a parade. Under this scheme we don’t do anything to the road infrastructure. Instead, the Queensway commute officially becomes a parade 5 days a week (and anytime there is a Senators home game). I’m pretty sure we can hire those Shriner guys with the go-carts for a song, and Max Keeping is probably good for a couple of shifts a week as parade marshal. Throw in a brass band and some bag-pipers and we’re all set. The Pride-Week commute alone could make it all very entertaining and enjoyable.

Idea#3 -- Return the Rideau Canal to its roots

Before pleasure boaters and skaters monopolized that swath of waterway that cuts through the city, the canal’s main purpose was for transportation (namely to by-pass hostile American waters of Loyalist times). Why not resurrect this function? I like the idea of a high-speed hydrofoil connecting the Rideau Centre to Carleton University, but that’s mostly for the selfish desire that we get a James Bond film shoot in town someday. That said, this whole scheme could be completely self-financing with the tourism spin-offs. First, we would have to dismantle the NCC seeing that they would never support anything so fun. And maybe send Randall Denley on a sabbatical. Wow. This would solve several problems in this town.

Just some ideas, City Hall, in case you're too busy figuring out how to spend your big fat raises on Christmas presents, instead of trying to run a municipality.

Some Canadian Jokes to Lighten the Mood

I ended up getting books for the little ones (the illiterate bastards). There were not enough monster mittens for everyone. Since one of my wee nephews lives in Essex, I decided to educate him about Canada by giving him a book entitled 101 Cool Canadian Jokes by Erin O'Connor.

Here are a few highlights from the collection:

Knock,knock!
Who's there?
Caribou!
Caribou who?
Don't cry--it's only a joke!

What do pigs clean the ice with?
A Hamboni.

What do you get when you cross a great hockey player and a plumber?
Drain Gretzky.

What's smelly, green and gross and works on Parliament Hill?
The slime minister!

Yes, they are lame little jokes...

Required reading

Don't despair, fellow ESIs. We all should take a deep co-dependent breath and avoid a needless slide into a destructive shame spiral. I urge you to read this pamphlet distributed by the good people at The Nonist. It will cure our collective e-ennui.

Why are the ESIs not blogging?

Is it because....

1) They miss Musie, and refuse to blog until she comments?

2) They are now all busy saving the world?

3) They are suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder and don't even have the mental energy to blog?

4) They are all out buying monster mittens for their loved ones?

5) They are all having a party that I haven't been invited to -- perhaps on a boat that got lost at sea?

Christmas shopping strategy

My Christmas shopping strategy is simple: get everyone the same thing. Do not enter more than one store, or even one on-line shop.
This year is the year of monster mittens shown above. Last year, I entered one bookstore and got everyone books. The little ones informed me that books are boring. So, this year the little illiterate bastards will get monster mittens.

Delusions of reindeer

Up-front disclaimer: I like Christmas. As a coyote with a walk-on part in another pantheon myself, I also fully approve of, and support, Diwali, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, Hanukkah, Sun Dances, Nirvana Day and Ukrainian Christmas. In fact, any open and joyous celebrations of the cosmic oom that haven't been co-opted by politicos or retailers.

Politicizing of religion, or vice versa, is a weighty topic for another time and place. What I'm on about here is Christmas Muzak. Trite and overdone, I know, but anything to help keep the Short Guy's butt from dragging, what with all his unassisted effort posting over the past week. Especially considering the size of his butt, and how close it is to the ground, already. I digress.

In a store last week, I noted with alarm that consumer traffic was way up, its awareness of its surroundings was way down, and supplies of the really good cheap bittersweet chocolate were non-existent. All while I tried to avoid gettin' my tail stomped. Not pretty. But the capper was the shitty 'seasonal' muzak, all crap when it was issued, and completely unimproved by age. Or overplaying. I mean, in this setting, if there's gonna be any pained yowling goin' on, it should be mine.

The Petfinder recently published an article stating that retail surveys show that piping in unending seasonal music beginning in October or so, boosts sales. Gotta love those surveyors.

My trite objection: Retailers never play the better hymns or carols. There's good seasonal pop, too, but nooooo. Might remind people of the true nature of of the holiday, blah blah blah and they don't want that. They go instead for the scummy dregs of recent popular Christmas music, played by the scummy dregs of cover bands, knowing full well that the jackhammer effects of The Little Drummer Boy, Holly Jolly Christmas, Rockin' round the Christmas Tree and, dog help us, any random track from the Boney M. Christmas Album, ad nausæum, puree customers' brains to the point where they'll buy anything. It is useless to resist. Ka-Chinggggg!

Okay, I'll make one (trite) exception. Snoopy's Christmas by the Royal Guardsmen, 'cuz it's about a dog. And the harmonies are terrific. Now, excuse me. I need to go bite a retail surveyor. Or a retailer.

Interesting Links

How to fight with other bloggers
DIGESTIVE TABLE by Amy Young
the Bad Sex Award Blood Scarf
Ottawa is 6th Angriest City: We Feel Fine

Asteroidea questions for the ESIs

Over at Asteroidea Press, Megan and Coyote are having an interesting discussion about blogging. Megan asks:

How blogging fits into my writing; how it's changed me; and the nature of the blogging community are all things that are currently vexing me. Maybe you ESIs need to have a meeting and come up with something entertaining to counterpoint my eventual blather.

After some blather from Coyote in which he disavows knowledge of a blogging community, (seriously, he does) Megan asks more questions:

Were all you ESIs friends before the blog started? Are you better friends now? Different friends? Think of new live relationships, new e-relationships, or old acquaintances that have developed into something different because we're all putting our words out there. That's community, no?

If I was engaged in an intimacy challenge, I might try to answer these questions.

p.s. Megan also did an excellent job of describing a phenomenon she dubbed "blog-brain".

p.p.s. Before I get a citation, I want the Content Review Task Force to know that I realize I am in flagrant violation of Guideline A(4). With Aggie on her intimacy challenge, Coyote off chatting up the cuties, and everybody else apparently too busy shagging to post, it's left to me.