Ahem...

Apparently, I have unwittingly made LOLCats. Sittin' on a bus. Oh, the multiple (delicious) layers of irony, here...

Now, 'scuze me, I gotta call Actors Equity about my royalty cheque.


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Google Poem: Asking Too Much?

* is it too much to ask that the same co-authors stick to a consistent position within a given book?

* Is it too much to ask that Barrasso show enough courage to tell supporters that they shouldn't pray for deaths of Senators to get their way?

* Is it too much to ask that the people responsible for sending our sons and daughters into harm's way give a moment's thought to their sacrifices before whining about being inconvenienced for a few days?

* Is it too much to ask that religious-right leaders stop talking about matters of faith in terms of violence and war — even as the United States is engaged in a real war with violent religious extremists?

* I mean, is it too much to ask that someone out there is on our side, and that that someone could at least be the people who we have bought our tobacco from all these years?

* is it too much to ask that these overtly ardent couples find more private tables?

* Is It Too Much to Ask That Sex Offenders Don't Have Sex In Public Parks?

* Is it too much to ask that for the duration of the baseball calendar that a guy you are paying millions to, I don't know, focus on PLAYING F-ING BASEBALL?

* Is it too much to ask that my kids keep to a few minimum standards around the house? Is it too much to ask that they feed the animals THEY wanted? Is it too much to ask that they try to keep their fighting to a minimum...

* Is it too much to ask that liberals understand that a person usually has more depth and character than portrayed in the media?

* Given the fact that the Bondy production is traveling to Munich and La Scala (unless the intendants saw the HD transmission and canceled the transfer), is it too much to ask that the production be revised?

* I was just wondering... is it too much to ask that my children put these horns on their heads, hug each other, and smile in my direction?!

[search string]

Feeling Funked Up

The past couple of weeks have not been happy ones for coyotes. After a series of events that would confound even the most optimistic contrarian among us, we have been reduced to sitting in the dark, sucking our frozen paws in what might be considered an anguished funk.

Why am I so depressed? I mean!

City buses are running around with HO HO HO on their route signs so they can whiz by you in the freezing dark, a topic Shorty has already raised in some detail.

The mayor, as some appalling cynic infamously predicted, now mistakes his erstwhile legal acquittal as a resounding endorsement of his term in office. Worse, he is flying trial balloons about running again, now that he's nearly finished his error-ridden first term of egregious cluelessness.

The current federal government's unprecedentedly aggressive campaign to prove that it can out-yell, out-lie, and out-sleaze all previous comers continues unabated. If possible, with a side-dish of fatally hobbled democracy.

Stephen Harper's Canada increasingly is being revealed as a wannabe-autocracy that only serves people who have the same shamefully narrow world view as he. The fact that people who think like him are still (Yay!)in a minority does not stop him from pulling Bush-administration-style dirty tricks, so he can pretend.

The prime minister has also heartily approved of the non-binding sorta-not-quite-agreement on global warming mitigation that came out of Copenhagen, which to thinking coyotes everywhere is pretty much a dead-certain sign -- emphasis on the 'dead' -- that the deal sucks for this small blue planet we share.

All of this relates to people elected by far less than a majority of the franchised voters, in each case. Weakening democratic underpinnings effectively gives control to people who are not necessarily entitled. And makes coyotes froth at the mouth. Not rabies! Just the soap I use to wash out my mouth after reading and commenting on what I see in the morning papers.

The increasing loss of daylight through December has really been the last straw. We semimythical coyotes get Seasonal Affective Disorder, too, people! So: get out there and celebrate the passing of the Winter Solstice. Days are getting longer again. And about bloody time. And start thinking again about the things that make democracy work. Like voting when there's an election. It's also about bloody time...

Image: Arctic solstice, by Eric Hoogstraten at Cambridge Bay Blog, Victoria Island, Nunavut

OC Transpo: Enough with the HO HO HO

Dear OC Transpo,

I am writing today to ask your drivers to go back to using the "Hors Service" display when they are driving an out-of-service bus.

When it is -19 and I have been waiting 15 minutes for a 14 Carlington and I finally see a bus coming, but it does not say "14 Carlington" on the front but instead says "HO HO HO - Merry Christmas", I am not filled with the gladness of the season. Instead I am filled with an emotion that leads me to say "Merry f-ing Christmas, to you too, OC Transpo."

Sincerely,
Fourth Dwarf

p.s. As an alternative to "Hors Service", I am also fine with "Ottawa Senators" because I don't much care for them anyway.

The lie of the land

Memo to Defence Minister Peter MacKay RE: Afghan torture

Sirrah:
You're still a wanker. But it appears that you're evolving into a more morally reprehensible one.

It pains nobody more than us to admit that, when you assert that you know nothing, you are not actually telling the truth. Because we'd really like to believe it. And god knows, you and your colleagues in the current caucus pretty much demonstrate, often and with vigour, that you truly do know nothing most of the time.

Unfortunately, in the matter of what you, personally, knew about the army handing Afghan detainees over for torture, as with many other assertions of moral superiority that your government has made in the past year or two, the fat is in the fire. The cat is out of the bag. The jig is up.

For future reference, ya might want to take careful notes on what I'm about to say. This definitely will be on the exam. Soon, I hope:

For politicians such as yourself - that is, a guy who lied his face off to get himself elected head of the former Conservative party, so he could hand it over to his current NeoCon lord and master to co-opt - plausible denial only really ever works, and usually only a teensy bit even then, when it's, ummm, plausible.

Plausibility vanishes whenever you open your mouth. Is that clear enough? Even for you?

Because at the moment, you're only twistin' in the wind, feeding extra oxygen to the kinds of flames that, sooner or later, will fry even those banned Quebec asbestos underpants that you guys persist in trying to flog to the Third World...

Nature speaks to PM on climate change?

Last night, we coyotes hunkered down in our La-Z-Dogs to TV news reports of a big-mother blizzard in our old stomping grounds.

Soon after, a semimythical puppyhood friend with whom I used to tear up the occasional poultry coop - just youthful hijinks, y'understand - sent along this shot from the local Doppler, saying, "If a random image of Jesus on a pizza can awe and inspire people, I figure a death's head can appear on weather radar by the same token. The prognosis is for blizzard conditions later tonight. But I'd have called this a blizzard 4 hours ago. Spooky."

The accompanying legend doesn't make it look like much snow, but keep in mind that this was just the buildup. And that it is in the nature of the place that, inevitably, a helluva wind came with it.

Being who we are, and of a semimythical, partly-animistic bent, we couldn't help but wonder, what with the Copenhagen world conference looming, if maybe, maybe, Ma Nature was sending a big-mother memo to id(iot)eologically-blind PMs with southwest Calgary ridings? Who think climate change is a 'socialist plot'....? Say, about fatally-misguided policies that support stripmining the Alberta tarsands, and damn all ecological consequences for living creatures?

Because, well, the death's head is centered directly over those particular PM's southwest Calgary ridings. I'm just sayin'.

Travelling incognito

Upon arriving at the airport in Bridgetown, Barbados, I noticed a sign informing visitors that camouflage is banned on the island.

I have concluded the reason must be one of the following:

1. The people of Barbados fear takeover by a camouflage-clad army of insurgents.
2. The country is populated by fervent hunters who may mistakenly shoot tourists disguised in camouflage.
3. Barbados has taken a firm stand against what is perhaps the most objectionable fashion trend of the decade.

Last gasp for downtown gas

Coyotes only drive in emergencies. But we did note with a twinge of passing-of-an-era melancholy that the last gas station in the downtown precinct proper was shuttered a week or so back, at Metcalfe and O'Connor.

The building was boarded, whitewashed, and corporate identities rapidly sanitized to erase all visual clues to the former proprietors' identity. A plethora of big ugly concrete blocks now bars pirate parkers. Since the corporation in question is so obviously deeply ashamed of what went on there, we will respect its circumspection, and discretely state only that their name rhymed with, ummm, "Shell".

I know hair-splitters are at this moment, thinking, "Oh yeah? Aren't there self-serves on Gladstone? And Catherine? Uh-huh. But they're all across Gladstone from downtown, and that's where I draw the line. My post, my rules. Brrrraaaapppp!!! I digress.

It's just another very late chapter in the story of the migration from downtown of actual services and businesses that actually make life work for actual live people. Lotsa bureaucracy, coffee and snacks, but heaven forbid you should want to gas your Vespa (or Buick) without driving halfway to the freakin' 'burbs. Let's not even start on free air. This gas station was perhaps one of the city's last petrol purveyors with a free air hose for all and sundry. (I think cyclists may have liked the place.) Or in another, less fresh but still rankling example, hit a Canadian Tire on your civil-servant lunch hour for a few hardware needs. Gone, gone and gone.

Downtowns need to be livable for cities to work. Even dysfunctional city councils at least claim to understand that. It's why they talk about urban intensification, and push big downtown condo developments in city plans.

Trouble is, the people who buy those condos have to drive to the suburbs to buy nearly anything other than take-out. The everyday businesses that that help make places really livable? Like, not offices, office suppliers, cafes, bars, or tchotchke merchants? They seem to be getting the hell out of Dodge. And leaving Dodge propped up on big ugly concrete blocks with the wheels off...

Free Cheese Magazine

Tired of reading about cheese on the internet? You can get a free copy of the winter issue of All You Need is Cheese mailed to your house by clicking on this link. I think it also gives you a subscription to subsequent issues.

[Just the thing for any one out there who belongs to a post-modern wankfest performance art group.]

Shocker.... mayor hires new mouthpieces.

This morning's local news has informed us coyotes that City Hall last night fired a PR guy. While hardly causing us to spew hot Ethiopian Yirgacheffe at the monitor, it did prompt eye rolls and longing thoughts of stirring in something a tad stronger than half 'n half.

The firing was nuthin' surprising in itself.

Since the last election, appointed staffers within throttling distance of the mayor's office have been, pretty much, reluctant temps. Terms vary, but a remarkable number have been scragged and hoofed out the high-speed revolving door down there, possibly for their curious inability to articulate our Beloved Leader's, ummm, belovedness to the masses.

No, what made our furry forehead wrinkle was the new hires in Fired Guy's place. Forgot his name already... can't keep track anymore. Sorry! I digress...

Anyway, they are (ex) print reporters Patrick Dare and Derek Puddicombe, very recently late of the Petfinder's and the Stun's respective city hall bureaux. Oh, and Chris Day, lately the press secretary for federal minister John Baird's Tory-to-its-roots hair. And possibly the hair of Baird's famously late ex-cat...

I expect that in an ill-lit corner at City Hall, an elected official of less than total competence and far less than total hirsuteness may be congratulating hisself on his self-diagnosed genius in suborning two local newspaper scribes, and buying stronger ties to federal conservatives. At least until he fires them all. Very soon, when he rediscovers that the public still thinks he's unlovable. But right now, I bet he's thinkin' he's finally bought the right mouthpieces for a clear re-election shot.

Both former journos, being who they are, have probably done their due diligence. Even knowing what they're getting into, they must've calculated that job security with Larry still trumps that at the shaky newspaper conglomerates that employed them, Canwest Global and Quebecor. Good, ummm, luck with that.

And maybe they can turn things around in time for the next election. Or maybe, just maybe, the mayor will continue to do things as he has, and we will finally get to vote him into a job for which he's temperamentally and intellectually more suited. Something in the private sector. Although personally, given his record of success in office, dog catcher would suit me just fine...

Cheerup: NaBloPoMo and NaNoWriMo are almost over

November is the dreariest month. For metabloggers. Because it is both the month that many bloggers pledge to post every day and the month that many commit to writing a 50,000 word novel.

The sky darkens earlier every night and the blogs we follow are filled with whining about word counts and how terrible those words are or we get posts where the author confesses to having nothing to say but then types in several screens worth of Facebook status updates.

But with all this dreariness, I am still optimistic that along with the solstice and lengthening days, December and the holiday season will will bring us the family dysfunction and morality rants that will make reading blogs fun again.

Sand, surf and Cedric

Sometimes I am guilty of judging a gnome by his coveralls. Who woulda thunk that Cedric would have a most delightful time in Barbados?

Just because he's hundreds of years old, has a rather complex facial-hair schema and insists on wearing his little pointy hat at all times, doesn't mean he's not a surfer dude at heart.

Cedric frolicked with sea turtles, knocked back lime-flavoured rum dacquiris and gnawed on coconut, straight from (inside) the shell.

His only unfortunate encounter involved that bottle of Bajan hot sauce I happened to leave open. He will never mistake the stuff for maple syrup again. I really must teach him to read.

Look up. Wa-a-a-a-a-a-ay up.

Something we coyotes notice about many Ottawa residents is that they don't seem to look up much. We do, because we're just like that. It's survival instinct. Ya never know when one of them crows is gonna swoop in and try to swipe your bag lunch.

Anyway, this being the nation's capital, when we're swivelling our heads around, we often see stuff that you rarely see in other places, apparently unnoticed by everyone around us.

Things like a whole team of guys in black helmets and jumpsuits, from who knows what tactical team and who knows what paramilitary/military outfit, casually rappelling down the side of the Westin Hotel on a sunny November afternoon. Taking lotsa pictures of themselves doing it, presumably for their Top Sekrit Taktical Skrapbooks...






...so I took some for my Top Sekrit Taktical Skrapbook too. We coyotes are just like that.

OC Transpo and the Strollers

On Wednesday, the City of Ottawa's Transit Committee will be asked to consider OC Transpo's report on a new policy for the seats at the front of the bus that used to be called Courtesy Seating and are now called Priority Seating.

The report is called Priority Seating - Managing the Front of the Bus. First of all, they're going to rename the seats at the front to "Co-operative seating". If people who should give up their seats don't they can still be charged with an offence under s. 18(2) of the OC Transpo by-law, but that will be a last resort.

The "co-operative" versus "priority" seating isn't why this is going to Council. The real controversy is with the strollers. On the list of stupid things people in Ottawa get worked up over, big strollers clogging the front of buses is right up there with the use of lawn chairs at Blues Fest.

The problem for OC Transpo was that dealing with strollers was left to the discretion of the drivers. This led to the unfortunate baby-napping incident of 2008. Now this will never have to occur again because the new policy has detailed criteria for baby buggies. It starts off with:

An open stroller occupied by a child will be allowed on the bus if:

1. It is capable of being folded
2. It is capable of being safely stowed
3. It will not interfere with other passengers or with the safe movement of passengers within the transit vehicle; and
4. It can be wheeled, or (when folded) carried, through the aisle without contacting the seats.

The policy carries on with wheelchair priority, and what to do with double strollers. Although I've never tried to navigate the City with a stroller it all seems to make good sense to me. Still I have to say that their plan on what to do with the strollers that can't go inside the buses caught me by surprise. Rack'n'Stroll is the sort of innovative thinking that we don't often see in this town.

Update: Looks like City Council didn't go for the new plan.

She's a soul (sole?) woman

Overheard at Hartman's IGA:

Young woman to clerk: "Can I get 100 grams of soul, please?"

I did not stick around long enough to find out if she was trying to divine the spirit of James Brown, or merely had a hankering for a certain kind of fish.

Now, in the movie 21 Grams, one's soul was said to weigh the amount reflected in the title.

That would leave our shopper just short of five full souls.

This just in...

John Baird's cat dies. I had nothing to do with it, honest. But unlike most cats of my acquaintance, it was pretty much the exact opposite of delicious. I suspect environmental factors...

UPDATE: And Billy Bragg is my hero...

Cue the evil lighting...

An elliptical voicemail led me late last night to the doorstep of Mister Sloppy's evil world domination HQ in Centretown. After I buzzed the intercom and the reinforced door silently swung open, I let myself into the computer room. There, Mister Sloppy looked ineffably smug.

"Oh, hi, Slop! You called?" I said.

"Indeed. I brought you a gift from my trip."

He pushed a small corrugated carton toward me. One heady sniff and I opened it. Two dozen extremely fresh bars of Cailler Ultrafine Dark. None of that Tobler crap... Mister Sloppy's taste in gifts is legendary.

"Thank you!" I said gratefully. "And how was the vacation?"

"It was... very fine," he said. "Ate great ice cream. Sailed a private yacht on Lake Geneva. Took an excellent Swiss train to visit the Large Hadron Collider..."

"And how did that go?" I asked, an alarm ringing faintly in the back of my mind.

"It's working again, isn't it?" purred Mister Sloppy, fixing me meaningfully with a bright blue eye. "And good thing, too. I'm gonna be needing it."

"Eep! So you're still on the world domination thing?

"Does the mayor think he's finally a real civic leader because he hung out with Prince Chuck and John Baird's hair for a photo-op? I'm all over it!"

"Ummm. Oh. Look at that! It's bedtime for little coyotes. Thanks for the chockies. Gotta go! " I yelled over my shoulder.

"Oh, I know." Mister Sloppy's voice followed me out the door. "But you'll be back... I have more chocolate."

Fiend.

why am i riffing on fourth dwarf's gig

First 10 menu pulldown choices upon entering the word "why" into Google:

why is the sky blue

why do men have nipples

whyville

why do cats purr

why men cheat

why do dogs eat grass

why did the chicken cross the road

why is there a dead pakistani on my couch

why did michael jackson turn white

why am i so tired

Finally, a sprinkling of public art

Ottawa's new watering can sculpture at the corner of Kent and Slater streets. Perhaps the can should be filled with vinegar given the nearby chipwagon.

PuBlog - Heartattack and Frank(s)

Fieldwork at the Elgin Street Diner, by Aggie, Woodsy, 4th Dwarf, and Coyote.

Pluses (Concepts to Steal)

• Big booths with comfy seating!
• A congenial view of Elgin Street, centre of the known universe;
• Beer on tap;
• ALL! KINDS! OF! POUTINE! They even have a dedicated section in the menu.

Minuses (Things to Avoid)

• Not so much space under the booth for illicit doggie types who were smuggled into the diner in backpacks and didn't want big trouble with health inspectors. They got kicked. I don't think anybody did it on purpose. Well, maybe that Dwarf. But he's such a shortass, he couldn't really reach me.
• The view of Elgin Street was kind of lost on those of us hiding under the table. Although the others were kind enough to describe what I was missing, and suggest that it was too bad I couldn't stick my head out to look, because the cat parade was really something;
• The beer on tap was domestic. Not microbrew. Selection, according to the Dwarf, was in the tradition of Canadian major brewers: thin, and kinda undistinguished;
• Poutine may just be the single most lethal food known to humanity Or caninity.

Background:
Longtime ESI readers probably suspect (correctly) that by now we've left enough loose ends strewn in our narrative wake to stock a world-class hair extension factory. PuBlog research is one such thread. It's about touring city eateries, baldfacedly swiping their best ideas, pewpewing their worst, and using the intel thus gained to start our own pub best damn pub in the world.

We recorded our last true PuBlog post even before the Dwarf started cooking up his Revolutionary New Dating Paradigm. You'll notice, if ennui hasn't knocked you out yet, that he's been on it for nearly two years and 30 posts. It still ain't baked. Sadly, neither is the ESI pub. But we persevere. And I dogress.

Summary:
We who orbit Woodsy and Aggie know all too well that, despite deceptively delicate demeanours, either is at any moment fully capable of inducing heart attacks in the unsuspecting, for all sorts of risque reasons. But I have never before witnessed 'em scarfing heart attacks on plates...

Dog-tired and starved after a full, lunchless day of full-bore Hallowe'en costuming, Woodsy dove straight for the four-cheese poutine. Amid heated speculation about which four cheeses, exactly, were involved, Woodsy double-dog-dared Agatha to order the same thing. Aggie, her blood glucose levels not so deficient that she couldn't rouse a mild fit of oppositional defiance, ordered chili poutine instead. The Short Guy, pursuing the best of all possible worlds, had a brace of chili-cheese dogs with fries. Nobody heard me ask for catburger from under the table, but all three slipped me fries off their plates to make up for it. Well, okay, the Dwarf tried to pelt me with his. But I am talented. I caught 'em and ate 'em. Thank you, Short Guy!

Conclusion:
Puh-lease. Exhaustion? Mega calories? Empty stomachs? Instant snooze-out. Everybody sloped off for post-prandial naps. At 6:30 on a Saturday night. Jeez, we're dull! Aggie said something about feeling really full and a little ill. But she still gave me a ride home. And let me stick my head out the car window and hang my tongue in the wind on the way. She indulges me. And maybe over-indulged herself...

We're going to be famous

Because Zoom is writing a novel about us:

a dark romantic thriller about online dating, self-betrayal, hidden blogs, horrifying secrets, and a clash of precariously balanced personality disorders. It’s set in that place where love and hate masquerade as each other, and where you can’t trust anybody – not even yourself – because nothing is as it appears

I might take the week off

Because em on Knitting is My Boyfriend wrote a darn fine Google Poem.

An irrelevant paws

These are the grey days that try a semimythical coyote's soul. I have many reasons why this is so. Sadly, they are unrelated. So no neat themes or clever segues in this post. Just the usual dogged shagginess. Or shagged dogginess....

1) I have noted that Mr Harpo's personal political party has had a bad week PR-wise, nabbed with their Tory-blue mitts all over the government treasury. And not-so-kosher Conservative Party logos all over the economic stimulation cheques with which they've been stimulating ummm, mainly their own backyards.

The fallback for Tories caught out doing this stuff has become any number of variations on, "Hey, Liberals did it before we did! This ploy's transparency is the only transparent thing left in Mr Harpo's government.

Some people want to fly with the eagles. Some wanna swim with the dolphins. These guys aspire to dredge beneath the bottom feeders.

I've suggested ad nausaeum already that Mr Harpo's idea of political discussion has narrowed to crudely partisan hype. Which I'm afraid means that his ideal governmental model is (ooh, here it comes, wait for it...) a ummm, hypocracy...

2) Light Rail: The mayor says his new plan is visionary. Well, all righty then. He should know....

3) Lansdowne Live. No. Just no. I refuse to go there.

4) Certain doggies have racked up one or two arthritic joints in the last six millenia, and each autumn the chill in the wind takes a little more getting used to.

So I'll take a brief (heh...) paws to recommend Grace Ottawa on Bank Street as purveyors of the best darned handwarmers in town. They cost a buck and a quarter each, they come pre-heated, they're an ideal size, and the toasty Jamaican glow lasts well beyond the time needed for any crosstown jaunt. (I have no idea what makes 'em so heat-retentive, but those chemical HotShot thingies that Crappy Tire sells got nothing on these babies...) Bonus: they're still hot enough to eat and enjoy after the trip, with or without Caribbean pepper sauce. You may want to consider 'em for the coming Ottawa Zombie Walk or the Sandy Claws Parade. And in the interest of full disclosure I want to say that I hold no financial or fiduciary interest in Grace and that that this celebrity endorsement is completely unsolicited. You're welcome!

5) There is no fifth thing. It's a trope. Deal with it.

Coyote: on the lam (on the lamb, shurely -- ed.)

After recently giving Ottawa's finest the slip, Coyote and a rather comely companion (nothing new for the ol' fox) were spied by an ESI operative motoring about Kingston on the weekend.

The albino disguise, just in time for All Hallows' Eve, wasn't foolin' no one.

Blissfully racking up parking tickets and chowing down on Hasenpfeffer at mouth-watering Chez Piggy,the most semi-mythical of the ESIs proved once again he knows how to roll.

Happy 40th Anniversary...

We of the Elgin Street Irregulars wish to take a moment to thank some of our spiritual forefathers and wish them an extremely happy 40th anniversary. Sure, they're kind of a boomer phenom, and all geezers now, but the partners in this firm find it positively inspirational that the Pythons managed to produce their entire TV series on a budget of about $2.98, or £1 13s 2d, if you remain fluent in the original pounds sterling.

They still cross arbitrary cohort labels to remind the world of a fresher, simpler time, when absurdists could actually make up shit faster than it happened in real life.

It's much harder now. Especially in Ottawa, where reality may never have been much of a prerequisite. Not that we're complaining. The mayor and the PM alone each have contributed enough material to our "for-comment" file to keep us skirting the other side of the outer edges of sanity for years. Possibly longer. And we haven't even begun to harvest the (over)ripe possibilities hidden in John Baird's hair... I, for one, am pretty sure that there's lethal fruit in there somewhere, and I intend to do what it takes to find it.

Happy Ruby Anniversary, Pythons!

Gettin' it? Uh, no

Over a weekend feast of gobbling bird, talk turned to an incessantly played TV commercial for the erectile dysfunction drug Cialis.

You know the one: a man getting ready for work asks his wife a stream of questions: Have you seen my wallet? Have you seen my good shoes?

The man becomes increasingly annoyed, as he appears late and cannot locate any of his things. Finally, he makes his way to the garage to discover his car has a flat tire. His wife sits at the kitchen table in her bathrobe, sporting a quizzical half-smile.

No one at dinner could figure out what was going on in this commercial. Three theories were floated:

(*) One of the side-effects of Cialis is memory loss.
(*) The woman is so tired of being this Cialis-addled man's love slave, she sabotaged all his stuff.
(*) The woman is enjoying her hubby's Cialis-popping ways so much, she never wants him to leave home.

What do you think this ad is about? Or does the company just want us to be confused so random bloggers will ponder all this and inadvertently plug their little yellow pills? Help us out here!

Google Poem: Not that you were planning to, but...

* oh my god Karen, you can't just ask people why they're white.

* you can't just punt.

* No. I'm sorry. But you can't just be so adamant about something, then whoop-de-doo change your mind, oh well, never mind.

* You can't. Just let her do it.

* you can't just say “sexual harassment is just wrong”

* You can't just accept such stories uncritically.

* See, you can't just let me enjoy the moment.

* This means you can't just mail in your keys and say goodbye to the loan

* You can't just spend money if it is not there and teams are wanting a lot of money for players...

* You can't just come in one day on the train and try to influence everything

* once you've seen the second, you can't just stop.

* You can't just run yourself a bath

* you know, you can't just do this in one second.

* You can't just get rid of it by forcing me

* You can't just write random articles on a daily basis.

* You can't just drop your vowels like that and get away with it.

* You can't just bunch a lot of keywords together over and over again, though; search engines generally don't like that, and your page rank will fall.

* if you forget to take the bottle to work, you have to sniffle all day, because you can't just buy another one. And be careful handling the bottle, because if you spill it you can't get a replacement.

* You can't just forget standards--they're there for a reason. Mostly to save guys from waking up next to monsters in the morning.

* You can't just use any old thing like on a resistive screen.

* I know it's tough and you can't just ask someone to simply “Inner Game That Shit” in order to make it go away.

* You can't just go out and buy a personal jet at your local general store.

* I mean, you can't just hire a random fan who sends in an application and then say, “Wow, you've watched every UFC since 1993 and you clearly know your MMA — here's a striped shirt, we'll see you in the cage next Friday.

* And you can't just call in sick because you don't feel like working.

* You can't just turn around, go back down the ladder and quit.

* You're right that you can't just pick a place by reputation.

* You Can't Just Demand to Be Placed on Somebody's Blogroll.

* In order to slay a god, you can't just bring more warriors.

* you can't just walk in and be all hey can i marry your daughter now kthx YOU CAN'T DO THAT

* You can't just plop down like this.

* you can't "just put him down"!

* It isn't rocket scientist, but you can't just toss up any old free “easy to use” blog and consider yourself a future online business success story.

* They're always like, “Now, now, you can't just go scaling back a recipe!” But that's pretty much exactly what I did...

* You can't just shut a farm down...

* You can't just ask for knowledge.

* Understanding that you can't just create money from nothing and then spend it without any negative consequences isn't complicated.

* If you can't just enjoy watching the Greatest Golfer of alltime play this game, then go back to your beer swilling, women chasing redneck 4some and stop bothering the rest of us with your Bullcrap.

* You can't just play your best games and sit out on your weaker games, it's not allowed.

* You can't just sit inside you car and wait for someone to do the task for you.

* You can't just have the will to do it. You've got to have the stuff.

* you can't just have one person take the ball.

* You can't

Life in Wasp-boro

Breaking news from Kitchissippi Times...

Google Street View Comes to Stornoway

The Official Residence of the Leader of the Opposition

(click photo to enlarge)

His and Hers - Part II

I am told that it was not obvious why I suspected that the truck belonged to a man. See for yourself...

p.s. I have a new compulsion - I now look under big trucks to see if they are bulls or steers.

His and Hers

I suspect that this truck belongs to a man,


and that this jeep belongs to a woman.

The poll bounce from his NAC gig seemed like a gift... *

...but the Tory brain trust quickly realized that keeping their robotic client's piano forte front and centre in voters' minds was going to be trickier than it had first seemed... **

* You didn't seriously think we were going to let this one go that easily. Did you?

** It did, however, have certain advantages over "Vote Harper And We'll Burn the Blue Sweater Vest" and "Vote Harper Or The Kitten Gets It".

The Old Dating Paradigm: 1987 Video Dating

Dating Montage
Uploaded by smithy00101.

Quick, spot the yo-yo!

Jokes aside, last night's performance of a classic Beatles tune by the PM makes me wonder why he doesn't put his human, non-mannequin side on display more often.

Image: Prime Minister's Office

Turn, turn, turn

Dimwitted coyote I may be, but there's nothing wrong with my efficiently pointy snout. Lately, the whiffy scent near this burg's sundry halls of power has smelled powerfully like, well, crap.

I keep hearing politicos make these sorts of claims:

• "It's a terrific idea! It died because we didn't explain it right!
• "The public is far too dumb to understood this idea. If they really got it, they'd love it!"
• "Only a vocal minority is against us. The Silent Majority is on our side!"

Et cetera. But is it coincidence that the guy who used that Silent Majority argument most famously was an utter scoundrel...?

Actual, you know, good ideas, seem to be irrelevant. Now, the game is all spin.

Political guys in the last few decades have turned increasingly to spin doctors to help them sell their agendas. Mind numbing repetition, bad propaganda worthy only of tinpot tyrannies, slung mud, outright lies, and stifled democratic debate are all in the toolkit. Screw honest debate in a democracy! The public needs what's good for it, even if it doesn't know what that is. And spin doctors are happy to supply their dubious commodities. It brings in a very nice buck or six.

Problem seems to be that spin doctors by any other name totally drive the bus these days. And, sadly, lotsa politicians', ummm, wonderful ideas are, ummm, unsupported by facts. Or repugnant to the majority, silent and otherwise. Take your pick of recent federal sales jobs. Or city ones. Check the spin. Comfortable?

If you aren't, many politicians apparently are. Bathed in the lush suds of their own spin cycles ever more often, they don't seem to see that, pretty often, the public understands what they're on about just fine. And hates it. Spin may sway people some of the time. It does not, cannot, make shitty ideas brilliant.

The spin technique I spot most often in the public discourse of late is called, I believe, "putting lipstick on a pig". If you've ever gotten close enough to a pig to contemplate putting lipstick on it, ya have an idea of what anybody with that job smells like... and we're all downwind.

Movin' On

Abandoned sign on Gladstone

After Trump's inspirational speech in Ottawa...

...Mayor Larry felt convinced more than ever that his own stand on Lansdowne Park development was quality, pure quality, all the way...

Dear Ottawa: More public art, please

My Vision for the New Lansdowne

I am excited by the mayor's recent invitation for redesigns of Lansdowne Park. The main submission requirements are unorthodox. (To avoid wasting tax dollars?)

"Anyone can draw a pretty picture on a piece of toilet paper and submit it."

As always, I'm up to a challenge.

I'm afraid the definition of "pretty" will have to be stretched for my design to be accepted, but I did manage to put it on toilet paper and only ripped the paper twice. Unfortunately, because the square is so small and the ink is so wide, I could only fit in 3 of the features that are in my vision for the New Lansdowne Park.

It's really not that easy to draw a pretty picture on a piece of toilet paper.

Emergency Meeting Minutes: 2009-09-19 [H1N1 and how to insult the ESIs]

Venue: The Usual Spot

Present: Agatha, 4th Dwarf, Coyote, Woodsy, Independent Observer (late)

Absent: Chair (with regrets, no excuse), Conch Shell (no regrets, reasonable excuse)

No discussion of who will takes minutes. 4D just starts taking notes.

1. H1N1 Emergency Plan

4D: Do we need a plan for H1N1?

W: I just need a bag to put your dead body in.

C: Garbage Bags are good enough for me.

4D: Right. Garbage Bags.

C: At what point does this plan diverge from our Zombie Attack plan?

4D: Good point. We could just do the relevant modifications to our Zombie Attack plan.

A: That way there's no redundancy.

C: Who wears the hard hat?

Agatha agrees we need a hierarchy. After a brief discussion it is unanimous that the unassuming Fourth Dwarf should be the ESI H1N1 Emergency Coordinator. It is then agreed that there should be a Back-up ESI H1N1 Emergency Coordinator. Someone hardy, with a cool head and no dependents. The Independent Observer is the unanimous choice.

There is then a brief discussion of where we will hold emergency meetings if the Usual Spot is not feasible. Those present acknowledge we may need to investigate teleconferencing. [Ed. note: Or perhaps we should have our avatars meet somewhere in Second Life?]

As though aware that an honour had been bestowed upon him, the IO arrives. He is briefed on the elements the ESI H1N1 Emergency Plan:

1. Garbage bags
2. Otherwise same as Zombie Attack Plan except for relevant modifications
3. H1N1 Emergency Coordinator = 4D; Backup H1N1 Emergency Coordinator = IO
4. Emergency meeting venue to be determined

The IO agrees to all elements of the plan H1N1 Emergency Coordinator. "After all, I have a telescope."

2. How to Insult the ESIs

A certain suburban blogger posted this week that he was returning to his blog after deleting it following being made into a conversation piece by "some negative douchebags".

Could he be talking about someone else? Various members debate this possibility.

4D: Enough. He is talking about us.

But didn't he come to see that we are really not so bad? What was the exchange anyway? Did he call us crows or vultures? [Coyote: It was crows. "A murder of fucking crows".]

4D: Enough. Of course we are fine people and didn't do anything wrong. The real question is what should we do about his blog?

W: We should support him and welcome him back. Just like we did the mayor.

A: Should we suggest he might not have started on the right foot?

W: No!

4D: Should we engage in a dialogue on the misogynystic and sexist nature of the word "douchebag" as an insult?

W: Can you put in the minutes that Aggie is cringing?

4D: But seriously. The word refers to something that was a feminine hygiene product. It came to be associated with promiscuous women and the word was used as a synonym for "slut". Now it is used for mostly for men that are disliked and gets its sting from being associated with women's reproductive organs.

Woodsy proposes that we analyze insult words and determine which ones will not be sexist, racist or in some way demeaning to other people.

• Cocksucker - No. [Demeans gay men]
• Cuntlicker - No. [Demeans lesbians]
• Motherfucker - OK. [This follows discussion in which it is clarified that this is not offensive to MILFs. A person called this word is not fucking a mother, but instead is fucking their own mother. While using this word as an insult may demean incestuous children, we are okay with that.]
• Asshole - OK [Not demeaning to any segment of the population. C: Everyone's got one. A: But not everyone is one.]
• Wanker - OK [This is heatedly debated. Some insist there is nothing wrong with masturbating and so the word demeans people who do a benign activity. 4D insists that it is a valid insult because masturbating is not generally appropriate when entertaining others is involved. It would be hypocritical for a group that has engaged in SRW since it began to be opposed to use of "wanker" as insult.]
• Bastard - No
  
• Faggot - No
• Fucker - OK
• Fuckface - OK [It's not the same as cocksucker.]
• Crow - No [Can't dis crows. Puts down the animal world. Crows are smarter than people.]
• Vulture - No [They're the cleanup crew.]
• Ferret - No [C: All part of nature's shopping mall. 4D: Since when did we become a branch office of PETA? I think vulture and ferret are good stinging insults that don't demean anyone outside the target]
• Snake - No [C: tastes like chicken.]
• Felcher - OK [Unhealthy practice, obscure word but insulting]
• Shit - OK
  
• Shithead - OK
• Son of a bitch - No [Because of the problems associated with "bitch"]
• Scumbag - OK [After some discussion on what the word is about, 4D states it is a used condom.]
  

A: That's it! The perfect insult for the ESIs. Write this up.

IO: Can you include a graphic? With one for each of us including little tails?

4D rolls his eyes and notes in the minutes that if individuals wish to insult us without being thought of as sexist misogynists, they would do well to call us "scumbags" rather than "douchebags".

3. Jasmine

Coyote proposes that we address the issue of the mayor's new press secretary. "Is she still hot?"

4D: Do we need a united position on this?

Woodsy, Aggie and IO ignore Coyote and the Dwarf and discuss eye wear. The topic lapses.

4. The Reality Show Post

4D notes that there was no reaction to his post about reality show opportunities. The others reassure him that it was a worthwhile post. Perhaps too long for our regular reader's attention span, notes Coyote.

5. Cedric

Woodsy asks IO why Cedric didn't attend the Patti Smith concert in Florence. The IO's quiet response is buried by the background noise of the Usual Spot. 4D doesn't ask for a repeat because he doesn't care where the little gnome goes.

6. Tea with Woodsy

Woodsy shares her idea of having tea or sweets with notable individuals and blogging about it. The Irregulars are highly supportive.

7. Jasmine Again

Coyote brings up the Jasmine topic again. This time there is more discussion, but 4D doesn't take notes. Instead he puts away his minute book and the meeting devolves into a generic conversation.