Putting the "Anti" into Social Networking. . .

Mister Sloppy had left an urgent summons in my voicemail. Wise coyotes do not casually deny evil geniuses of his calibre. I hoofed it across Centretown.

When he buzzed me in, I followed the whooping to his secret subterranean lair, where his manic keyboarding – two computers at once – gave me pause. So did the plethora of vintage mega-sized Jolt Cola empties. He only cracks his stash when he's kickin' coding old-school. Which is never good for the state of world.

"Ummm, so, how long you been at this?" I asked.

"Since the Prime Minister got hisself posted on YouTube three days back" he said, keyclacks barely slowing. "If Jurassic politicos are pretending to use social media, it's finally jumped the megashark. They think they’ll go viral, I’ll give ‘em freakin’ viral! It's almost ready!"

"What is, Sloppy?" I asked.

Fevered blue eyes blazed.

"The Next Big Thing!" He purred, grinning, well, evilly. In capital letters. "AntiSocial Media! Facebook and Myspace are tossing net privacy under the bus, people are sick of tweeting, dorks who don't understand social media are trying to warp it back into old paradigms they do understand. So it comes to this! Is my new Antisocial Networking site not genius?"

He waved at his monitors. "Here! You can only set your relationship status to, "Alone", "It's complicated" or "None of your damned business"! It automatically rejects all friend requests! And the only reject options are, "No response"; "Ewwww"; an LMAO emoticon; or an autogenerated phrase saying, "I'd rather...." followed by a random act of self-mutilation!

His speed and pitch rose.

"You can’t control your own friends list, but all other users can remove anyone from it! When you comment on someone's status, or insult ‘em on a comment thread, it’s visible to anyone except them!

"And get this! There's no way to just follow anyone. It's only got a "stalk" option! A bot program pops up your photo on every website they browse. An automatic search for every web photo of them slams together a tribute album site that auto-links to every page that references them. The album background wallpaper can be either candles or hand-scrawled protestations of love.

"And only by paying for a premium license do users gain the power to file virtual restraining orders on their stalkers! But they only limit how many times your stalkers’s pictures pop up on websites you browse – you can never block ‘em entirely! Cool app, or what!!??"

"I love it!" I yelled, trying to match his fevered tone as I edged back up the stairs. "For masochists!"

He didn't notice. At the rate he was going, I figured he might safely pass out in a few hours. At least until I heard another Jolt fizz open. Ol' Slop was bellowing, somewhat musically, something like, "Yo ho ho, I'm gonna rule the w-o-o-oooorld!", as I let myself back out.

I hadda admit right then, that insanity other than my own can be kinda disconcerting...

Tracking the mint's missing gold

I happened by Mister Sloppy's place yesterday - okay, he happens to have air conditioning - and by way of breaking his grumpy Evil-Genius silence, mentioned the Mint's vanishing gold problem, and how the local Petfinder was just yesterday obsessing again about the strange silence of government, mint and red coated gendarme types.

Mister Sloppy snickered. My usually cast-iron coyote tummy clenched. That laugh is never good.

"Slop," I said, fearing the worst. "In your obsessive quest for world domination, you haven't sucked 15 million bucks' worth of gold into an improbability vortex? Or something?"

"I didn't need to," he cackled.

"Huh?" I can be a dimwitted doggy. Especially when it helps me enjoy nice cold air conditioning a bit longer.

"You know how the Tories - having such terrific heads for business - are all hot on selling off prime government assets at fire sale prices? To allegedly balance the government's books, even though it always loses major money?

"I was rummaging around a government network one night a coupla years back and sniffed out the fact that their brain trust had decided to flog the mint's extra gold inventory in secret. To - get this - one of those "We buy all of your used gold - no amount too large or too small" joints that advertise on late night cable channels. I hacked myself into a few emails as a discussion option, and incorporated myself as a cheap gold buyer the next day. Bought a few ads in throw-away tabloids and on cable to look legit. Hung out. Waited. The government showed up in no time!"

"Aaand?" I breathed.

"I drew up a contract they couldn't make head or tails of. Not that they ever make head or tails of anything," he snorted. "When the dust cleared, I had signatures on an airtight document assigning me fifteen million bucks in gold ingots and assorted refining scrap, purchased for the princely sum of thirty-seven dollars and fifty-two cents. Which, by the way, is actually about what most old gold places would have paid 'em. A buncha the backroom guys from the PMO are now so redfaced, all they wanna do is drop the whole story down a mine in Sudbury."

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta pack." Mister Sloppy looked dreamy. "Maybe Switzerland. The ice cream in Zurich is fabulous this time of year."

"So you're taking a well-deserved break from planning world domination?" I said, hopefully. I've had enough Pepto-Bismol moments lately already, with Mayor Larry back.

Mister Sloppy cast an austere blue eye at me. "Of course not! The Large Hadron Collider is there, too..."

Getting a handle on economic disaster

This week, StatsCan jobless figures and the parliamentary budget officer's new economic report suggest that we're even more totally screwed, despite the prime minister's consistently cheery "don't worry be happy" mantra. Imagine that.

So, previous stellar efforts of our own Audrey and Fourth Dwarf notwithstanding, obviously it is time again for the ESIs to step into the economy. Yuck! It's all over my paws now, and it smells, like, ummm, bad! I digress.

At the ESI Institute for Tax-Deductible Thinktankage, we are all over putting a face on the true extent of this economic mess, with our specialty, the all-important nomenclature. For now, we'll leave the actual fixing-up stuff to trained economists like the PM. Who unfortunately has never actually worked as an economist. Oops.

Now where was I? Oh, right: Economy. Doom. Disaster. Etymology.* Terminology. Coinage.

"Ecopalypse" had the nicest ring, but a quick paw-over of Google shows those freakin' pesky environmentalists have already tagged it. Bastards. And why is it that their cosmic antimatter, all those smart develop-at-any-cost business types, still haven't noticed that economy and ecology look, even to a casual observer, to be so closely related? Not a coincidence, surely. I digress again.

"Econalypse" made our fallback list, but it turns out some lousy blogger beat us to it by months. Bastard. Besides, it sounds too much like "Econo-Lips". Which in turn sounds too much like the kind of big, red wax lips that Stephen Harper would buy at a dollar store, and wear to lighten up those hinterland news conferences where he keeps insisting that the country's economic fundamentals are great. That kidder.

Then, in homage to the epic Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme that finally overbalanced the global economy's already-sideways tilt, we thought "Eponzilypse". We were really graspin' at straws on that one...

Crap! We need ideas. What to do, what to do? I know! How 'bout a contest...?

* Memo to Traci, perky but inexperienced new summer intern in the ESI graphics department: Kid, etymology is about words. Entomology is about bugs. Take a note for next time, please...

A fifth of Friday the 13th...

Another Friday the Thirteenth. I'm sure we had one of those just last month. Ho, hum. We must've gotten all the bad stuff out of the way, already then, right? What could possibly go wrong this time? You have to ask? How about another Top Five list?

1) Strangely, although our PM keeps telling us the Canadian economy is in great shape and we're all gonna be fine, and he's, like, never lied to us (repeatedly) before... markets are still tanking. I can't help but notice that he takes a certain approach to everything that might dispute his worldview, from what's actually happening in the economy (i.e. anything from the parliamentary budget officer he appointed), to Vancouver's InSite safe-injection facility, to, well, just good-quality research in general. Because deeply-held convictions, however unwarranted by facts, are necessarily the only Right things. I am shocked. Shocked! Never saw that one coming at all...

2) Now that mommy's defeat at the American vice presidential polls is a soi-disant distant political memory, Bristol Palin is no longer about to bear her child within the sanctity of holy matrimony. Or a shotgun marriage. Whichever is more, y'know, born-again. I am shocked. Shocked! Never saw that one coming at all...

3) John Baird's fattening fingers - and possibly his hair - are smearing oily DNA traces all over the aftermath of Ottawa's record transit strike. In the absence of any actual, like, unbiased information on the dangers of scheduling, he may wish to consider a prudent wait before plastering on pandering ideological band aids. Oh, wait... See 1), above! I am shocked. Shocked! Never saw that one coming at all...

4) The Ottawa Sun, in the tradition of intrepid journalism, has used promo material from a 5-year-old, just-released, low-budget Canadian Bollywood movie clone - starring current Liberal member of parliament Ruby Dhalla - as an excuse to run a lame-o "Hilltop Hotties" photo gallery online, while Dr. Dhalla tries to wish the whole thing away on grounds of Photoshop. I am shocked. Shocked! Never saw that one coming at all...

5) Heh.

I am shocked. Shocked! Never saw that one coming at all...

Buckyblog #2: too cute by half

Huh. Apparently, kittyblogging has strict rules. Who knew? Since the Short Guy, in addition to being a hairball expert - he's one himself - is also a tiresome pedant, I have no reason to doubt him. Speaking of hairballs, you should see the size of them! Huge, sploogey tan and brown things, covered in cat spit and splattered all over the antique cream broadloom! (We coyotes keep a very retro-stylish den...) Yucko!

I would've asked Aggie what to do about them, followed her advice, then reported the amusing results, but an urgent matter has arisen. Note the calculating expression on Bucky's puss: It comes to my attention that all cats are members of a fiendishly well-organized cabal dedicated to taking over the world. They infiltrate people's homes, weasel their nefarious tunaheaded ways into positions of trust, suck the air out of their alleged owners' lungs until they can't think straight (Various Zoom postings and comments passim) then run the world by proxy whilst their hosts are weakened and suggestable.

But they want more. And they have the means to do it. Read this carefully, and don't let your cat see you when you do it: Every cat in the world is in constant extrasensory communication with every other cat. It's a maleficent feline group brain, dedicated to total domination. When they're ready, they'll pounce, take over the world, and likely snack on your cold, dead fingers as an afterthought. They're determined, cunning, organized, and very, very good. Look at the evidence: innocent coyotes are being chased out of Greely and Richmond as we speak! Coincidence?

The good news, is that you can fight back. If you have an ounce of spine left, break out the tinfoil and start making hats. No, no, no, not for you, you oxygen-deprived fool, for your cat. Slap one of them suckers onto a furline and it'll cut off all group-mind brainwaves instantly. Oh, even then, it'll still try to play the cuteness card. Resist! Don't let your cat doff its tinfoil hat! Your future depends on it...

Drowning in The Current

While life in Florence offers many pleasures (blog entries passim), I frequently pine for a slice of Canadiana. A little Eastern Ontario maple syrup, the distinctive sound of a loonie jingling with a toonie, a good rant by one Donald Cherry, or the clink of glasses with a rousing Caribou! toast.

So I find myself tuning the shortwave to Radio Canada International in hopes of hearing a familiar voice from across the pond. Now let me be clear in the best Paul Martin fashion: I am a grande fanatico of CBC and a special admirer of its talented employees.

But regrettably one of the shows I catch most often is The Current, the daily gabfest that began with such promise, yet has descended into a ritual guilt spiral of histrionic horror. I realize the men and women of the fourth estate must dutifully skulk among the dregs of our ailing global village, overturning slimy stones in an effort to expose the charlatans and evildoers of the age. But enough is enough! Anna Maria Tremonti's radio program is a steady diet of apocalyptic calamity, the aural equivalent of pitching one's holiday weekend smorgasbord tent at the lip of an active volcano.

A mere half-hour of this sonic scare-o-rama makes me want to double-latch the apartamento door, open another bottle of chianti and crawl back beneath the comforting blue duvet.

The Current doesn't have to go all Pollyana on us. It just means less problema, more soluzione.

Why not the occasional documentary about an unsung underdog who has overcome great challenges? A sound-rich missive on an emerging musical talent the record companies ignored? An empowering look at combatting workplace stress? Or what the average Jane, citizen's group or mega-corporation can actually do to reverse global warming?

Meantime, don't stay tuned.