Monday

An irreverent pause

 American stand-up comedian George Carlin died yesterday in Santa Monica of heart failure. He was 71. The creator of the Hippy Dippy Weather Man ("the whole country is high, man") and Seven Words You Can't Say on Television was a unique contrarian whose humour pointed up the absurdities (some pretty damn unfunny) of living on this planet. He was smarter (and funnier) than most of the politicians who ran his country.

The US Supreme Court ruled his routine based on those words was, indeed a bad thing. Actually, seven of them. Yet an entire generation made it a priority to know what they were. In his memory, we pause to recite the infamous seven, three times fast, giggling a little snarkily, no longer certain why the Supreme Court was so het up in the first place. Unless the prosecution wasn't really about the words, per se, but his attitude toward authority(ies)... Carlin will be missed, but not forgotten.
Image: The Charleston Paper

Friday

Summer Solstice

For those of you that don't know what to buy your very favourite - indeed, your only* - blog-coyote-about-town as a thoughtful and much appreciated summer solstice gift, may I suggest a Doggie IQ Test? Only £4.99! With the small stipend for 'super fast delivery', you might still make it by tonight, if you hurry! And after all of this damnable rain, I'm pretty sure it'll bring me a very welcome little ego boost.

If you figure I'm already smart (ass) enough, and don't need further excuses to tap my full potential in that area, I'm also completely open to the Stylophone or the intriguingly fluorescent Space Putty, suggested as alternatives further down the catalogue page. But be forewarned that paste-on smile for pugs is a non-starter.

Meantime, I suggest that everybody reading this start flushing your minds right now of any and all mental images of certain Irregulars dancing naked around their gas barbecues tonight. Down that road lies rump of skunk, and madness. 'Kaythxgbye!
*This town, anyway. Wandering Coyote has the Southern BC franchise sewed up.
Image: Captain Cripple and his K9 Companion Skipper the Wonder Dog

Monday

Slavishly Devoted to Buffy

I asked Fourth Dwarf if he liked Buffy.

"Do I like Buffy?" he responded in his usual sexy voice. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer? I was only slavishly devoted to the show since the third episode originally aired. You know how I'm obsessed with Battlestar Galactica? Buffy was worse."

"Well, hum, Buffy is going to be at Westfest," I squeaked out.

I paid for my deceit. Dwarfie loved this other Buffy too, but so that he could see above the crowds he insisted on sitting on my shoulders during the whole evening.

Thursday

And overpriced houses to boot...


Spoken word performance
A full night of Aboriginal artists
CBC celebrities

Only five years old and it's already become more self-indulgent than an ESI meeting.

See you there.






Wednesday

RNDP 10: Recycling and Rules

Moving away from Histocompatibility for now, the next Google hit to explore in the world of new dating paradigms shows up in a comment to a livejournal posting. 30-year-old featherynscale asked her readers:10 - it's okay; 20 - it depends; 2 - never okay

If you are friends with someone, and they break it off with a person they are dating/sleeping with/married to/whatever, is it okay for you to pursue their ex?
She broke her question into sub-questions and created several polls that 32 of her readers responded to. She also invited her readers to leave comments expanding on their answers and to describe circumstances that would make it okay or not okay.

Her first commenter, saffronhare, replied:

This is one of those areas where it always depends on some other shading of relationships. If both people of the deceased relationship (dating or married) still travel in the same social circles, then one would perhaps want to maintain some amicability in any new dating paradigm. You know, and *talking* to the people involved. But I bet you already knew that. :)

4D Analysis: Saffronhare is using the phrase "new dating paradigm" to refer to a new dating situation that a person might be in, in this case, with a person who used to be involved with a friend, not to a whole new model for dating. You might assume that, because Saffronhare and Featherynscale are not endorsing this model as a new paradigm, I also wouldn't endorse it. But let's not sail away from this port before seeing all the sights.

2 out of a non-random sample of 32 people say it's not okay to date a friend's ex even if the friend is dead. I hope these two are in happy relationships that last until they die and if after their death their widows or widowers get involved with a friend, there really is no afterlife so they won't ever know about it.

A majority (20/32) say it can be okay in certain circumstances, but this also means they think it is not okay in other circumstances. I assume that they are all referring to it being morally not okay. Not to it being practically not okay.

Because let's face it, while dating a friend's ex may have pitfalls like possible fistfights, slashed tires, and late night hangup phone calls, it also has benefits like already knowing the person you're dating and knowing what you can do to compare favourably to the last paramour. And you can date a stranger and get the pitfalls anyway.

If you've got a screening list like Kirshenbaum, Coyote and Milan do, you might be tempted to add not a friend's ex to it, or if you're not a hardliner, not the ex of a friend who says it's not okay.

What I ask if you have a screening list is, do you actually want to date? Or are you trying to come up with reasons to justify not dating? Sure we don't want you getting involved with an ax-murderer or somebody you'll come to despise, but at the pre-dating stage, where you are trying to find somebody to go out with, a list of criteria that removes people from consideration may just keep you from getting involved with somebody wonderful.

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