Summertime's small pleasures

Drippy weather didn't stop Cedric from enjoying a week at a cottage in the idyllic Gatineaus. He even made a new friend who calls himself the head gaffer and drinks a lot of herbal tea. I'm glad the little troll is having a good summer, but I'm not crazy about him hanging around Hollywood film-biz types.

Don't Tell Me It's a Google Poem

* Don’t tell me it's impossible

* Don’t tell me you're leaving.

* Don’t tell me if I'm dying cause I don't want to know

* Don’t tell me that that is the past and none of our concern.

* And don't tell me I don't have a right to my views on morality, while trying to force me to accept yours.

* Don’t tell me what you're against; tell me what you're for.

* Don’t Tell Me To Shut Up

* Don’t Tell Me SHOW ME

* And speaking of wait times, please don't tell me you're naive enough to think that isn't a problem in the US too?

* Don’t tell me what to think!

* Please don't tell me to rest.

* Don’t tell me what to do.

* Don’t tell me who it is! You'll ruin the fun…

* Don’t tell me what to write.

* Please don't tell me times are different and kids have it harder or more to carry now.

* Don’t tell me, I want to guess.

* Don’t tell me u can't, cos u will be a loser if u really can't.....

* Don’t tell me You can't turn around.

* Don't tell me how to drink your beer ...

* Don’t tell me you don't like it, write a letter to corporate.

* Don’t tell me not to fly, I've simply got to.

[Source]

Going Down is Going Up

On July 29, the Ottawa Citizen reported that a shocked couple complained about three books they discovered on the Ottawa Public Libraries "on order" list. [Citizen Article]

It's not clear who the couple are nor whether they wanted their complaint to be publicized.

This means it is an open question: Are they misguided prudes who don't realize that calls for censorship increase readership and that librarians are freedom-of-speech, anti-book-banning zealots who will hear their complaint as a reason to order even more sex manuals? Or is this couple a pair of devious sex manual publicists?

Whoever they are, I hope they complain about my book when I finally get around to writing it. Even if they don't, I'm grateful to them for making me realize I need to drop my working title: the meaningful little book of life with Jesus.

Get out your library card and click these links to get on the reservation list:

• The Going Down Guide
• The Sex Instruction Manual : Essential Information and Techniques for Optimum Performance
• The anal sex positions guide : the best positions for easy, exciting, mind-blowing pleasure
• The little book on meaning : why we crave it, how we create it
• A Meaningful Life
• A spectator's guide to Jesus : an introduction to the man from Nazareth

Hello Dolly

I wish that I had bought this doll that Gabe, over at Fish on Fridays, made and was selling at Urban Art in Minto Park on July 18th.

It would have made a great pincushion.

Judge: O'Brien Not Guilty

Us: Still Not a Good Mayor, Either...

The mayor of Ottawa remains in office, this morning found not guilty of influence peddling.

I admit that I would not have looked a gift verdict in the mouth, if the guy had happened to go down on this. But the trial has always been little more than a sideshow in the three-ring circus that is Larry O'Brien's mayoralty.

His Nibs seems to view leading a city of a million-plus as an ideal entry-level training position. You know, the kind most businesses give to summer students.

I probably do a disservice to students working their first summer jobs when I say this, but the mayor has, for the past three years or so, been remarkably similar to the overconfident, underprepared greenies who overestimate their clout, intelligence and value to the organization because they lack smarts to see how truly dreadful they are. Except that he, unlike most of them, does not seem to be learning from experience. Although, fueled by near-pathological hubris, he persists in thinking he has.

He's always made the mistake of thinking that private-sector thinking will solve the city's problems. News Flash: the public sector is here to do the important things that the private sector cannot or will not touch. The common good is often unprofitable as hell. There's a reason why the public and private sectors are separated. They're different.

What concerns me most now is that the man will mistake the verdict as complete vindication of his worth as mayor, and carry out his threat to run again in 2010. If the election turns out the same clueless types that gullibly swallowed his uninformed campaign promises the last time around, we're in trouble.

Ottawa would have its very own long-running Lastmanesque burlesque. The mind reels.