You’re in What Grade Again?

I just got asked by a friend to proofread his French notes for a presentation. I said sure. It’s always good to get another set of eyes looking at things you write, especially if it’s not in your native tongue. Granted French isn’t my native tongue either, but I said I’d help. I knew the last time I’d read his French, it was, well, not good. But that was a couple of years ago, so I thought maybe he had improved.

I get his notes, and I let out a shriek of frustration. If anything, his French has gotten worse! I have to ask myself, how is he getting through university French classes with this caliber of complete and utter incompetence? Are his tutors doing his essays for him? If so, they should stop. If not, why did I bother to work so hard if you could scrape through with this bullshit? I mean, it looks like maybe he’s in grade five French. Ug!

I’m looking at this now thinking, why do I give a rat’s ass how he does in French? I did well, his marks probably blow goats. So what does it matter? I guess I’m completely amazed that he’s still here with the level of crap he’s spewing. I wonder what my degree is worth if people like him can write the kind of stuff he does, still be here and get a degree too. The whole thing just makes me wonder why I worked so hard. I’ll cry if he graduates with distinction. That’ll probably never happen, but if it does, then I’ll know the degree isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

The Dreaded N-Word!

No, I’m not talking about dear old Michael Richards’s outburst of a few days ago. I’m talking about a different n-word. Nation! Sorry, George Stroumboulopoulos, I had to steal your bit from the hour, just because I thought it was hilarious.

Seriously, though, what in hell does all of this mean? Let me try and process this. Stephen Harper has said that Quebec is a nation within Canada. That alone is enough to give me an aneurysm from the amount of brain power required to try and grasp what this even means. Let me define nation. According to dictionary.com, a nation is:

Nation
noun

1.

a large body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own: The president spoke to the nation about the new tax.

2.

the territory or country itself: the nations of Central America.

3.

a member tribe of an American Indian confederation.

4.

an aggregation of persons of the same ethnic family, often speaking the same language or cognate languages.

So, how does this even apply to Quebec? Definition 1 doesn’t make sense, they don’t have a government peculiarly their own, because they’re still subordinate to the Canadian government. No. 2 doesn’t really work because no. 1’s already screwed. Since they’re not natives, they’re colonisers just like the rest of us, they can’t take no. 3, and no. 4 doesn’t even work, because look at how many English-speakers and speakers of other languages live in Quebec, just like they do in the rest of the country.

Since this motion makes 0 sense on its own, I don’t know what it really means. Is it a step towards Quebec separating? Not on the surface, because Harper said that Quebec would never be a nation disconnected from Canada. But what else could it be? It doesn’t really satisfy anyone, it’s already made the Bloc Québécois mad, saying they won’t accept this. So what will we have to do next to make them happy? Make baby steps towards having their sovereign until they need something from Canada Quebec?

If your head isn’t already spinning enough, what the Bloc says back makes me very confused. I quote:
“The Quebec nation cannot be boiled down to one of two options: a nation within a united Canada, or a separate, sovereign nation.”

So what *do* you want? Are you just fighting for the sake of fighting? Oh of course you are! That’s what all politicians do.

And who’s going to be next to ask to be a nation within Canada, whatever that means? Could Newfoundland ask to become a nation? What about the Acadians in New Brunswick? What about Toronto because of all the Asians? Or what about all the fragments of Quebec who don’t want to separate? Can they be nations within Quebec? You can’t do that to a country!

I went and stayed in Quebec for five weeks. That by no means makes me an expert on their history, but it made me see a few things. I know their language is eroding, and that it was suppressed by previous federal governments, and that’s not cool. I know they feel that English is pervading their culture, and it kind of is. But unfortunately, that’s mostly a product of their geographical location. Let’s face it, they are in an English sandwich! The only way they could save their language the way they want to save it is to reloacate everyone to either an island somewhere, or to France or Belgium or somewhere that speaks French. The human brain picks up on its surroundings, and those cannot be legislated out!

I think my head has stopped spinning, but oddly enough, it’s right back where it started. I can’t make sense of this, and I don’t think I ever will. The only way it will ever make sense is in retrospect, after whatever comes of this has time to unfold. It doesn’t look, to me, like a good chain of events.

I Hate To Use Something So Corny, But What An American Idiot

I realize that this story is kind of old, but it’s so great and I’ve heard so little about it that it just has to be mentioned. And if anybody knows about any new developments in this case, I’d love to hear about them. I love watching other people humiliate themselves.

Oregon Grocery Store Clerk Claims To Have Written Green Day’s American Idiot

McPike is representing himself in the matter and the only evidence he has submitted thus far is a copy of American Idiot and a claim that the words that Green Day vocalist Billie Joe Armstrong sings on the album don’t exactly match those printed in the liner notes. The former ski resort employee plans to continue researching copyright law and to resubmit his complaint with additional unspecified evidence.

McPike says he’s written songs since high school and, while he’s never performed publicly, he’s occasionally sung some of his compositions for friends. He believes that a buddy must have recorded him singing at home, and that a cassette of his work somehow got into Green Day’s hands.

Riiiiight.

But let’s play pretend for a minute and act like this guy isn’t either out of his mind or completely full of shit. If he wins his case, Green Day could be in real trouble. I hate to say it, but if he wrote that song, there’s no telling how much of their other work he might ultimately be responsible for. I love Green Day, but even I know that a lot of their stuff has a similar sound to it, and they could end up owing him a lot of money depending on how many of those tapes they lifted from his friends over the years.

World’s Worst Drivers is the World’s Funniest Show.

Well, maybe not, but it’s pretty damn funny. If you ever get the chance to watch the show World’s Worst Drivers, do it! It’s not just that the horrid driving stunts that are captured on video are utterly hillarious. It’s not just that the guy doing the narrating is able to keep cracking me up with his descriptions of imbeciles behind the wheel. But you have to see the episode where, when a bad British driver is pulled over, he shouts at the camera man, twice, “Get that camera off me or I’ll shove it up your ringpiece!” And the best is he doesn’t even seem threatening. Oh he’s trying, but failing. Ringpiece? Ya learn a new word every day!

What Year Is It Anyway?

Everybody keeps telling me that it’s 2006, but with all this
talk of microphone outfitted security cameras on public streets,
I swear that it’s actually 1984. Seriously guys, you’re creeping me out here.

And I know I know, you’re claiming that the microphones can’t pick up words because they’re up too high and you can’t zoom the audio in to make it clearer anyway, but if that’s the case, how can they hear tones? I seriously wish that the general public was half way aware of stuff like this, because the people responsible for this system and others like it should have to provide quite a few good answers to quite a few good questions before anything is installed anywhere.

From: Your Blogger.

Um…ok then. I just got a spam from, and I quote, “Your Doctor,” advertising meds. Mysteriously, my doctor has lost her name, and writes me now, just claiming she’s my doctor. Uh-huh. Nice job, spammers. But the sad thing is this might work on some people. I can see it now. “Oh. It’s my doctor! It must be legit.” Oh the creative ways of spammers to prey on the stupid, the naive and the uninformed.

I Didn’t Know You Were a Mute.

I swear the strangest things happen to me when I’m out and about. Like this little gem for example. I’ll be standing at an intersection waiting for my chance to cross and not get killed. The time comes, andI’ll step off. Suddenly, without a word spoken, someone who I didn’t even notice beside me will have a firm grip on my arm!

Um dude. I appreciate you’re help, but if you don’t say a word to me, I have no idea what your intentions are. If I was a more jumpy person, I might think you were robbing me and start swingin’! I can’t even say all the ones who grab me without a word can’t speak the language, because when I say something like “What the hell?” I get very clear English spoken back.

Why do people feel the need to grab and try and drag me places? I mean, would they like it if random people decided to grab them and help them get into the store and across the street without provocation? Yesterday, the guy’s grip wasn’t so firm, so I was able to give him a little shove that was half accidental, half startled response and get him away. I appreciate the help, but please ask first before you decide to help me, and please, please, please, speak! With the number of creeps lurking around downtown anymore, I don’t take chances!

2 Things I Want For Christmas

It’s that time of year again. Time for my friends, family and blog readers [yeah right] to start asking the big question. “Steve, what do you want for Christmas?” Most years I kind of pause and just say “I dunno, just get me a gift certificate or something,” but this year I actually have 2 pretty good suggestions for everyone.

Suggestion number 1: The Vestibules, one of the greatest comedy troops of all time, have just released a huge collection of their classic material in a 4-volume mp3 set. The details are here, and if you’re a longtime fan like I am, you’ll love what they’ve included here. Each volume is only $5, and I can safely say that they could charge double that and I’d still buy all 4 of them.

Suggestion number 2: A roll of Recording Industry Association Of America toilet Paper.

I think Cory Doctorow over at Boing Boing said it best when he said, “Jinx is selling $6 rolls of RIAA bumwad — though it seems redundant. Those four letters are already inextricably associated with dirty assholes.”

How true.

And yes, I realize that toilet paper was suggestion number 2. Aren’t I clever? I didn’t think so either, don’t worry.

Plugs Ahoy!

It’s actually only 1 plug, but I couldn’t think of anything better to call this.

Salty Ham.com,
the list happiest site on the internet, is at it again. This time they’ve teamed up with the folks from
TBL
and
X Headlines
to present the top 100 pro wrestlers of all time.

Even though I’ve never been high on stuff like this, I went along with it because it’s good for business and I’m cool like that.

Anywho, the first part of the list is now up and ready for you to look over and comment on
here.

More of the list will be released in the coming weeks, and since I plug everything I do and I always need posting material, I’ll let you know when they’re posted. You can always stop by The Ham and look for them, but you should already be visiting there daily anyway so I shouldn’t have to tell you that.

Why I Don’t Write Songs

Any time I’ve been involved in any sort of musical project, I’ve always been pretty well content to stay away from the songwriting end of things. The reason for that is simple. I don’t write songs because I know that no matter what I do and no matter how hard I try, I will never in a million lifetimes be able to do better than this, which may just be the greatest piece of music ever composed.

Thanks to our old pal Greg for passing this work of genius our way.