- NDP leader Jack Layton on the lame-duckness of the Conservative government’s Clean Air Act, against which he is allegedly ready to pass a no confidence motion if there aren’t serious changes made to improve our environment.
Previously: Foxy Lollop
Superman? In Turkey? You’ll be a believer, thanks this great moment of Turkish cinema! And Superman will remind you more of Jason Voorhees than Christopher Reeve!
You are looking at England’s ugliest vegetable, grown specifically for Britain’s National Trust’s ugliest vegetable competition. It’s actually a great idea for a contest which seeks to promote the notion that good food doesn’t need to look good.
Awesome, nature-made Halloween decoration right there. Then you make soup.
Congratulations are in order for Mrs. Hilary Nellist from Bedford, England on her “Parsnip From the Deep.”
Cthulhu Taproot?
(Via Slashfood)
Back in June of this year, the mayor of Québec City, Andrée Boucher, head off to Bordeaux in France with municipal diplomacy on her mind. At the same time, my Minivan Cabaret buds and I were doing daily news capsules for a local comedy festival. So we decided to do a little report on her trip, among the rest of the day’s news. Here is the report taken from that day’s show. It’s in French, but I still hope you like it.
Don’t know if you’ve heard, but Willett Elementary School in south Boston has banned tag, touch football, and other games which imply kids chasing each other around a schoolyard. The reason? Fear that a child might injure him or herself and the parents will sue. And they’re not the only school to have done it.
Now, when I was younger and my parents would go on and on about “how the world has changed” since they were little, I swore to myself that I would always be able to stay on top of things and be more connected to such changes so as to never settle into some grumpy-old-man mode, pining for better, simpler days.
But seriously, the world has changed.
When I was younger, we used to play in the large park which was part of the church grounds. One day, playing baseball, one of my friends drove a baseball through one of the church’s windows. Did the church sue? Of course not, my friend’s parents paid for repairs and my buddy was grounded. Another time, another friend was tackling the monkey bars at the school playground. He fell and broke his forearm. Did his parents sue? No, it was a stupid accident. Hell, I even stole a newspaper when I was ten; my parents brought me back to the corner store immediately to hand the paper back and have me apologise. Did the corner store owner sue or call the cops? Not quite.
Moreover, as child obesity rises, the usual suspects of video games, computers, and television will be blamed for it. But with stupid rules being passed like that, and our playgrounds and parks being more and more barren because some parents fear what could happen to their kids outside, one is the direct consquence of the other. If we don’t get our kids out, they won’t play outside. It’s only normal for them to find solace in video games and TV if there’s nothing else to stimulate them. It’s just that simple. Not to mention that if we don’t let our kids play what they want to play outside, we’re not really conditioning them to enjoy their time outdoors, are we?
Some folks have argued that it’s no big shakes that tag be banned at school; kids can get together outside school hours and play amongst themselves away from the eyes of teachers. To me, it’s a hell of a big deal. For one, school is the social nexus of elementary kids and play is their way of creating bonds and learning social skills. But more importantly, if this is the kind of reasoning which is to be accepted, is clearly demonstrates that the school isn’t interested in the development and growth of the children who go there. They’re much more privy to protecting their interests instead of those of their little students.
But, throughout all this frustratingly oddball story, there is one positive element: it’s teaching the kids how to stick it to the man in creative, nondestructive ways.
- Nelson De Sousa, father of Anastasia De Sousa who was killed in the Dawson College shooting last September, getting ready to go to Ottawa to campaign for tougher gun laws.
So this one night a couple of weeks ago I call up one of my friends. It’s a friend of mine I don’t see very often. Let’s call him “Bib.” So I call Bib up, right? And I start chatting with Bib, ask him what he’s been up to, he asks how my son is doing, I ask him how many Hot Wheels he has in his collection nowadays… you get the idea.
Then I ask Bib if he wants to catch a show on Friday night. He asks me what kind of show? I tell him Lesbo Vouven is playing on Friday night. He acquiesces heartily, and we hang up after agreed to a meetup hour at the dive they’re playing at.
So Friday throttles into my grateful lap and I go over to meet Bib. We enter the bar, grab a drink, chuckle at a couple of stories, he hits on a girl, and soon we see the band arriving on stage. Three good ol’ boys from Québec who proceed to pick up their instruments and begin strumming loud, heavy-handed punk rock which kind of reminds of Hüsker Dü with some discreet disco throngs. Trust me, it’s no rock-n-disco melange to the extent (or obviousness) of The Rapture, since Lesbo Vrouven has far more embraced its punkishness.
No, they’re not re-inventing the genre, they’re just fucking good at it. They can go from headbangingly energetic like on The Agency to heroically harmonic with the likes with Je reviens Geneviève (which definitely has a Diane feel to it, Dü fans). And it’s with songs like Geneviève which make the band stand out and force the crowd into submission. Not to mention singer/guitarist Sam Murdock’s nutty ways.
Well, to be honest, they didn’t have all the crowd in submission. At about the third song of the set, Bib turns to me:
“So when are the girls coming out?”
“Girls?” I retort, incredulous.
“Yeah! The girls,” he shoots back.
“I never said anything about girls.”
“You said this was a lesbian show.”
“I said the band’s name was Lesbo Vrouven,” I explained, finally understanding what was going on. “That’s the band right there playing.”
“So there’s no lesbians,” he stated, matter-of-factly.
“It’s a punk rock show! Sorry!”
And let me tell you, there’s nothing quite like the feeling of being silently patted on the shoulder by someone whose next objective is reaching the exit.
Here’s a little something I did using some doodles I had hanging around a sketchbook. We’ll see where this all leads us.
Haven’t done one of these in a couple of weeks. Admire and adore its return!
To start off, an Irate Red Robot for this “Canada’s New Government” nonsense. When the Conservatives were elected last January and wanted to let all Canadians know that they put an end to a dozen-or-so years of Liberal rule, they came up with this catchy little slogan. But really, when does “new” stop being “new?” Especially when things are starting to feel tired real, real fast.
There has been a lot of fuss about stores beginning to take pre-orders for the upcoming Nintendo Wii console. Yeah, the reports have started bubbling up about people lining up in front of places like Gamestop or EB Games to get their name high enough on the list just to be sure that Nintendo doesn’t pull an Xbox 360 and they end up spending their holiday season wondering about what could have been. Myself, despite awating the Wii with deep excitement, I have been taking all this manic behaviour in stride. You see, gentle reader, I have my Wii pre-ordered since June. That’s right: I left a 50$ deposit almost five months ago, which placed me number twelve on the list of people who are going to recieve some Nintendo goodness the day the Wii lauches. So I spent “pre-order” day sleeping in, nice and comfy under my sheets, far away from the cold, brisk morning, being handed pre-order slips while being asked to stay outside, and the aggrivation of those who couldn’t score it. Thank you, Toys R Us. A nice Glass of Warm Milk for you.
An Irate Red Robot needs to go stomp all over those overreacting twits over at Disney for making such a stink out of the video of Eurodisney staff who were simulating sex with each other while dressed in their oversized mascot costumes. Let me tell you, I’m involved in these kinds of environments all the time, have been for years; nothing of what I’ve seen here shocks me, as it goes on all the time. Folks do this kind of stuff amongst each other the minute they’re away from public eyesight. There’s nothing wrong or degrating about it; it’s just basking in the adbsurdity of having to wear these costumes for hours on end and being peppy and nice the whole way. Breaking character in the most extreme fashion possible just helps balance everything out. In fact, if anyone should be pissed, it’s the employees who were letting off a little steam in private. They should punch the dork with the camcorder who went and put this on the web and got them into this mess. Video’s here if you’re up for it.
And finally, a great, big, comforting Glass of Warm Milk to Colin Moon over at Never News for directing me to this. It could quite possibly be one of the greatest things ever.
Here is the entire Gluemeat comic archive.
