First of all, promoted

 

Get outta here

Stumbled upon this glorious 2nd demo of Steely Dan's Black Cow. 

Nothing but Donald Fagen and his piano. 

Incredible.

Miniature traffic playground in Copenhagen where kids learn to bike in traffic

 

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Well, another Canadian election is over and the result is the same. A Liberal minority government. Man, you could hear the sighs of exasperation across the country that night. Meanwhile, I was rather satisfied.

You see, majority governments suck. Yeah, they do. You're basically giving a party and its lackeys unchecked power to do whatever they want for a full, four year term. Oh sure, they hold committee meetings and discuss policy before they write the next bill, but who are we kidding? They can pay lip service to any suggestions made by committee members who aren't from the ruling party or ignore input outright and there's not a damned thing you can do about it until the next election.

With a minority government , on the other hand, the ruling party doesn't have the leverage to enact any policy it wants. Because all it takes to kill it is for all of the other parties to collectively vote no and it's over. For good measure, if the ruling party starts acting like an ass on a regular basis, the other parties can team up and vote no confidence in the ruling party and that's it. The game is over and it's back to the polls.

So what this does in effect is create a situation where the ruling party has to try and propose policies that at least one other party holding the balance of power can agree to. It creates a climate of cooperation. It demands collaboration and actually listening to committee members' ideas. It creates policies that represent more of the populace. And it prevents the ruling party from getting too full of themselves.

I'm for a minority government every time. Which is why a change in our electoral system to a proportional representation system would better serve our country. Because when a party gets 15% of the popular vote, they would also get 15% influence on policy creation. How is that not fair?

So thank you Canada, for making sure that the ruling party, which also happens to be my traditional party, doesn't get to do whatever it wants. Because they didn't get ALL the votes. And neither did anyone else.

Small things 24 September

• As long as you're learning, you're not failing.
• At this point, do we really need the word 'stop' on the stop sign? Would anyone not recognize the colour and shape?
• Hotel California: A negative Yelp review with a 2 minute guitar solo.
• I saw a hornet drowning in my bird bath and I used a feather to push it out and to the side so it could recover. I am friend to the buzzing things.
• I'm disappointed that Americans haven't just given in and now spell it Wensday.
• Science has been the slow process of showing that the exciting magical world we believed in doesn't exist, and there is nothing but boring reality. Except for quantum mechanics, which showed boring reality doesn't exist, and everything is basically magic.
• Telling someone they can't be sad because others have it worse is like telling someone they can't be happy because others have it better.
• Everyone has heard of the historical figure, Karl Marx. But no one remembers his sister, Onya, who invented the starting pistol. [snort]
• Is it possible to pick up a pair of tongs and not click them together?
• Water is heavier than butane because butane is a lighter fluid.
• So remember that Klingon ship they used in Star Trek IV as a time machine? Did anyone notice it was stolen from the Klingon actor who played Doc Brown from Back to the Future?
• I had a high school teacher who could launch a chalkboard eraser with his suspenders at a clock on the back wall of the classroom. This was his warning to anyone who fell asleep in class.
• David had his ID stolen. Now he's just Dav.
• I, for one, like Roman numerals.

Gravity means nothing

 

Turd totems

This is a contender for best Oatmeal comic strip of the year.

Wombats, cube shaped turds and so much more.

Caution, your brain will need to delete a childhood memory to make room for all of the awesomeness in this comic strip.

Also, koala bears are a unit of measurement now. Must be an Australian thing.

When school photos go horribly wrong

 

Things I learned lately 24 September

• It turns out that the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, or MBTI, an assessment developed in the early 1940s, based on the writings of Carl Jung, has serious reliability issues. Extraversion (E) vs. Introversion (I); Sensing (S) vs. Intuition (N); Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F); Judging (J) vs. Perceiving (P). That's because the test results vary depending on context, motivation, maturity and social environment. In essence, be careful before labelling yourself as an ENTP or what have you, because it may only be accurate in a specific set of circumstances.
  
  
  
• After the election on 20 Oct, Canada's Conservative caucus is 95% white.
• London courier and private hire taxi firm Addison Lee has pledged to convert its whole passenger car fleet to electric vehicles by 2023. While it has over 4,800 cars operating in London, its recent acquisition of black taxi service ComCab will make it the largest taxi company in London with over 7,000 vehicles.
• The Norwegian butter crisis began in late 2011 with an acute shortage of butter across markets in Norway. The shortage caused soaring prices (a single 250 g (8.8 oz) pack of imported butter cost NOK 300 (€39; £32; $50)) and stores' stocks of butter ran out within minutes of deliveries. Norway was gripped by smør-panik (butter panic) as a result of the butter shortage.
• The recently created Alberta Immunization Record PDF (don't dare call it a passport) isn't locked and can be edited. So, you can make it say whatever vaccine you want, whatever name you want. [slow clap]
• A transparent wood material has been invented that starts out as balsa wood before being processed. The ramifications are windows with the insulating properties of wood.
• Popsicles used to be called 'Epsicle ice pops', and fudgesicles used to be called 'fudgicles'.
• Part of the reason Japan and Germany established such a great car industry is because after World war II, they had tons of manufacturing ability from the war, yet were banned from building a military. So they made cars.

Schrodinger's cat

 

Son of Moog

Best photoshopped pic seen in a while.  

Name some tracks from this pretend album. 

I'll start. 

• Slaying the patches. 
• Fragile human. 
• Bat'leth of glory.

Small things 17 September

• The Covid vaccines have been branded. Pfizer is now Comirnaty. Moderna is now SpikeVax. AstraZeneca is now Vaxzevria. Come on. Really? Talk about a missed opportunity. All they would have had to do to get an uptick on vaccine acceptance is to name them Tim's, Snow Goose and Blackberry. "I want the Blackberry vaccine!" "Me too! Does it get 5G?"
• A joke doesn't become a Dad joke until it's full groan.
• Rage Against the Machine never specified what type of machine they were furious with, but I reckon it was probably a printer.
• Some gene pools could use some chlorine.
• If President Biden declared breathing mandatory, half of Texas would suffocate itself on purpose.
• If you forget a someone's name, just take them to Starbucks...
• Texas. Where a virus has reproductive rights and a woman doesn't.
• If a 16 year old wanted to adopt a child, the government wouldn't allow it. Yet if she gets pregnant, the government can ban her from getting an abortion.
• I think some folks got confused when they heard about herd immunity and thought that meant getting animal medicine.
• You can't use 'beef stew' as a password. It's not stroganoff......

People: I hate lazy people

Lazy people: Why? We didn't even do anything!

"Lies spread faster than truth"

You may not necessarily agree with Sacha Baron Cohen in this edited clip of a speech he gave about social media, but it definitely gives one pause.

There is one essential truth in what he is saying, which is, social media definitely knows how to keep you engaged based on what you like and what pushes your buttons. The question is, is this ethical? Are we victims of a dopamine dealer?

Caw! Caw!

 

Let us reward your stubbornness

I'm really having a hard time with current governments' strategy to encourage people to do things they should be doing already.

Lotteries to encourage people to get vaccinated. Cash handouts to encourage vaccination. Rebates to motivate people to make their homes more efficient.

What about the rest of us who were the first to do these things? What do we get? If you want to reward people, reward those who took the decision on their own to do the right thing. That sends a message, "If you do the right thing, you will be rewarded." Under the current pile of strategies, the message being sent is, "Be a procrastinator. Resist. Sooner or later, you'll get the prize. You will be rewarded for stubbornness."

The Alberta advantage

 

Things I learned lately 17 September

• Facebook's own researchers states that the Instagram app harms mental health. "We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls. Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression." This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups.
• According to Sandy Munro, the Model Y is the best car Tesla makes right now.
• Scientists are trying to genetically engineer a woolly mammoth / elephant hybrid that can resist cold and will have woolly hair. Results expected within 6 years.
• In Amish country (US) it's not unusual to pay $30,000 for a buggy horse.
• Supermarkets in South Korea offer toilet paper samples for you to test.
• Airports in Seoul provide a map to your gate on the back of your boarding pass.
• An anti-abortion anonymous tip line in Texas is being spammed by TikTokers sending Shrek memes. There are also scripts developed that submit thousands of fake tips.
• The Chinese were technologically more advanced than Europe all throughout the time between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance. They invented porcelain. Europe was envious of porcelain and it was something Kings and rich people sought to posses. so naturally a lot of people tried recreating it. This led to the invention and refining of working glass.
• Ron Goldman was murdered because Nicole Brown Simpson's Mom dropped a pair of sunglasses at the restaurant where Ron worked as a server. He left work and was bringing the glasses to Nicole's place. Bad timing.
• From 1971 to 1975, Morgan Freeman starred in the PBS children's television show The Electric Company.

Old style DQ from the 1960s (or 70s)

I was telling Darlene about the Dairy Queen we grew up with in Deux Montagnes, Quebec (Two Mountains, or 2Mo as it's known by locals online). It was just a walk up counter. Then someone posted a picture of it online within hours of me talking about it. This was the big deal in my home town. Only open from May to September, if my memory serves correctly. Note the phone booth at the right. Remember those?

No we won't!

 

Small things 10 September

• Treat others how they want to be treated, not how you want to be treated.
• Why when we're testing out office chairs do we sit in them and spin around? Is that a precise measure of chair performance?
• I'd like to see an insulting match between Simon Cowell and Gordon Ramsey.
• Fun fact: We will soon see if Federal religious freedom rights make women who are members of the Satanic Temple exempt from state abortion laws.
• When a government bitches about paying nurses overtime but then offers $100 to the main drivers of that overtime, it was never about the financial restraint.
• Who knew The Handmaid's Tale would become a documentary...

Roses are red

Mornings are rough

I'm not a poet

Coffee

More poetry? OK.....

Five syllable here

Seven more syllables there

Are you happy now

The weirdest laptop invention ever.

The nubbin pointing device. 

Thank goodness they invented touch pads next.
 

20 September 2021 is democracy in action in Canada

But you don't get a say unless you vote.

Do yourself a favour. If you're wondering who to vote for, I have a marvelous resource for you to try.

It's called Vote Compass. Let Vote Compass ask your position on national topics of concern and where you stand on various issues. Based on your answers, it will tell you which party your views best align with.

Just be careful not to try and guess what answer your favourite party or politician would pick, answer from your own heart. This will give you the most accurate results.

Also, advanced polls are open 9-9 today, Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

Yes, I have already voted.

Our guest speaker and his friend mic

 

Things I learned lately 10 September

• America supplied cigarettes to military men during World War II. Philip Morris and other tobacco suppliers reported selling 290 billion smokes in 1943. In order to relieve boredom and improve the morale of fighting men, cigarettes came standard inside K-ration boxes along with candy and gum. If young soldiers and sailors wanted more, cigarettes were just 50 cents a carton or a nickel a pack.
• Orson Welles' 1938 radio play War of the Worlds didn't cause mass hysteria in the United States. You may have heard that millions of Americans were tricked into thinking that aliens had invaded Earth, but in reality, "the supposed panic was so tiny as to be practically immeasurable on the night of the broadcast." Newspapers covered the story gratuitously, hoping to strike a blow against radio, the popularity of which had carved into their profits. But very few people actually tuned into the broadcast, and even fewer earnestly believed what they were hearing. Anecdotes about the panicked reactions of the public were later disproven.
• In 2019, Pope Francis received a bottle of Oban malt whiskey while visiting Scottish priests, and declared it to be 'the real holy water'. The BBC captured the footage for a documentary, which was censored by the Vatican.
• 100 producers are responsible for over 70% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.
• Rick James (of Super Freak fame) once worked with Neil Young in a band called The Mynah Birds in the mid 1960s.

Small things 3 September

• If you step on the gas and the brake at the same time, your car takes a screenshot.
• It's possible that Zoom meetings may have conditioned people into thinking that if they don't like a meeting, or want to excuse themselves for a coffee or pee break, that this is perfectly fine.
  
  
  Immediately, and without a word to anyone. This may be hard to unlearn.
• Cooking recipes are a suggestion, baking recipes are an instruction.
• Imagine you're a whale and you're confessing to another whale that you ate a human and humans recorded the conversation and put it on Spotify to fall asleep to. Awkward!
• You can ask a tall person to reach for something high up, but you would never ask a short person to pick up something you dropped.
• Just before croutons were invented: "You know what this salad needs? More crunch."
• I'd love to hear what Jacob Collier would do with 10CC's "I'm not in Love".
• All animals are therapy animals. Most of them are freelancing.
• Imagine if all the corn kernels popped at exactly the same time.

Colleges: We really need you to pay $24,000 tuition. That's the lowest we can go.

Athlete: What if I can throw a ball really, really well?

College: LMAO. Here, it's free!

Worst dad joke ever

 

"I haven't run out excuses yet..."

Them: I don't know what's in the vaccine

Us: But you eat hot dogs and have tattoos...

Them: I don't think the vaccine is safe

Medical experts: It's safe

Them: Well, it's not FDA approved

Intermission

Medical experts: It's now FDA approved

Them: I'll wait until the NRA approves it

You spelled it wrong

 

Apples and orange trees

Them: Cancer and heart disease EACH killed more people in the US last years than Covid.

Experts: Heart disease is a blanket term for a cluster pf approximately 30 different deadly illnesses. Cancer is a blanket term for a cluster of over 100 separate diseases. Another common comparison is Flu, which is a blanket term for about 60 different illnesses.

Covid-19 is one disease. No single strain of Flu, no single type of heart disease, and no individual cancer come close to the casualty rate of Covid.

The sort of comparison you're making is called an ecological fallacy. Which means you're comparing statistics across two very different and incompatible levels of analysis. A comparable situation would be if I said, "Wow. New York has a lot of people." And you replied, "Actually, Asia has a lot more people than New York." Technically true, but you're comparing a city to a continent, which is dumb. Same thing if you compare one disease to a group of a hundred.

But that's the thing. Covid is so bad that people who don't realize this, feel a natural compulsion to compare it to something like cancer. That's how many people it's killing, that it's in the same ball park as all 100+ cancers or all 30+ heart diseases COMBINED.

Who's the sheep?

 

Things I learned lately 3 September

• The SMART car got its name from Swatch Mercedes ART. The car was designed by the owner of the Swatch watch company and convinced Daimler to make it.
• Due to rising temperatures, more workers are dying from heat than ever. So cities have mandated that construction workers get 10-minute water breaks every four hours. In response, Texas Republicans are now trying to pass a bill that bans mandatory water breaks.
  
  
  
• In 2002, Elmo became the only non-human or puppet to testify before Congress. Elmo was asked to testify before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education. Elmo urged support for increased funding in music education.
• At sunset, you can hear a special jingle being played over the PA systems in Tokyo neighbourhoods, reminding kids that they should be on their way home. Yes, kids learn how to be safe on their own, like it used to be here in the 60s and 70s.
• In Tokyo, many employers pay for the cost of commuting on public transportation. Owning a car is considered a luxury.
• Most of Japan, and Tokyo in particular, centers around the train stations, which are the neighbourhood hubs. When people give you directions, it almost always starts from the perspective of a train station as a starting point. Homes for sale or rent always mention walking distance to the nearest train station.
• In 1443, King Sejong single-handedly created Hangul, the Korean alphabet, in response to the immense difficulty that common people faced learning Chinese characters.
• The Wolverine character was born in Cold Lake, AB.
• Extra Virgin olive oil has an extremely low smoke point, so cooking with it often leads to burnt food and a smoky kitchen. It is intended for dressing and garnishing. Regular olive oil has a much higher smoke point and is meant for cooking.
• Neptune has only gone around the sun once since it was discovered 165 years ago.