How's the water?

 

Distinct society is right

If you have never lived in Quebec, you might not be aware of how unique its politics are. This guy, J.J. McCullough, I think does a really good job laying out the history of Quebec politics right up to before the recent election. Then he shows how the election went, which gives some insight as to how Quebecers are voting.

Even more amazing is the demonstration of just how bad first past the post elections are, considering that parties who got around 500,000 votes did anywhere from as good as 21 seats to as little as 0 seats. If this doesn’t scream why proportional representation systems are better for getting voices heard in government, I don’t know what else can.

If you can’t find the book you’re looking for, then you’re obviously in the…

 

Small things 25 Nov

• I wonder if they made a marshmallow Squishmallow if people would get the irony?
• Let’s hope that Elon Musk didn’t buy Twitter just to let Trump back in. Because Trump said he wasn’t interested.
• When it’s really cold outside and you drive into an underground heated parking garage and now your windows are frosted and you have to park blind save for two tiny holes where the defrost has penetrated the frost.
• Christmas Holiday Parenting Tip: Place fake presents under the tree with your child's name on them. Every time they misbehave, pick up one of the fake presents and toss it into the burning fireplace. They'll smarten right up. You're welcome.
• Ever wanted to tell a woman that she has a big ol’ piece of food stuck in her teeth, so you say, “Excuse me…” but before you can finish she says, “I’m married.”?
• Oh you may want to pay that kid who helped you fix your computer, but if you do, you’ll be running afoul of child labour laws, so just don’t.
• If liars’ pants really did catch fire, watching the news would be fun.

Bring two bags

 

Cost to drive an EV 100 km

If you’re curious about the comparison between driving a gas car 100km versus driving a typical EV car 100km, look no further.

As you can see, it’s anywhere from a tenth to a third of the cost, depending on rates where you live.

By the way, I love engaging with people who say things like, “You’re burning coal to make that electricity!” Yes, and you’re burning gasoline just to move that car around. And you’re burning coal to dry your clothes!

Summer tires

 

Things I learned lately 25 Nov

• Ontario has 49% of all the Tim Hortons locations in Canada.
• In Venezuelan culture it's rude to leave a host’s home on your own as an invited guest. The polite thing to do is to wait for your host to open the door and guide you out.
• Remember the Domino's Pizza ‘avoid the noid’ commercial? They stopped using the noid because of Kenneth Lamar Noid. He was a mentally unstable person who believed that the CEO of Domino’s was stalking him and making commercials to tease him. He held two restaurant employees hostage in Georgia and had to be put in an institution, where he committed suicide. That’s bad PR, so the pizza brand killed the noid. Literally.
• On 1 Sep 1939, the day that the Nazis invaded Poland, the British government told the BBC to stop broadcasting. They would not be allowed to resume until 7 Jun 1946.
• Diesel is not a scientific term, it is taken from Rudolf Diesel, a German engineer who invented the new type of ICE.

They missed something!

 

The manchineel tree is deadly

All parts of the tree contain strong toxins. Its milky white sap contains phorbol and other skin irritants, producing strong allergic contact dermatitis. Standing beneath the tree during rain will cause blistering of the skin from mere contact with this liquid: even a small drop of rain with the milky substance in it will cause the skin to blister. The sap has also been known to damage the paint on cars. Burning the tree may cause ocular injuries if the smoke reaches the eyes. Contact with its milky sap (latex) produces bullous dermatitis, acute keratoconjunctivitis and possibly large corneal epithelial defects. 

Although the fruit is potentially fatal if eaten, no such occurrences have been reported in the modern literature. Ingestion can produce severe gastroenteritis with bleeding, shock, and bacterial superinfection, as well as the potential for airway compromise due to edema. When ingested, the fruit is reportedly "pleasantly sweet" at first, with a subsequent "strange peppery feeling ... gradually progress[ing] to a burning, tearing sensation and tightness of the throat." Symptoms continue to worsen until the patient can "barely swallow solid food because of the excruciating pain and the feeling of a huge obstructing pharyngeal lump.”

OK, I think YYC has taken the whole ‘city art’ thing too far…

 

Small things 19 Nov

• I wonder how many men who own colourful pairs of underwear secretly enjoy knowing that nobody else knows that they’re wearing colourful underwear? Ladies, is this a thing for women too?
• When you clean out a vacuum cleaner, you become a vacuum cleaner.
• Competitive salary means it will be competing against your bills. And it will probably lose.
• Hal & Oates: I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t go for that.
• In a world of Kardashians, be a Joan Jett.
• Bacteria. The only culture some people have…
• "Some people call me the space cowboy, yeah. Some call me the gangster of love. Some people call me Maurice." Starbucks barista: I’m just gonna put ‘Steve’ on the cup.
• When giving directions to someone, don’t say “You can’t miss it.” They will prove you wrong.
• Air fryers. Or as we used to call them - convection ovens.
• “Yes I’m still married.” [4 words to ruin a 1st date]
• Remember pop-up headlights? How about power radio antennas on the car? How about a Landau vinyl roof? CB Radios? Fake wood panelling? Good times.
• Want to really annoy your neighbourhood resident dog owners? Just site yourself right along the route dog owners take their dogs to the off-leash park and as they approach with their dogs, just crouch down and excitedly go, “Hey buddy! Hey buddy!” and the dog will either get very angry and start barking and lunging, or very excited and start wagging and lunging. Either way, it gives the dog owner a nice workout and maybe they start taking alternate routes to the off-leash area and as a bonus, their dogs don’t shit on your lawn!

Need money for lightsaber

 

Kids rocking Zep

The Ocean (Cover) by Ellen, Yoyoka, Eva, Mateo

What is this?! Kids playing Zeppelin? No, kids killing Zeppelin.

Don't stop venn

 

Things I learned lately 19 Nov

• If you hear anyone use the words ‘immunity debt’ in a sentence, nod politely and walk away. There is no such thing. Your immune system doesn’t get weak because you haven’t been exposed to things for a while.
• Only 56% of Albertans use winter tires.
• Alberta has 48% of all the Safeway stores in Canada.
• The Calgary Flames hockey team’s mascot, Harvey the Hound, was voted the league’s worst mascot.
• Dinosaurs were around for so long that there were already dinosaur fossils while they were still alive.
• Placebo medicine is more effective if the patient is told the medicine is expensive.
• Australia has the largest population of feral camels in the world.
• Swallowed gum will not stay in your stomach for 7 years. If it can’t be broken down, it exits with the rest of your bodily waste.
• Birds will not abandon their babies if they have a human scent on them.
• There are a significant number of white people in the south and in middle America that think they are part Cherokee, when it’s highly unlikely. Contrary to what your family may have told you, there wasn't a "Cherokee princess" in the family. People get defensive about this because you have to accept that A) your family accidentally misled you on something your whole life; B) you don't have some Cherokee princess Native American blood. It’s just a folk tale passed down through generations.

Lays - one old flavour, one new flavour

 

This guy...

 

Many call him a socialist. 

To me he just wants Americans to have a fighting chance at a decent life.

This guy.

Reader rebel

 

Small things 11 Nov

• Let’s stop calling them baristas, and call them caffeine clerics and sugar shamans.
• How to control the population: Every time a child is born they are issued a drum set and a kazoo. And it’s against the law to take those things away from the child.
• Do I think their cat is spoiled? I don’t know, should the fridge have a cat door?
• Joe Walsh and Keith Moon walked into a bar. Nobody quite remembers what happened after that.
• Cats could never have a closed-door meeting, because all the other cats would have their paws under the door trying to feel for what’s going on.
• Hey Alexa and Google Home! You want to be really useful? Start listening in to where I say out loud that I’m putting something, so that weeks, months or years later I can ask, “Hey Google, where are the pruning shears?”, and you’ll tell me.
• Dear leaders. Let’s get together and make the alternating yield, also known as the zipper merge, the law, since dumbasses can’t seem to do it on their own.
• I love how when parents and other grown adults imitate The Count from Sesame Street, they are quite happy to just count something that there’s only one of. They don’t bother to find like a six-pack or a large pack of toilet paper rolls, no. They just go, “One. One joint of marijuana…. Ha ha ha!”

Siri now lets you hang up in the rudest way possible

 

Programmer humour

a software tester walks into a bar.

runs into a bar.

crawls into a bar.

dances into a bar.

flies into a bar.

jumps into a bar.

and orders:

a beer.

2 beers.

O beers.

99999999 beers.

a lizard in a beer glass.

-1 beer.

"qwertyuiop" beers.

testing complete.

a real customer walks into the bar and asks where the bathroom is.

the bar goes up in flames.

Albums that are 50 years old in 2022

 

Things I learned lately 11 Nov

• Smaller parking lots that have between 80 and 400 spaces will have until 2028 to be in compliance with the new measures to cover them in solar panels in France. Parking lots with more than 400 spaces have until 2026, and at least half of the surface area of the parking lot will need to be covered in solar panels.
• Effective April 2022, the French government has banned short-haul flights where a train or bus alternative of two and a half hours or less exists. This is part of an effort by France to reduce carbon emissions.
• Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan is a hot spring hotel in Hayakawa, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. Founded in 705 AD by Fujiwara Mahito, it is a long-established business as the oldest hotel and perhaps the oldest independent company in operation. In 2011, the hotel was recognized by Guinness World Records as the oldest hotel in the world.
• Brigadier Sir Nils Olav III is the colonel-in-chief of the Norwegian King's Guard. He is also a king penguin.
• According to the Global Slavery Index, there are an estimated 50 million slaves in the world today. Nearly a quarter of enslaved individuals are children according to the International Labour Organization. For example, Nestle relies on (but doesn’t condone) child slavery in western Africa to produce chocolate.

You know I'm picking the last one, right?

 

Stay high

This is in my humble opinion, the greatest song Brittany Howard has written to date. The live performance of it at KEXP’s studio is as good or better than the album version. This woman could sing the menu and make it sound soulful. 

Incidentally, the official music video ain’t half bad either.

Am I out of touch with the common man?

 

Small things 4 Nov

• When Darlene insists that I order first at a restaurant, I know right then that she’s going to order dessert for her meal.
• Uber Eats - Weed - If you’re rolling, we’re rolling
• The phrase “I will not elaborate” has probably never been uttered from my lips.
• Also “Allow me to elaborate so that I can forget my original point in 60 seconds or less.”
• Did you hear about the guy who had a vasectomy because he didn’t want any kids? But then he went home and they were still there!
• Had a debate with a flat earther. He said, “I’ll walk to the edge of the earth to prove you wrong.” He’ll come around… 
• As you get older, you suffer humiliating micro-injuries. “How did you hurt yourself?” “I slept wrong.” “I drank water too fast.” “While I was driving, I happened to yawn while turning my head to check my blind spot.” “I sneezed too hard.” “I raised my hand to scratch my head and whacked my hand against the door frame.”
• Shows I’d like to see: Thomas the X-Wing Fighter.
• Never mind the chicken or the egg question. I don’t care why the chicken crossed the road. I want to know why other things also taste like chicken. And are we really being served chicken?

Oh look! Another 1970s hi-fi pic!

 

Hey dude with the ear buds!

20 somethings are looking at this tower of power and wondering, “What is all that stuff?” It’s stereo equipment from the 1980s, and it’s not even audiophile grade either.

Every single one of those boxes has a purpose. The bottom box plays compact discs. The next one up plays cassette tapes. Next up is a tuner. That’s right, a separate box just for tuning in FM radio stations. That’s all it does. Next up is an equalizer. What’s that? It’s a box that acts like a bass and treble knob but there’s 8 of them. What’s a bass and treble knob you ask? You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Next up is the integrated amplifier. What makes it integrated? It combines the amp with the pre-amp, silly. It took the audio signal from the sound sources like the cassette player, CD player, and tuner and amplified the signal to be loud enough to feed into speakers. Yeah speakers, missing from this picture because they’re huge! Each one bigger than this tower. And that last box on top of the pile? It’s a turntable. You probably heard about it because for some inexplicable reason, people want to play their music on a giant vinyl disc again.

Hipsters.

1970s era filters

 

Things I learned lately 4 Nov

• Colin Hanks, Tom Hank’s son, has a handkerchief company called Hanks Kerchiefs.
• Every minute, the city of New York consumes the equivalent of an Olympic swimming pool full of water.
• Oxford University existed 250 years before the Aztecs existed. Oxford University first opened in 1096, the Aztec period was from 1345-1521.
• The existence of dinosaurs wasn’t known until the 1820s. Bones had been discovered, but people didn’t realize what they belonged to.
• In a recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, they discovered that the impact of a small act of kindness is much stronger than we realize, both in terms of how it makes the recipient feel, and their willingness to pay that kindness forward.
• Montpelier, Vermont, is the only US capital without a McDonald's within its city limits.
• Dr. Seuss invented the word "nerd".
• There are no London Drugs stores east of Manitoba.
• BC has 67% of all the London Drugs stores in Canada.
• The piano part of Nilsson’s song ‘Without You’ is performed by Gary Wright.
• The piano part of Cat Steven’s song ‘Morning has Broken’ is performed by Rick Wakeman.
• Apparently only 2 albums were ever played whole, from start to finish, on BBC Radio 1. Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, and Jean Michel Jarre’s Oxygene.