Categories
culture

Star Wars Kid Interview on Waxy.org

The Star Wars kid has been identified… The full story here!

Categories
culture humor

This Hour Has 22 Minutes – I’m Sorry

I found this quote and thought it’s ever so relevant during the “difficult time” the US is now going through. You know, the “situation” where there actually are no weapons of mass destruction to be found in Iraq. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I am sticking up for Saddam Hussein or his fallen regime — it’s just that the USA has certainly put its “credibility” in jeopardy. Enjoy:

A truly Canadian Apology to the USA, courtesy of comedian Colin Mochrie from This Hour Has 22 Minutes, CBC Television aired on 11 February 2003:

Hello. I’m Anthony St. George on location here in Washington.

On behalf of Canadians everywhere I’d like to offer an apology to the United States of America. We haven’t been getting along very well recently and for that, I am truly sorry. I’m sorry we called George Bush a moron. He is a moron, but it wasn’t nice of us to point it out. If it’s any consolation, the fact that he’s a moron shouldn’t reflect poorly on the people of America. After all, it’s not like you actually elected him.

I’m sorry about our softwood lumber. Just because we have more trees than you, doesn’t give us the right to sell you lumber that’s cheaper and better than your own. It would be like if, well, say you had ten times the television audeince we did and you flood our market with great shows, cheaper than we could produce. I know you’d never do that.

I’m sorry we beat you in Olympic hockey. In our defence I guess our excuse would be that our team was much, much, much, much better than yours. As word of apology, please accept all of our NHL teams which, one by one, are going out of business and moving to your fine country.

I’m sorry about our waffling on Iraq. I mean, when you’re going up against a crazed dictator, you want to have your friends by your side. I realize it took more than two years before you guys pitched in against Hitler, but that was different. Everyone knew he had weapons.

I’m sorry we burnt down your White House during the War of 1812. I see you’ve rebuilt it! It’s very nice.

I’m sorry for Alan Thicke, Shania Twain, Celine Dion, Loverboy, that song from Seriff that ends with a really high-pitched long note.

Your beer. I know we had nothing to do with your beer, but we feel your pain.

And finally on behalf of all Canadians, I’m sorry that we’re constantly apologizing for things in a passive-aggressive way which is really a thinly veiled criticism. I sincerely hope that you’re not upset over this. Because we’ve seen what you do to countries you get upset with.

For 22 minutes, I’m Anthony St. George, and I’m sorry.

Categories
Miscellaneous

Diametrious Earth Update

Most of the ants died after only one application of the diametrious earth. It did rain the next day so maybe that is why they didn’t all die. I put some more on the last anthill where there seemed to be some survivors. Jeff’s recomendation: If you have ant problems then diametrious earth is the way to go.

Update: The Diametrious Earth didn’t work. I ended up using Green Cross and THAT worked.

It didn’t really work. There are still a few ant hills in the front lawn. After awhile I just gave up trying to get rid of them.

Categories
Miscellaneous

Dad Comes to Lethbridge

Dad visited me today and now he’s gone. I was supposed to fix his computer but it seemed to be working fine when he brought it here, so I don’t know what the problem was or is, but I suspect he will still not have his internet working when he gets home. Something with either his ISP or the router. Hopefully I’ll be able to help them over the phone.

Anyway while he was here, he took Anna-Maria and me to Pizza Hut for all you can eat pizza! He also made me a nice loaf of bread in the bread-maker. I guess the problem I was having with it had to do with substituting butter for shortening. He substituted some vegetable oil because I don’t have margerine or crisco and it seems to have made a really nice loaf. I love fresh bread.

I hope you had a happy birthday Gary, and I hope you are enjoying your vacation in BC.

Categories
Miscellaneous

Roommate Insanity

Anna and I bought Pizza and had a good time eating it while watching an old video that Scott had laying around, “Cocktail”. Well I was pretty confident that after talking so sternly to Jason (the 18 year old roommate) about eating and drinking my food that the pizza would be okay in the fridge. All I can say is – at least he didn’t eat the whole thing. Anyway he still hasn’t paid the rent for this month (just half and only today did I get that much) and so I still haven’t told him that I’m kicking him out. I figure I’d better at least collect the rent so that I do indeed get paid. I suppose I could always take it out of his damage deposit – just so long as he doesn’t wreck anything before he’s gone. Speaking of wrecking things – now you may think I’m overreacting, but someone (probably Jason because he’s the only one around and the only one that would do this) anyway someone took a permanent marker and drew a small line about 1 cm on the front of my computer. Why would someone do this? Why would anyone think that the front of a computer is a place to draw a small black line? I spent the last 10 minutes scrubbing at it and now it’s barely noticeable. I’m glad I discovered it today and not a few weeks from now when it had really set in. The thing is now, I don’t even want to talk to him about it because for one, I am sick of making him feel bad, number two I don’t even know if he did it and I don’t want to constantly be accusing the guy of all these nitpicky things and yet I feel violated by him all of the time. I guess it’s time I put the computer in my own room and said – sorry Jason, you can use the Pentium 130 if you need to check your email. Well now that I have vented all my frustration I feel like I should finish my laundry, go upstairs, and make something to eat.

P.S. Happy Birthday Gary (I know it’s tomorrow but I don’t want to take the chance and forget to post)

Categories
Miscellaneous

The First Issue of Nintendo Power

The other night when I was in Medicine Hat with Anna, I spent about 15 or 20 minutes playing the original Nintendo Entertainment System with her brother Josh. It brought back a flood of memories about stomping on the evil mushroom kingdom turtles, and searching for the Triforce or even for Zelda herself not to mention the endless possibilites of Excitebike where you could design your own levels! Anyway it just so turns out that today I discovered a webpage dedicated to the 1st issue of Nintendo power. I really had to laugh about this:

From the page:

“Ah, the famous ‘1-Up Trick’ from Super Mario Brothers, something with which I had a success rate of .0007% in accomplishing. It’s not that I didn’t know how to do it – the information was right there in front of me. Still, for whatever reason, I could never seem to pull it off. I’d get that first Koopa turtle out of the way, and when the fabled second Koopa made his trek down the brick mountain, I’d always [screw] up and somehow kill Mario. You know the music that played whenever Mario lost one of his lives? Well, and I swear this is true – it got to the point where that music would play as soon as I got up to that second turtle. The game became so confident that I was gonna die again that it’d roll out with the theme prematurely just to spite and shame me.

I really hated that stupid Koopa turtle. The second one, I mean. The first one was just doing his job. The second one was mean to me.”

Categories
Miscellaneous

Roommate Update

I came home from Medicine Hat this afternoon and the house seemed to be in good shape, nothing broken – the oven wasn’t left on, and the lights were all out. Nobody was home and things seemed good. I went to teach swimming lessons and when I got back I noticed a strong scent of my cologne in my room. I hadn’t used any of it for a while now so I was suspicious. It seems that someone had spilt it sometime after I left and before I got back. I decided then that maybe it’s time for Jason to move out. Not only was he stealing from me but he was in my room stealing from me – and he knows that he is NEVER allowed to go in my room. I’ll give him until the end of the month. Now in the mean time I’ve got to find more roommates.

Categories
Miscellaneous

Lawnmower

When I went out to mow this evening I decided to mow my front lawn first because it was looking like such a jungle compared to all the neighbours that had just mowed yesterday and today. It was lucky that I did because when I got to the back and finished about one quarter of the lawn back there the lawnmower made a bad sound. It was one of those bad sounds that are accompanied by a very bad vibration and the sinking feeling that this particular lawn won’t be mowed tonight. As well the feeling that – “Oh no I’ve just wrecked Anna’s lawnmower!” I guess it’s not such a big deal, she said she was going to give it to me anyway when she moves, but I still felt bad for wrecking it. I shouldn’t feel bad though, because it’s not like it was something that I did, it was just the lawnmower Gods calling their sweet beater of a 3.5 horsepower mower back to whence it came. Now I can go out and get something with a little power, a nice 6 horsepower lawn-devouring machine. I bet you with one of those I could mow my whole lawn a hell of a lot faster than six horses could eat it.

Categories
Miscellaneous

Ants

I have a little ant problem. Actually the ants are little and the problem is big. There are about three anthills in my front lawn (four if you can’t the little one) and they are peeking up so high that if I mow over them the blades rub down on them sending sand and dirt flying everywhere – not to mention ants. It has gotten so bad that I actually mowed around the anthills. I also applied some diametrious earth, which is supposed to be the best way to get rid of ants and other insects and so far so good. They don’t seem very lively now, in fact there isn’t a single ant to be seen.

Categories
humor

Andrew Carlssin – the insider trader from the future

I’ve had quite a few people looking for details about Andrew Carlssin, the insider trader from the future. Here is the low down on the future man:

Andrew Carlssinwwn time traveller

[Collected on the Internet, 2003]
‘TIME-TRAVELER’ BUSTED FOR INSIDER TRADING
Wednesday March 19, 2003

By CHAD KULTGEN

NEW YORK — Federal investigators have arrested an enigmatic Wall Street wiz on insider-trading charges — and incredibly, he claims to be a time-traveler from the year 2256!

Sources at the Security and Exchange Commission confirm that 44-year-old Andrew Carlssin offered the bizarre explanation for his uncanny success in the stock market after being led off in handcuffs on January 28.

“We don’t believe this guy’s story — he’s either a lunatic or a pathological liar,” says an SEC insider.

“But the fact is, with an initial investment of only $800, in two weeks’ time he had a portfolio valued at over $350 million. Every trade he made capitalized on unexpected business developments, which simply can’t be pure luck.

“The only way he could pull it off is with illegal inside information. He’s going to sit in a jail cell on Rikers Island until he agrees to give up his sources.”

[Link to Yahoo article ‘TIME-TRAVELER’ BUSTED FOR INSIDER TRADING]

All I need to tell you about this article is that it originated in the Weekly World News an entertainment tabloid devoted to arousing curiosity and to catering to popular superstitions. They often do so with flashy headlines designed to astonish (e.g. Half-man Half-woman Makes Self Pregnant and no I don’t have a link). Unfortunately, as I have learned the hard way, Yahoo!, a primary news source for many people on the Internet, makes it a habbit of reprinting some Weekly World News articles under the heading of “Entertainment News & Gossip,” a title that to me doesn’t convey a strong “bogus” warning to readers who don’t notice the original source is the Weekly World News or don’t know what the Weekly World News is.

Dispite this article’s shady origins I have noticed it reprinted in a variety of newspaper and magazine sites verbatim and published as a “real” news item. Apparently FBI and US Security officials have been inundated with a rash of inquiries from reporters and journalists seeking to confirm this outrageous story.

The spokesman at the US Security and Exchange Commission in Washington has been asked a lot about the mysterious time traveller.

“This story is pure fantasy. There is no truth in it at all,” he says. “This is the kind of story that belongs in the same file as ‘Elvis Shrine Found on Mars.’

“You know something? We have had an enormous number of calls from the media on this one. It has been absolutely amazing. Of course, we had to look into it, but as far as we know, it’s just not true.”

At FBI Headquarters in Washington, spokesman Bill Carter is also well aware of the story. “I had a call about this yesterday too,” he sighs. “When I think about it, the other call came from Britain too.

“Look,” he continues. “I doubt very much the veracity of the story. I am not aware of any individual who has made 350 million on the stock market with an 800 stake.”

In a follow-up article on 29 April 2003, the Weekly World News reported that mysterious time-traveling Andrew Carlssin had been bailed out by an “unidentified benefactor” who ponied up $1 million, then jumped bail before an April 3 court hearing and disappeared without a trace.

“Still, it takes more than cold, hard facts to curb a worldwide fascination with time travel. After all, it was none other than Albert Einstein who, using little more than high-school maths, discovered in 1905 that travelling at fast speeds actually slows down time. To put the theory to the test, in 1971 scientists Joe Hafele and Richard Keating put highly accurate atomic clocks into aeroplanes and flew them around the world. According to Einstein’s calculations, on their return they should have read 59 nanoseconds slow compared with identical clocks on the ground — they did. Rack up the speed to a much more significant level and who knows where it might take you. Just remember, the truth is out there…”