If you don't know me by now...

There are few commercials that make me want to try their product. This is one of em.

Pointless Drivel

If there's one thing in this world that I don't give two sweet fucks about, it's gotta be celebrities.

The news feed on my MSN window came up with a title the other day saying something about the custody battle between Britney Spears and K-Fed.

Like, oh my gawd! I can't, like, believe she could, like, possibly take care of a child. Like, shah...

And ya gotta wonder...

WHO GIVES A FUCK ABOUT BRITNEY SPEARS

It's unbelievable how much time and money some people will spend on this type of shit. Just look at all the tabloids, all the magazines and newspaper titles, and all the pictures of Joe-Fuckhead and Sally-Slutmaster. It's all a fucking illusion that average people are taught to buy into.

If you buy this product you'll get more sexy women to rub themselves all over you.
If your hair looks like this, you'll land yourself a nice rich businessman and live happily ever after.

Everyone's sent chasing the American dream and watching the goings-on of celebrities instead of trying to actually accomplish something in their own lives. Are we really that boring that we need to live vicariously through someone on TV or in a magazine? Do we really need to live up to these ridiculous airbrushed standards of the world? Should we be dedicating our time to looking at the cellulite piling up on some movie star's ass? Is Tara Reid's nipple all that entertaining? Does a photograph of Lindsay Lohan's snatch improve our lives in some way? And are the perverted photographs of the paparazzi something we really ought to be supporting here people?

Honestly, what the fuck. Try getting your own life.

Write a book.
Volunteer for something.
Read the news paper.
Plant a fucking tree.

At least better yourself or the world in some way, rather than waste time on the mental midgets we're supposed to idolize.

Don't worry Paris, I wouldn't dream of it...

New Year, Same Old Crap

This new year, I have complied a short list of resolutions for everyone that is not me:

• stop wearing those fucking bluetooth earpieces. you look like douchebags.

• if you think of yourself as a big tough man, and attend sporting events, don't drink light beer. light beer is for americans and pussies
  

• enough with the fucking facebook applications

• start wearing clothes that fit you. especially you muffin-toppers and gangsta whiteboy thugs.

• stop buying shitty music. pap bullshit and mindless dancefloor music only exist because somebody buys that crap

• enough with this "support the troops" bullshit. if you really want to support the troops, either a) join the army or b) bring them home before any more get killed

• stop watching pointless shit on television. reality tv is not real so stop kidding yourselves; entertainment tonight has no fucking impact on the real world; and Sally Perfecttits from the OC is never going to fuck you. hell, even Jerry Springer's lead security man's got himself a show now people - don't you think we've gone far enough??

• don't even bother going to the gym. we all know you're gonna show up twice in january and then quit, so save your money
  

Convictions

Over the past few days the courts have handed down some noteworthy decisions:

1. Michael Vick was sentenced to 23 months in prison for his role in the dog-fighting ring that he helped to organize. It's a step in the right direction to show the rich and famous that they're not above the law, and also a good stride for animal rights. But you have to wonder why Vick acted so foolishly during the court case when he was only looking at 12-14 months. (And you also have to wonder how he even faced a prison term as low as 12 months in the first place, given the brutality of the crimes.
2. "Lord" Conrad Black was given a sentence of 78 months in prison and ordered to repay over $6 million of money embezzled from shareholders in his company, Hollinger International. This is a light sentence again, considering he could've faced a couple of decades behind bars. At least the US courts proved he wasn't entirely above the law...
3. Robert Pickton was convicted of 6 counts of 2nd degree murder for the killings of prostitutes on his Vancouver area pig farm. He still awaits trial for the murders of 19 other women, and has been implicated (but not charged) in the murders of even more. At the end of the day this guy is going to be behind bars for the rest of his life, but I find it pretty amazing that he wasn't given 1st degree murder convictions. After the first time, he had obviously established what he was doing - hence it was premeditated. I'm also somewhat surprised that Ontarians haven't given nearly as much notice to this case as they did to the Paul Bernardo/Karla Homolka case back in the 90's. This guy is probably Canada's worst serial killer ever (caught?) but he hasn't received nearly as much attention.

Delta

For the first time in months I was able to wake up on a weekday without an alarm clock forcing me out of bed. Granted it was 2 pm, but that kinda made it all the better.

Yesterday was the last day of classes for the semester, and fortunately it was also the last day of work until the new year. And for the first time ever I have less that 5 exams in December. Granted, I had to write two big essays in the last two weeks, but that leaves only 3 exams, which is nice.

And after my exams are done on the 18th I'll be heading to the wife's to stay for a few nights before my dad and bro pick me up on the way to Chicago. Rather than buy each other gifts this year we figured we'd take a trip together and get out to a few hockey games. It's going to make for some tight travel times to make it home for Christmas eve, and I hope the weather holds out.

On a different note, for years I've been trying to figure out how the hell people can make pictures look like this:

A few weeks back I got off my lazy ass and decided to find out how to do it. In reality it's not that hard to do, but I think I gave myself the 24-hour carpal tunnels syndrome due to my ceaseless mouse movement for a few days there.
But after doing a bunch of pictures and putting them up on my flickr page (as seen cycling on the sidebar), I only ran into more questions. One girl on there claimed she could make her camera select only specific colours without having to do any work by hand, but I can't figure out how she does it. She claims that every Canon can do it, but as far as I can tell mine can't. And the damn thing is fairly new, so I'm a little confused.
I'm also pissed off that the program I used to make the changes to the pictures was only a trial program on my computer that has subsequently expired.

Then again, tis the season. So I might have to ask for a decent program to screw with more photos in the future.

Trouble

A few months ago I came across an article on the BBC saying that a billionaire American businesswoman had left $12 million to her pet dog, Trouble.

For the sake of justice, I can only hope that hell does exist...

In brighter news, the dog has now received death threats! I understand the reason for the threats, but what the fuck people? The selfish bitch you ought to be more concerned with is the one that just died. The dog is just a bloody dog.

I can't imagine what this poor woman's life must have been like. How could someone like that have any friends? I just keep picturing a female Monty Burns sitting in her empty mansion fingering away at that glass of brandy...

"Astonishing"

"The Saudi's are ever our friends and our allies..."


Here's the sequence of events that I've gathered about the case of a 19 year old Saudi Arabian woman who was raped last year:

1) A recently married Saudi woman was having an affair with a man.

2) She met this man in a car in order to retrieve a photo of the two of them together (it's against the law for a woman to be seen in public with man to whom she is not related.)

3) Two men somehow enter the car, and drive them to a secluded area somewhere in the province of Qatif.

4) Both the man and woman are repeatedly raped (the woman 14 times) by several attackers.

5) In court the two victims were each sentenced to 90 lashes for their crime of "illegal mingling". (Seven attackers received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison.)

6) Upon appeal, the woman's sentences were increased to 200 lashes and 6 months in jail, because the courts felt that she and her lawyer used the media to sway their influence and aggravate the judges. Her lawyer was banned from the courtroom, had his legal license taken away, and awaits a disciplinary hearing.

7) The attackers' sentences were also doubled.


The Canadian government has openly condemned the case, calling it "barbaric".

The US state department, however, is against any "foreign interference" in the case.
They did, however, call the case "astonishing".

You want astonishing??? Try a little foreign interference in a little place called Iraq.
Or hell, let's get give a little interference that other evil country, Iran!

It's always astonished me that although most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi's, Osama bin Laden himself is a Saudi, and even though Saudi Arabia is not a democracy, the American government (or average voter, for that matter) never looks down upon that particular country. For an explanation why, you need look no further than Bushy's comfy relationship with the royal family.

Sans-oil, you can bet America would hate their living guts.
Because America loves to hate people's guts.

The Animal Years, V for V, and C'Mon C'Mon

As usual it took me about 3 months to get my ass in gear and figure out my top 5's for the last year. I try to do it near my birthday, but it never works out.
I'm just too fuckin lazy.

In other news, I read an article on the BBC today that looked at the cost of the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Current estimates put the average cost of the war on terror at $20 000 per 4-person family. But thankfully every American will be saving huge at the gas stations...
Well at least everyone has a place to live...
And the American economy as a whole is surging...

I remember getting in an argument with an American kid one time, maybe 7 or 8 years ago, and I told him that every great empire that has ever existed in the world has fallen. And the USA is no different. It's becoming more evident by the day that America will not be the dominant world power in 20 years, and that fills me with a sense of satisfaction.
At the same time it makes me wonder how China and India will run the world once they've got the power. Let's just hope the US doesn't get pissy and start nuking everyone.

At long last, I'm finally off my disgusting antibiotics. I drank heavily about 5 or 6 times while I was on them, but I survived the pain in my liver. I did get a good lecture from the wife about it though.
She's probably right... after all, nobody wants hepatitis!

Poppies... don't they grow those in Afghanistan?

The only thing that I remembered this morning at 11:11 was a clip from a dream about myself falling asleep. Not that I slept in on Remembrance Day on purpose, but it just so happened that a good buddy of mine was in town from BC and we had to celebrate with a few brews.

I think it's funny how quickly people can forget why we have a remembrance day in the first place. To me, it represents a day that we should reflect on why all wars should be avoided, not just that single day of the year that we pay our respects to the soldiers of the past.

But you don't see many people in the streets protesting our involvement in Afghanistan. Canada's reputation as global peacekeepers has been transformed to American lapdog, and we all seem content enough to accept that. We've got no business in a "war" that is designed to be self perpetuating. All it does is create an atmosphere with more killing and more occupation and oppression.

And isn't that what we're supposed to remember today? The vets don't show up to parades in their wheelchairs to sing the praises of current soldiers - they're there to remind us that there ought not to be any more soldiers in the world. They remind us of all the terrible things they had to live through in order to preserve our lives and freedoms, in hopes of persuading our generations to make the world a better place. I'm sure they wish that the war they fought in was the last one the world would ever see. And it's all too easy to dismiss their ideals because we've never been in their shoes.