The right to be stupid

And the winner for my favourite headline so far 2013 is from the Toronto Sun.

Americans have the 'right to be stupid': John Kerry

Yup. 

"Americans have the right to believe what they want, even if it's contrary to scientific, religious or other mainstream schools of thought"

The issue here Mr Kerry (Honorable Kerry?  Secretary of State Kerry?  John boy?) is that your nation is known for the stupid.Its like you have a patent on it.  You elected George W Bush...TWICE!

I think there comes a time when you need to address that what people are believing comes from ignorance.  That you have created an atmosphere where people sue school districts because their children are being taught yoga.  That's right.  Yoga. Because its inherently religious...as opposed to being, oh, I don't know...exercise?  Relaxing?  A way to get kids moving in a nation where childhood obesity has reached epidemic level?

Yup...you've got the right to be stupid...and you're certainly exercising that right as much as you can.

Mayoral Moron

I am not an overly politically vocal individual. Yes, I have strong political leanings and I have been known to be an armchair political commentary, generally about Stephen Harper and his creepiness and general evilness. While not being a card carrying member of the NDP, I tend to lean left in my beliefs and vote to reflect that. In general my political interest stops at the federal and provincial level. Municipal politics doesn't interest me that much.

That however has been changed thanks to Vancouver's mayor and resident moron, Sam Sullivan. I have now made it my goal to ensure that he does NOT get re-elected to run the fair city I work in. I live in Burnaby. The Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan has a lovely mustache and is fairly innocuous. Go Derek Go!

Oh Sam....Sam Sam Sam.

I have in the past waxed poetically on Mayor Sullivan and Project Civil City. A momentary lapse in judgment due to expectorant. It will not happen again.

Before I continue to rant...let us recap our young mayor's bio:

1. Gave money to someone to buy drugs and smoke them in his van
2. Project Civil City-lord knows what he was thinking. Of COURSE being polite should be top priority.
3. Sullivan's Strike
4. $400,000.00 per year for a security guard for a CLOCK

And his most recently publicized brilliant idea...

No sirens on emergency vehicles at night.

WHAT?

This REALLY burns my cookies.

Mayor Sullivan appealed to Premier Gordon Campbell last year asking him to change the law regarding emergency vehicles and siren usage. Apparently the Mayor's sleep was being disrupted in his chic Yaletown condo. Effective January 31, 2008, emergency vehicle drivers around BC are encouraged to use their discretion when driving later at night.

Edited to note: City of Vancouver emergency vehicle drivers have chosen NOT to turn off their sirens...beautifully ironic...isn't it?

Um...dude...get a freaking grip. SO WHAT if you lose a few minutes of sleep because a fire truck, ambulance or police car are heading to or from an emergency. Just take a nap at work! No one will notice the difference

As it stands right now, Vancouver residents are HORRIBLE when it comes to getting out of the way of emergency vehicles. I am frequently stunned at the average driver's inability to get out of the way of flashing lights and sirens. And pedestrians are even worse!

Dear God in heaven Sammy...get your head OUT of your freaking butt and grab a clue! There are better things for you to be spending your time on than politeness and loud sirens! Why don't you check out the homeless in the Downtown Eastside Sammy? Or better yet...just trade spaces with them. Allow a few to shack up in your condo while you sleep under that cardboard box. Then maybe the sirens won't wake you up as much...

Is it just me, or is this a redundant conversation?

I had the following conversation with our building manager on Tuesday after the heinous car abuse that my wee little Protege had suffered...

Me: "Hi, I wanted to talk to you about the break in to my car."

He: "There is nothing I can do about it. Call ICBC."

Me: "Yes...I know that. I've done that already. I just thought you should know that our car got broken into. As did quite a few others."

He: "Yes, I talked to them yesterday. Its not very good. We should get cameras, but the strata won't pay for it"

Me: "I can see how that would be a problem. I also need a new access card as mine was taken from my car. Yes, i know we aren't supposed to leave them in the car, but you wouldn't give us two so we had to leave it in there as there are two of us with one car."

He: "Oh no! That's not good. Now they can get in the parking garage!"

Um...I think that may be where the problem started in the first place.

The apartment hunt has begun-west end, main street and downtown-I hear you calling me!

Thou pribbling clapper-clawed giglet!

I have discovered the online Shakespearean Insult Kit.

Oh kit, where have you been all my life?

I really need it today, for some errant fen-sucking miscreants BROKE INTO MY CAR!

RRRRRRRRRRRRRR

There I was, calmly enjoying turkey, roast and a copious amount of wine, beer and Jack Daniels at the in-laws on Vancouver Island when some puny boil-brained varlet was SMASHING MY DRIVERS SIDE WINDOW. IN MY SECURE UNDERGROUND PARKING GARAGE!!!! And they stole NOTHING! NOTHING!

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

A pox on their houses.

This week is not starting off well...not starting off well at all.

I need to laugh.

Perhaps THIS will do...



Ahhhhhhhhh

Thank you Pete and Brian...thank you...

Miss Manner's guide to dressing appropriately: Chapter 1

An open letter to the man living somewhere on the third floor in my apartment building.

Dear sir,

You seem to be a very nice man. We have chatted several times in the elevator and while walking up the stairs. You are very polite, always hold the door open for me, and have intelligent things to say. I have suspicions that you are a member of the Russian Mafia as you drive a Mercedes Compressor AND an M Class SUV and live in a small somewhat nasty apartment building in Burnaby. You also have a ludicrous hair weave that nobody thinks is real. Nobody.

Now sir, I am not a fashion dictator. I understand that sometimes, one needs to wander downstairs to throw out the garbage in ones pyjamas. What Not To Wear isn't ALWAYS filming with hidden cameras and sometimes, you just need to be comfortable.

However sir, there is a limit to comfort.

Imagine my surprise when I got on to the elevator this morning and discovered you in your housecoat and aqua sox. AQUA SOX! HOUSECOAT! WHAT?

I was willing to let that slide and give you the benefit of the doubt. I was assuming you were heading to the garbage or recycling-there was no garbage evident, but maybe you were looking for something. However, when you turned toward the cars as I was and headed to your SUV I began to doubt that you were looking for your lost keys in amidst the detritus of our wee building. Perhaps you had just forgotten something in your car?

No... no...you had not.

You LEAPED into your car (and in the process revealed that you were not, in fact, wearing anything under your housecoat...AAAAAAAAAAAAA), turned it on, and DROVE AWAY! IN YOUR HOUSECOAT AND AQUA SOX! AND WEARING NOTHING UNDER YOUR HOUSECOAT! AAAAAAAA!

I didn't need to see that sir. I didn't need to see your wedding tackle. Your crown jewels. Your frank and beans. Any of it. It may have scarred me. It was a totally unexpected display of nudity and honestly sir...it wasn't...well...some people just shouldn't be nude. We'll just leave it at that.

I am concerned sir. It concerns me that you seem to think its okay to wander the streets in your housecoat. With no pants. Or underpants. In fact, wearing NOTHING resembling pants. It is not okay. It is not okay at all. You are not Nick Nolte. It wasn't okay for him either.

How hard is it to put on pants and a shirt? And appropriate footwear? Honestly, its not that difficult. I do it every day and I am NOT a morning person! I can barely even see when I leave the house, yet I am still DRESSED! I am not even asking for coordination-just common decency.

And pants.

PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY PUT ON SOME PANTS!

Signed,

The now slightly scarred blonde from the second floor.

Robosaurus

Tim: What do you call a blind dinosaur?
Dr. Alan Grant: I don't know.
Tim: A Do-you-think-he-saurus.
Dr. Alan Grant: Ha ha. Good one.
Tim: What do you call a blind dinosaur's dog?
Dr. Alan Grant: You got me.
Tim: A Do-you-think-he-saurus Rex

There are times when I get up in the morning and I think to myself that really, things couldn't get any stupider.

I mean, lets be real. There is some stupid shit going on out there, and there has been for awhile. Dane Cook for one (I know, I keep going on about Dane Cook but I JUST DON'T GET IT! The man is simply not funny or even marginally talented. His mere existence could be proof that there is a Supreme Evil Being and that Dane is one of his unfunny minions that is trying to create hell on earth. I'm just saying...). Britney Spears and our INCESSANT fascination with her crash into oblivion (also note-Rihanna has come out in the press defending her. Maybe she should protect poor Brit with her umbrella). Crocs. The cancellation of Arrested Development. Operation Return on Success.

However, its has been a long time since I have been truly STUNNED by anything. Nothing really surprises me anymore.

Until now...

Stanley Park, where robot dinos roam?

Okay...that has to be a lie. It's in the Province newspaper-Vancouver's answer to the National Enquirer. It has to be wrong. Maybe I'll look elsewhere...

Stanley Park considers 'Jurassic Park'-like exhibit

All right, CTV is saying the same thing. But maybe they are just jumping on the sensationalist bandwagon. I mean who would believe that they would consider putting robot dinosaurs in Stanley Park...how about the Globe and Mail?

'Dinosaur experience' could give Vancouver its own Jurassic Park

Dear lord.

Someone has let the lunatics out of the asylum and they are RUNNING AMOK IN STANLEY PARK!

The Vancouver Parks Board is requesting proposals from "experienced proponents" (HUH?)to install 25 to 30 life-sized animatronic dinosaurs and related educational exhibits near the miniature 1.5-kilometre railway. So in other words, they want robot dinosaurs to freak the SHIT out of the kids on the miniature railway.

Robot dinosaurs.

In Stanley Park.

ROBOT DINOSAURS IN STANLEY PARK!!!!!

I am at a total loss. I am simply stunned into...well...not speechlessness, but certainly mild incoherence.

ROBOT FREAKING DINOSAURS!!!!!!

Am I alone in this? Am I the only person who thinks that this is an amazingly bad idea? We have the WORLD coming here for the 2010 Olympics-that's already enough pressure. Do we REALLY want them to come here and say...

"Wow...cool Olympics. Vancouver really IS a World Class...wait...is that a Robot Dinosaur?"

A further sign of the impending apocolypse

There have been many signs as of late that our world is unhappy.

Seas are rising.

The weather is all hinky.

George Bush is still in power.

Rihanna has a career.

Dane Cook hasn't been taken back to his home planet.

And a myraid of others.

The most recent is this...
Fake fur lined Crocs.

WHAT THE HELL?

Crocs on their own are wrong right, but FUR LINED????

DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN!

The fashion gods are angry...what's next? The return of high heeled ankle boots?

Oh right...

Fashion or Death (apologies to Eddie Izzard)

I like to see myself as a reasonably stylish individual. I know what I look good in, and have my own sense of style-reasonably current with a "soupcon" of...well...me. Curvy may be coming back in style (bless you America Ferrera et al), but I'll be damned if I will wear those freaking skinny jeans or anything else of that ilk. For me, the short-short skirt was something I wore in grade 9 when I wasn't dressed in all black in honour of my lost youth (I had dark moments in grade 9. Most of them because of a tragic hair cut, but I digress).

I am not a huge fan of trends. I am suspicious that many of them are a joke (like the return of legwarmers)

So today, I would like to comment on some of today's fashion choices by people who are slaves to fashion.

I am not talking about movies stars etc. They are blinded by their popularity and assume that they can do whatever they want BECAUSE they are famous. Case in point...the Olsen twins. I am sure they KNOW that they look ridiculous. How can they not?

Ladies-buy a mirror and a eat burger or 80. Do us all a favour.

And take a look at Bridgitte Neilson and Flava Flav...I know its hard...
Blinded by their own questionable celebrity, they make questionable choices. I do wish they would stay inside though...

I digress again.

Today I speak of the tragic fashion choices of the general public. People who own mirrors and are not flocked by paparazzi or stylists telling them how to dress.

These people SHOULD know better!

Case and point-this morning.

It was chilly and damp. I was bundled up in a down vest, scarf, a long sleeved shirt, jeans and boots. I was cold. As I was walking briskly up the stairs to the skytrain, I noted I was following a woman who is my age wearing a wispy blouse, some kind of strange contraption that resembled a coat, a short crocheted black skirt (shudder), small pink underwear (yup...the skirt was THAT short and I was walking behind her. I did NOT need to see that), knee highed pink socks (shudder again) and Ugg boots. The ONLY item of winter apparel this woman was wearing was the heinous boots. What was WRONG with her? Who doesn't wear tights or some kind of leg covering in the winter? And UGG BOOTS? WHY??? Whomever decided that UGG boots were a stylish fashion choice needs to be hoisted on their own petard. Immediately. This woman was carrying a briefcase of some kind, so was heading to work I assume, and that work was probably NOT on a street corner, so WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY??? My guess is she saw it in a magazine so assumed it was appropriate outside the pages of Vogue or W. Its not.

It upsets me deeply as you can tell...

Oh Stacey and Clinton...where are you when we need you???

I am SO not making this up...

Overheard in the office next to me...

V: T! My computer won't work. Why won't my computer work?

T: (joking) Have you turned it on?

*pause*

V: Never mind.

Oh

My

God

News of the world...

Report last week from the US Department of Defence...

Watch out for Canadian currency!

That's right. Canadian currency.

Well, more specifically, our coins. Our "spy coins".

Come on Intelligence People... SPY COINS?

A warning was issued by the DOD to be aware of potential "Canadian Spy Coins".

CANADIAN SPY COINS? The LOONY??? One of our items of currency is called a LOONY and its suspected of being SNEAKY?

This warning was retracted a week later stating that the spy coin allegations were unsubstantiated and downright goofy.

Tune in next week when beavers are suspected of WMDs in their tails.