Die Hard Three

My mother is probably not enjoying this. Her only son is trapped in New York City with a killer storm bearing down on the East Coast of the Unites States.

I’m not enjoying this either. Before leaving on this trip I totally forgot to prepare my will. Don’t get me wrong, I already have one – valid, signed, notarized, and locked in a safe-deposit box at my bank. But it’s eleven years old and I wrote it on a drunken bet after a night of partying. In it I left all my Earthly possessions to the Government of Ontario. They were going through a recession at the time and I wanted to do my part to help out.

But the real tragedy here is the television. I wanted to see some good olde-fashioned political advertisements (the election is just around the corner). Instead we’ve been inundated with storm and flood warnings. Boring! These things don’t concern me. What concerns me is Romney vs. Obama: the Fate of the End of the World!

Oh the humanity!

I’ll be back later. I have to go stock up on supplies and check what time game four of the World Series starts.

Living all my life in America Junior has spoiled me. We got lots of nature, high-speed Internet, free condoms at work (just ask the nurse), and both coasts are Disney-themepark-free. And for the longest time we got all the good movies before everyone else (take that Europe, Africa, and New South Wales!) But now the foreign markets have become so important economically that some Hollywood studios have started releasing movies outside of North America in advance of the domestic release.

There are several reasons why delayed domestic release is a stupid idea and all of them related to my mild severe OCD affliction.

The economy is this giant complex thing that gets to decides who lives and who dies. This is why I find it strange that no one knows how it really works. For most other things, when the stakes are high, you spend at least ten minutes trying to figure out the important bits.

There are some people who claim to know how the economy works but these people have never been to New York City. After walking around this place for five minutes it’s obvious that the stability of the entire planet hinges on humans not figuring out three things

1. you don’t need to buy useless crap

2. it’s perfectly fine to cook, eat, and drink with your friends at home

3. television shows and movie pictures can be viewed the next day / week from the Internet

The person who set up this economy should be fired (out of a cannon). We’re only a couple of realizations away from everyone being plunged into Mad Max times. So here is my message for the citizens of Earth:

If one day you find yourself working on a political system, weapon, policy, law, concept, trade embargo, or ideology or anything that has a chance of turning society into one where the film The Road Warrior could be found in the Educational section of some future video library, you need to make this “Mad Max requirement” the defining aspect of your work. Continually ask yourself, does this project have a non-zero chance of turning our world into one where old hockey pads will be the only body armour available to defend against roving bands of gasoline-starved bandits? Do whatever you can to make sure this does not happen.

The citizens of city-that-has-a-massive-year-round-outdoor-ice-skating-rink-but-only-has-below-freezing-temperatures-for two-months-of-the-year will thank you.

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Hello everyone, I’m back! Me and the GF are heading down to New York City for a couple of days. It’s going to be an interesting visit. We’ve got tickets to see Louis CK (the comedian, not the fashion designer), it’s Hallowe’en (or the closest weekend to the actual day), and there’s a snowmageddon-frankenstorm-blizzhurricane that’s supposed to hit the east coast just after we leave to come back home (Monday).

So engage your safety features, it’s expected that they will be needed at some point over the next four sleeps!

Caption!

Kerpla!

Hello everyone.

By now I’m sure you’re aware that I’ve used this blog mostly to document my travels. I figured that if I wrote about my day-to-day you’d all grow bored and envious. There are enough problems in the world today without my awesome non-travel exploits distracting you from the three hundred first-year Introduction to Politiconomics midterms you have to mark.

It’s a little after 16:00 and I’m on a patio enjoying a beer. It’s about eighteen degrees Celsius, the sun is shining, and for some unknown reason, the Heart and Crown is playing a rather mellow selection Neil Young’s greatest hits. I manage to get the good table – the one in the corner with maximum sunlight – and I’m hoping Team Denmark can pop by for a pint. You can tell they have not yet left for the day cause the embassy is still flying the day flag.

But enough about flags – down to business. There’s been a lot of talk these days about plagiarisn. For those of you unfamiliar with this word, plagiarisn is defined as the act of stealing one or more pre-arranged words from an artist or corporation. It does not matter if the words are written on paper or captured on magneto-optical disc. If someone else owns them, you have to pay.

This is, of course, absurd. These laws (that were passed in the 1920s) would bankrupt all but the richest Kings of Prussia. But worse than the financial cost is all of the additional and unnecessary sentences and paragraphs that others end up writing because of a single person’s supposed “plagiarisn”. First the media gets involved. Then your boss. And then before you know it, your brother is claiming victory in the War of the Blogs. Crazy, I know. One guy even got in trouble for plagiarnizing his own work. Everyone was freaking out and getting all excited and calling for him to be fired from his job. My message for all of his critics (at the risk of being sued for plagiarisn): Get a life.

Sorry Bill.

It’s expensive to go to court to fight city hall, so I’ve decided to take a different approach (full disclosure: I have from time to time used words that were owned by other people). My plan is to make one giant footnote. It cost me $2,800 to have my lawyer do this up, so make sure you memorize the whole thing.

The entire content of this blog and all the other writings, recordings, etchings, biopics, cave paintings, comments, photographs, sky-writing, Google translations, and plagiarisns produced by the author contain absolutely no original content. Every existing and / or future word, sentence, paragraph, sub-paragraph, chapter, novella, book, volume, series, collection, lolcatz, work of literature, work of non-literature, movie, video, television program, sex tape, DVD, audio cassette, CD, record, warning label, non-disclosure agreement, Act of Parliament, and medical textbook created by the author is entirely owned and operated by someone else. For the purposes of this agreement “someone else” includes but is not limited to:

• The Simpson’s
• Star Wars Episode I
• Family Guy
• Fox News
• Die Hard 2: Die Harder edited for TV version
• The Bible
• Planet of the Apes
• Treble Charger
• Biology for Bioginners (my first-year biology text book)
• The artist currently known as The Artist who was previously the Artist Formerly Known as Prince
• Rand Corporation
• The Apple Store End-user License Agreement
• Home Depot weekly flyer (March 5 2011 edition)
• Zodiac
• The Ontario Building Code
• City of Ottawa By-law Enforcement (boo!)
• Napoleon Dynamite (the movie)
• Beau’s Brewery
• Keyser Söze
• Napoleon Dynamite (the character)
• Der Spiegel
• Shalke FC
• Ticketmaster Canada
• Pumuckl
• ABBA
• Renny Harlin
• The Criminal Code of Canada
• The Canadian Criminal Code
• The Canadian Criminal’s Code
• The Canada Code Criminal
• David Letterman
• The International Olympic Committee
• Fort Boyard Season 2
• The Happy Fun-Time Waterpark Conditions of Admission and Code of Conduct

By reading this you have automatically agreed to hold the author harmless of any and all personal and financial liability indemnity effective the beginning of this sentence.

Perfect. Oh, and before I forget. Jesse, I bumped into your Ottawa doppelganger again today. He informed me that the only thing preventing him from obtaining a restraining order was the fact that he doesn’t know my name. I wished him the best of luck and sped off on my bike.

Take that all you automobile-driving easily-identifibles!