Science fiction keeps coming true

Jesus Christ, we are actually in danger of being overrun and killed by armies of robots! Aren't global warming, genetically engineered super viruses, and mass starvation exciting enough? Do we have to endevour to die by every apocalyse imaginable all at once. I wish I could drink, so I could get drunk and just die like a normal bum, rather than wait to get my ass blown off by an bird-flu infected American cyborg.

Take that to the bank and smoke it

Some random thoughts until my mind sees fit to provide me with coherent subject matter.

If you ask someone for "at least" such and such, you will get the absolute least that you asked for.

There are medical textbooks circulating throughout US medical schools that call deceased patients "non-survivors".

The world hasn't been the same since Andre the Giant left us.

Water is a non-commodity, and a renewable resource.

Nothing that happens on the stock market really happens. What really happens is the action that is taken on the basis of imaginary currency.

Most people believe only what they don't know to be true once they have already decided that no proof to the contrary would be worth considering.

Tom Cruise is totally gay: have you seen Legend? "Sweeter than bee pollen on a summer wind". How could straight man utter those words?

"what is sea-born dies on land, all may be undone. What is given burns the hand, what is gone is gone"

Some asshole named Paul Strathern thinks he can explain Kierkegaard in 90 minutes, and has written a book about it.

St John's wort shows promise as a retroviral agent against HIV and Epstein-Barr- the healing power of the yellow flower, dude.

Every corrupt government has its stockpile of lecherous petophile priests.

When you talk to yourself, in your own mind, who the hell are you talking to?

I've keep this silver polished and these napkins and tableclothes perfectly folded and untouched for over 30 years. If the Queen is going to stop by for visit, she'd better hurry the f*ck up.

Every existentialist deserves a good punch in the face.

The former inhabitants of Easter Island cut down EVERY TREE ON THE ISLAND in a manner that they never grew back. They didn't even use toilet paper.

I have no idea how old Patrick Steward is.

Viruses are evolutionary older than bacteria, thus bacteria have developed tactics to resist viral infection; however, some bacteria, like Bordetella bronchiseptica, become more virulent when infected with certain viruses. We're so hooped.

There's a cold wind blowing, blowing out the flame that used to burn inside me at the mention of your name. The Eurythmics are awesome.

If a high blood pressure medication raised blood pressure, it would be painfully obvious that it didn't work. Anti-depressants increase the likelihood of suicide, and yet their efficacy had not been seriously questioned until yesterday. If suicide is not a measure of depression, a baboon's ass is beautiful line of Shakespearean poetry.

No man is an island...except Akebono

Pope-omotion

Powell River is a shining mini example of Canadian news media democracy since Conrad Black: we have two local papers and both are owned by the same company. One of them, I must be fair, is not really a paper and doesn't make too much pretense of being one: it is aptly titled "The Weekend Shopper", and the only bit of "news" to be found in it besides a listing of upcoming events is the "cover story", which I hear costs about $600, and is nothing but a full page, journalist contrived ad for the local business or "interest group" (superfluous use of " " fully justified). It's really hilarious to go to a business a see a clip out of said ad framed and hung with pride on the wall by the cash register, as if they had done so darn good that the media was forced to take notice and inform community, like "hey, these dudes rock out, go buy some chinese relaxation balls or window cocking from them. They'll get you in bed with girls and clear up your acne post haste". That's the kind of publicity money can't buy...except....you know...when it can.

This week, it was the Catholic Church's turn at the wheel, so if you were wondering why there are still babies starving in Africa, now you know where the money went. The Powell River Catholic parish is called the Assumption, which as my good friend Grumpus noted, waxes bright as a supreme Fraudian slip for a religious institution predicated on the intractible belief in superpowers unproven. The Assumption also runs a school from kindergarden to grade 9, which was the subject of this weeks "story" in the Weekend Shopper, the assumption being that god's women folk are not producing enough heirs to the faith to fill the classrooms, which amusingly enough, was exhalted by the ad as a serious plus point ("small classes of not more than 20 students, your child gets more one on one attention") as if they had done it on purpose.

The ad begins with a opening statement by the principle; "I want to clear up some misconseptions about the school; that we are strict disciplinarians, that we don't teach the curriculum, that we only accept catholics, none of these are true". They do teach the curriculum, since you have to be accredited, but as for the first statement, I hereby draw upon the experiences of two of my best friends, D&D. Man-D was born left handed and had his satan-hand tied to his desk by the good sisters to force his jesus hand into full expression, with the end result that today neither hand had reconciled with the other and even his best handwriting could easily be used to forge prescriptions. Lady-D had her falling tears collected in a jar that one of the sisters was going to use to...well that part noboby know, but I suspect it to be a ritual involving immortality, eye of newt, tears of catholics, and the blood of virgins. So strict in their disciplinary ways were they that on occasion they forbade the sinful expulsion of bodily fluids, and asking for potty time was tantamount to asking for purgatory. One boy, whom I later came to know in middle school, was apparently denied this priveledge once, and unable to contain himself after the sister had left the room, ran to the corner and pee-ed in the radiator, burning his little member in the process. Upon discovery, he had to be unceremonially dragged out of the room whimpering, "I burnt my weenie, I burnt my weeeeniiieeee". It seems then no surprise that he once, rather later, upon entering class in his fathers massive trenchcoat, pulled out a plastic rifle and a handful of shot-shells, aimed at his classmates, and mouthed "eheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheh" as he let the the spent shells drop to the floor. This was before Colombine, when such behaivour was generally met with "boys will be boys", rather than metal detectors, police escort, court psychologist, and group therapy for the entire school.

As for the non-catholic inclusion policy, "why, we even had a little Buddhist boy some years ago", they article goes on to state that they prefer a comfortable 80/20 catholic/non-catholic split. Apparently, this gives the catholics opportunities to "stand up for their faith, and learn to tolerate and accept other ideas". You know what 8 on 2 sounds like to me? An unfair fight. It's one thing to be given the opportunity to stand up for your faith in an even contest, but I hate to think of all the crusty-nosed, puffy-lipped little kids who have to go home everyday and explain to their heathen/lesbian parents that they just got jostled for Jesus.

I am by no means against faith education; indeed faith is one of the few things that can keep us from narrowing our perception of the world only to it's finite and seemingly insurmountable problems. However, faith and religion are not one in the same, and are even less so when it comes to education. Assumption could better spend the money to encourage catholics to have more children; at least that is an advertising campaign that has a bit more soul that the false compromise of including non-believers merely to reduce the heat of the infernal hellfire that awaits them, and the burden of their parents overabundant bank accounts.

tread softly and carry a custom-made stick.

My 3rd year University English teacher once taught us that there is no more uncapitivating start to a sentence than a statement beginning with, "there are...". Only Shakespeare could get away with it, as in, "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreampt of in your philosophy", but he was Shakespeare. So anyway, there are somethings that one takes pride in having a purely prejudical dislike of, and one of those for me was hockey. Beer and hockey. Beer, hockey, and men who partake of them. The island I grew up on wasn't so into it, mostly because the only time anyone got to skate, without ferrying over to the other island that was rich and had "facilities", was on the rare occasion that a small lake froze over. The one winter I went figure skating on Cusheon Lake, someone fell through the ice and was found bloated and yellow sometime mid March by a fisherman; he caught on the hook. Eew. I never swam in that lake again without looking down.

Flash forward to the move to Powell River, home of the Paper Kings, which has furnished the NHL with some 12 players since 1950. No really, those are good figures. The mill paid to a have a state-of-the-art recreation complex with 2 ice rinks constructed, ostensibly to foster culture in the men that came to get their fingers pinched off in the rollers. They even played host to the Soviet Olympic team in 1978! This place was crap ass redneck paradise, and everyone watched hockey and drank beer, drove trucks and littered in the woods. So naturally, I swore I would never watch a goddamn hockey game in my life. I had already watched an entire Stanley Cup playoff when I was 9 in a futile attempt to bond with my father; turns out it was the first and last playoff he ever watched, and thus my brief liason with the sport was also concluded.

Then yesterday, my sister invited me to the pantomime show of Sinbad the Sailor, admission by donation, and hot damn, the bitch was sold out! Just across the hall, was the queue for the hockey game, so the options were: go home and watch movie; simple enough, or stay and watch hockey game; unknown territory, possibly hostile. I complained the seats were harder than a catholic priest at a scout camp, but she prevailed, and $13 later, we were in said seats, waiting for the action to begin. A couple of things were immediately obvious: you have to bring something that makes a lot of noise, like an airehorn or a set of Scottish pipes, and you should be extremely grateful to our sponsors, Armitage Men's Ware, the cities ONLY supplier of skate boarding gear, and to Coast Realty, for selling you your home at 8 times its true market value.

The home team was playing against a team from South Surrey, and if you know anything about South Surrey, you would well expect at least 3 Singh's and perhaps a Kumar or 2, but, alas, they somehow managed to fill the entire hockey team with nothing but whities, despite the inherent handicap of their home demographic. Though now that I think upon it, Surrey is fairly evenly divided into former landlord-turned-security-guard Indo-Canadians, and poor, white ex-Euro trash that spill their slurpees on the skytrain and like to pry the doors open between stations so they spit out of them. So, shit, I guess hockey is still as white and the stuff it's played on, and that is pretty disappointing.

Despite the initial let down, I couldn't help but feel by heart beat quicken when the teams took the ice and all the noise started. I mean, it sounds like bullshit, but the athleticism of the sport is amazing. It's one thing, like the crappy, lesser sports of football and baseball, to run around, with your feet, on the ground, manipulating a ball-thingy, but it is another thing entirely to do this while skating on ICE, CAUTION SLIPPERY! It was pretty damn cool. And it was a good game; lots of drama, tension, overtime. There was compulsive, almost compelling, shouting, standing up and booing the referee for every penalty, and humming along to the tune of the "final countdown" at every face-off. This experience may even be worth repeating, but only until the swelling goes down.

To sum up: What's the most exciting part of leprosy hockey?

The face off in the corner.