HAPPY NEW YEAR

Answer this:

2007 was _______?

IMAX 3D

Today I spent the afternoon watching my 6 year old jump out of his seat when the lifesized Tylosaur lept out of the screen in 3D!

I forgot how cool IMAX was. It is like being on Acid! The 70 ft. by 50 ft. screen is cool enough but throw in the 3D effect and WOAH!

Sea Monsters is a National Geographic project that explained how scientists study the evolutionary process and try to understand the marine life that swam in the shallow sea that bisected North America millions of years ago. Brilliant.

A few years ago IMAX started showing Movies like the Matrix, Transformers, and Beowulf...and now gamers can play their favorite games on the gimongous screen.

Have you ever been on Acid, seen a Tylosaur, or been to an IMAX Theatre?

TEARJERKERS?!

Downtime during the Holidays means watching movies. The key to surviving several evenings of the seasonally mandated obligatory engagements with your extended family demands that all of the family dynamics be neutralized.

It wouldn't be prudent to pour salt on open wounds or let any skeletons out of the closet during this emotionally charged week, so I placate my inner demons, soothe my soul, and escape reality by watching tons of Movies.

So far this week I have managed to watch the first 3

Star Wars movies, the good ones, with my 6 year old. It is time that he learned about the Force!

The older three will be gone for months playing their new Guitar Hero 3 and Rock Star on the X Box...

might get an actual sighting of them by February.

The other night was for moi, it was all about getting those good vibrations with an old fashioned revenge 'guy-movie' with Markie Mark, Shooter. Awesome.

Screw Yoda, give in to the Dark Side and give 'em hell Markie Mark!!

Tonight was for the goodladywife and it was time to tone it down and snuggle up with a 'date movie', 'chick flick', you know a real 'tearjerker'.

Oh sure I cried during movies when I was a kid and I was tortured by old Walt and his brand of sadistic child terrorism like Bambi and Old Yeller.

I remember the first time that I was aware that I was actually bawling my eyes out at a theatre ...

when I saw Born Free...

GAWD!!

Sure there have been lots of gut wrenching wartime flicks like Life Is Beautiful, Sophie's Choice, and Schindler's List..

Nazi atrocities have a way of doing that to me.

But One Movie in particular..

The Notebook

despite using every imaginable formulaic device in history still somehow rips my heart out and stomps on it. Tonight I started sniffling on cue and sobbing right on time at the exact same moments of the film. My goodladywife stares at me sympathetically as I eventually start bawling my eyes out for the last half hour and well into the credits. It's downright embarrasing.

Anyway I admit it.

So now it's your turn to step up and admit it.

CONFESS!

Which Movies made you cry like a baby?

HAIRY CRIZZMOOSE EVERYBODY!














I'm just hitchin' up Mr. Horny and gettin' ready to start visiting.
He is a big SOB, but since I accidentally castrated him with the chainsaw last Spring, he is as gentle as a kitten.

I'll be around later but I just wanted to send a little shout out to my peeps on this beautiful Winter's day.
I moose't be going..toodaloo.

GOOD LUCK MILEY!
XXX OOO

Let’s get right down to business. As most of you know the BIG news overshadowing global warming and world peace is that 16 year old Jamie Lynn Spears, Celebritney’s ‘lil sister, has been voluntarily impregnated!

Now before you get in a huff, I am not chastising Jamie for doing what comes naturally, but, when you are a PRODUCT in an occupation where image is EVERYTHING, you or one of your handlers needs to take any and all precautionary measures to ensure your SUSTAINABLE MARKETABILITY.
Notice any resemblence?

I am not blaming her Mother, Lynne, because that would be ludicrous, but both of her uber famous daughters (who have experienced Fame and Fortune far too early in life for any of us to have managed) are in an Icarian freefall and plummeting back to the-rest-of-us-ville at terminal velocity.

Apparently Lynne’s parenting book, which was due to be released on Mother’s Day, is on hold.

Now far be it for me to join the bandwagon and criticize Lynne for not having the ‘TALK’ with the her daughter who is the star of Nickelodeon’s Zoey 101 and a role model for millions of Tweenies, but what the ? With all of that money at stake you would think that someone in their organization would have made their golden goose virtually impregnable?

It’s too late now. A perfect Media storm has produced a public Schadenfreude Fest that only Michael Jackson was once capable of procuring. This proves that it is more entertaining for the great unwashed to knock their icons off of the altar, than it is to worship them.

By now the Lawyers for Nickelodeon have faxed over the Morality Clause in Jamie’s contract and cancelled her role in the show. This leaves one solitary, and in my humble estimation totally deserving Tween Queen, Miley Cyrus...
OK I admit it...

I AM A FAN OF HANNAHMONTANA!

I am sorry that Hannah had to win the celebrity sweepstakes this way. I am not even sure what the prize is, or if it is worth anything? Certainly maintaining obligatory appearances and avoiding any perceptual improprieties while living under the unblinking eye and scrutiny of an insatiable paparazzi and impossibly vapid enter’pain’ment Industry is a triumph in and of itself.

Is all the money worth it? It had better be, because obviously the adulation is fickle, temporal, artificial, and worthless.

I suppose we should be resigned to the fact that the Cult of Celebrity demands that a human sacrifice be offered to appease the wolves in sheep’s clothing who worship at it’s altar…and wait for their chance to get their pound of flesh.

All of this ubiquitous, forced, enter‘pain’ment is designed to keep the great unwashed from addressing REAL problems and it's working beautifully.

Hopefully you will have the good fortune to go out on top and keep your dignity just like Miss Yvonne...

sigh.

NARCOLAPSING


And there were in the countryside,
free, dumb, fighters, disguised as shepherds, abiding in the minefield, keeping watch over their poppies in broad daylight.

And, lo an angel came upon them, and they were sore afraid, because she was nekked and none of them had ever seen a nekked girl, aside from sneaking a peek at each other’s sisters on bathday.

And the angel said unto them,

“Fear not you little bastards!”

“For behold, I bring you good tidings and some Almond Joy…
none of you have any nut allergies do you?”

“Where was I?..oh yeah!..”
“I bring good tidings which shall be to all…
er most..ok some of the people living in this Narco-Economy.”

“For unto you one day next November, in the city of Washington, DC, a new President will be elected.
And this shall be a sign unto you that the Democrats will want to recall the Armed Forces, and you can go back to terrorising your own people, without any outside interference from anyone associated with the 21st Century. Ye shall find the old President wrapped in controversy, and swapping stories at the Skull and Bones Club, still lying about the danger.”

And the ‘shepherds’ rejoiced and each fired atleast two hundred rounds into the air, and one of

them was struck and killed by the returning bullets..

D’OH!

“Aziz, here is a big piece!"

let us see who can get the highest on earth?”

“Wow that’s good”

“AZIZ! Will you stop aiming your AK 47 towards men?"

The shepherds went quickly to double check the angel's story at an Internet Café, and lo and behold it was true, just as the angel foretold, and they subsequently publicised what they had witnessed throughout the Web on YouTube, and everybody said:

“That is Boollsh*t Aziz, you were getting high again weren’t you?”
“You must stop sampling the product!”

Here endeth today’s lesson.

DIVING OFF THE DEEP END

WOOO-HOOO!

Last night I had the strangest dream.

I 'dreampt' (ha ha) that LIFE,

was a small, ill-mannered, Dog,

and that my mind,

was a Duck....

IT FINALLY HAPPENED!

How would you know if you were stark, raving, mad?

I mean really? Who would you believe?

What is THE definitive sign that should set off all of the alarms?

Seriously...haven't you ever worried, even for a moment, that you were a complete nutter..a looney..crazy?

Was Freddy (Farrokh Bulsara) Mercury on to something when he sang I'm Going Slightly Mad?

"One thousand and one yellow daffodils Begin to dance in front of you - oh dear...

One wave short of a shipwreck...

I'm knitting with only one needle

Unravelling fast its true

I'm driving only three wheels these days

But my dear how about you?

I'm going slightly mad

I'm going slightly mad

It finally happened

Every now and then I stop and actually try to get my head around this THIS and I try to imagine how it could end well..

It finally happened oh yes

It finally happened

I'm slightly mad!

Just very slightly mad!"

And there you have it!

YEARLY BELOVED

I recently realized that I like songs that have a year in the title.

Seems like a risky proposition for an artist to handcuff their creation to an era and 'date' the song, but most of the time it is used to establish a frame of mind or reference point.

This practice apparently worked on me because all of these songs are still rattling around in my skull.

NEW YORK MINING DISASTER 1941

BEE GEES

Best disaster song ever considering the competition: There’s Got To Be A Morning After or My Heart Will Go On!
“In the event of something happening to me,

there is something I would like you all to see.

It's just a photograph of someone that I knew

Have you seen my wife Mr Jones?

Do you know what it's like on the outside?

Don't go talking too loud, you'll cause a landslide, Mr. Jones.”

DECEMBER 1963

FRANKIE VALLI
Obviously not a Democrat because JFK was assasinated on November 22nd.

“Oh, what a night

Late December back in sixty-three

What a very special time for me

As I remember what a night.”

SUMMER OF 69

BRYAN ADAMS

Bryan was 9 years old? Whatever.
“I got my first real six-string

Bought it at the five-and-dime

Played 'til my fingers bled

It was summer of '69.

Me and some guys from school

Had a Band and we tried real hard

Jimmy quit and Jody got married

I shoulda known we'd never get far.”

1984

DAVID BOWIE
Orwellian angst at it’s finest!
“They'll split your pretty cranium, and fill it full of air

And tell that you're eighty, but brother, you won't care

You'll be shooting up on anything, tomorrow's never there Beware the savage jaw

Of 1984.”

1985

PAUL McCARTNEY
One of the first songs that I learned to play on the Piano.

“Oh no one left alive in 1985,

will ever do

She may be right

She may be fine

She may get love but she won't get mine'cos i got you

Oh i oh i

Well i just can't enough of that sweet stuff

My little lady gets behind.”

1979

SMASHING PUMPKINS
One of my favorite songs of all time.

“Shakedown 1979, cool kids never have the time

On a live wire right up off the street

You and I should meetJunebug skipping like a stone

With the headlights pointed at the dawn

We were sure we'd never see an end to it all

And I don't even care to shake these zipper blues

And we don't know.”

1999

PRINCE
His Purpleness in his prime.
“I was dreamin' when I wrote this

Forgive me if it goes astray

But when I woke up this mornin'

Could have sworn it was judgment day

The sky was all purple

There were people runnin' everywhere

Tryin' to run from the destruction

You know I didn't even care

They say two thousand zero, zero, party over,Oops, out of time!

So tonight I'm gonna party like it's 1999!”

ANTHEM FOR THE YEAR 2000

SILVERCHAIR
Has a Bowiesque intro and in your face Flanders attitude!
“We are the youth

We’ll take your fascism away

We are the youth

Apologise for another day

We are the youth

And politicians are so sure

We are the youth

And we are knocking on death’s door.”

IN THE YEAR 2525

ZAGER & EVANS
Classic Doom & Gloom kitschified #1 hit in 1969!
“In the year 2525

If man is still alive

If woman can survive

They may find

In the year 3535

Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lie

Everything you think, do and say

Is in the pill you took today.”

Have I missed any?

CLEARING THE PALETTE...

That's better...what were we talking about? Whenever I get overwhelmed I like to relax by googling puppies and kittens.

What do you do?

THIS IS NOT CANUCKISTAN!
One in Five (6.2 M) Canadians were born in a foreign land.

In fact, 14% of the One Million Immigrants who came to Canada between 2001 and 2006, were ‘made in China’...
11% were made in India,
7% in the Philippines and
5% in Pakistan.

Of the 8,896,480 Family Units in Canada about 68% are comprised of traditional Married Couples, down from 80% in the 80s. Common Law Couples have doubled to 15% and Single Parent Households have risen to 16%.

Stats Can also reported that the number of Same Sex Couples has risen 32%. This label is NOT referring to the Traditional Married Couples who have the ‘Same’ (zzz) Sex year after year, it refers to couples who ARE of the same gender. Same Sex Couples (legalized in ’05) now make up .06% of all households in Canada.

One other item of interest was the announcement that almost one half (44%) of Young Adults (20-29) live at Home. This is the direct result of several factors that are causing a Perfect Storm:
-the massive influence that the Demand caused by their Parents (Baby Boomers), hurled upon the Housing Market decades ago and
-because of declining Birth Rates, Immigration was increased and instead of allowing the Housing Market to self-correct, the influx of wealthy foreigners actually increased the cost of housing to their present state which is not only ridiculous but unsustainable. A massive correction is imminent.

You might also be surprised to discover that only 17% of Canada’s population are Bilingual, which is pretty pathetic for a so-called Bilingual Nation. Francophones in Quebec feel threatened more than the majority of English speaking Canucks because the Media and Internet have secured Inglitch as the global language. The majority of Allophones, those who speak anything other than the two ‘official’ Languages, learn to converse in English in order to assimilate into the great, multi-cultural social experiment known as ‘CAN’ada.

We all know that the USA is considered more of a ‘melting pot’ wherein immigrants become ‘Merkins’, while Canada, for better or worse, is a little more lassez-faire.
This is why we have hyphenated-Canadians.

One of the chief obstacles of ‘hoping’ that immigrants adopt our predominantly secular social and legal structure is the ‘baggage’ that SOME of them refuse to discard at the border. The most egregious offence being the horrendous, barbaric, practice of honour killings!

This is where I draw my line in the sand.
http://www.stophonourkillings.com/index.php?name=News&catid=52

When you come to Canada your Spouse and Children are NOT your property!

I don’t give a F*CK about what your handlers or peers think about you maintaining appearances.

This is the modern world and if you cannot handle that, and refuse to allow your family members to join the 21st Century, then don’t come here.

Time and time again, the vapid, ridiculous, religio-cultural shackles of the past cling to the institutionalized psyche of many transplanted men and innocent wives and children pay the ultimate price. Honour? You can take your f*cking honour and go live in the Dark Ages somewhere else.
Not Here.

This IS not an extension of your homeland. This place is a work in progress. It has evolved and strives to be more egalitarian and secular out of necessity because the other societal models have proven themselves to be undesirable.

We cannot undo the Enlightenment and Centuries of Scientific progress. We are forced to deal with the empirical reality of our circumstances. Hiding behind myths and conjecture is no longer a reasonable option for us, not here anyway.

You need to play the hand that you’re dealt,

even if you are not playing with a full deck.