The Only Thing More Fun Than 2 Girls 1 Cup

This Wednesday, the first beams of energy are scheduled to be sent through the Large Hadron Collider far below the French-Swiss border. What is the Large Hadron Collider? It’s a particle accelerator-- which really is just what it sounds like. It also happens to be the biggest, highest-energy particle accelerator ever built. They’re going to turn this machine on, fire particle beams through it, and see what happens. Some time around October 21, they’re going to start launching these beams toward one another-- as the “Collider“ part of the name suggests. Responsible people in the scientific community admit this little experiment could lead to the end of the world-- no matter how incredibly unlikely. Less responsible types actually guarantee it. Some folks even tried to have a legal injunction shut the LHC down. Particle accelerators have been around since the 1930s without killing us all, and there’s no real reason to think this one will be any different. Except for this. While Hadron colliders have been around since the 1970s, this one is, again, the most powerful one ever built. By about seven times. Which frankly, sounds just a little unnerving. But it’s hard to get a true read on how unnerving it should be, and what the possible consequences of turning on the LHC this week. So much of the information available is laden with hyperbole and exaggeration that it’s almost impossible to know what to believe. The Loudest Man in the Room is here to sort it out for you. Don’t believe any of it. Let’s put it this way, I’m a lot more afraid of the leftover fries I ate today than I am of the LHC. Wednesday will pass, and many scientists will slap each others’ backs and congratulate one another for their glorious experiment (which it is). And October 21 will also come to pass with nary a hint of the apocalypse. Now, all that isn’t to say it’s not fun to get people worked up about this thing. I’ve spent the last few days having a lot of fun scaring people out of their wits with this thing. But please. We’re going to be fine. Probably.

I sure as hell don't trust 'em

Right, so this is a couple of days overdue, and I’m sorry for that. My head was in a little place I like to call the Labour Day clouds over the weekend. So let’s get down to business.

Raise your hand if you can honestly say you’ve changed your hair style three times in the last four years.

Alcoholic beverage of choice? Shampoo? Bought three cds or books? Rode the bus? Moved? Seen a genuinely good movie?

Called a federal election?

That’s right folks, we’re headed there again. October 14 looks to be the day. And frankly, the timing couldn’t be better. We’re doing everything we can in this country to limit inflation and avoid a recession, so naturally, the best next step to take is to call an election and potentially change governments again (as an overly-dramatic example, let’s see how well Zimbabwe’s economy is faring with political unrest). Lovely. And in all likelihood, we’ll wrangle ourselves another minority government that can’t actually do any real governing.

And the cost to the taxpayer? Election rules state the parties can spend a maximum of $18 million and change on their campaigns. So let’s say the Conservatives and Liberals each spend to the max, while the NDP, Green Party, and the independents combine to spend to the max. How many doctors and nurses could we hire with $54 million? Police officers? Teachers? How many MRI machines? How many schools could keep their art or music programs with $54 million?

Shoot, $54 million probably even goes a long way in buying bullshit Kyoto Accord environmental credits.

The point, as it was in 2006, is that as great as this country is, and as well-off as most Canadians really are, we have a long way to go before every person in this country has a proper education and enough food in the belly. And until we get there, we should stop throwing $50 million away every other year in federal elections.

Image stolen from www.istockphoto.com

Loudest DVD review

So my cable’s been screwed for weeks. But that’s not what this is about. See, that’s just how I lead into the way this here entry came about. See while my cable’s been screwed, it seems the only times I’ve been able to see a clear picture or enjoy clear audio are the times an ad for this Smart People movie shows up. So I think about it. I figure, I like Dennis Quaid. He was brilliant as the oaf president in American Dreamz; his brother was brilliant in Independence Day; and uh... well his film resume isn’t littered with offensive crap. Thomas Haden Church was good in Ned and Stacey, and while I’m not certain he’s appeared in anything since, he’s also on that inoffensive list. And they’re both pretty funny. So if nothing else, we’re looking at serious potential for high comedy. I even overlooked two critical facts. First, since Ellen Page is on the movie, I would look like one of those creepy, dirty old men that like women that look like 11-year old boys. And second, the creepiest and most overbearingly unattractive person in all of Hollywood, Sarah Jessica Parker, would be “gracing” my tv screen, and haunting my dreams. Seriously, if this woman were cursorily attractive, men would have watched Sex & the City. But I digress. Again, despite the impending nightmares, and potential to be locked up like I have the nude Miley Cyrus photos, I gave the movie a try. About 20 minutes in, Ellen Page takes her dead mother’s clothes to the local Goodwill without her dad’s knowledge. The next scene we see is Dennis Quaid buying back all of his dead wife’s clothes. Amazingly, that’s not even the saddest part of this movie. It actually gets worse. And more grating. And so full of bad indie music that’s trying to sound like The Pretenders, just to avoid using a song anyone’s ever heard. And somewhere in all this jailbait, bad music, and horse-faced romance, we’re supposed to believe this insufferable prick played by Quaid—the kind of asshole that writes a book called You Can’t Read—transforms into this loving, caring, cuddly and happy guy. Wow. Pretentious doesn’t even begin to describe this piece of crap. Avoid this movie at all costs.

Bigfoot exists

Friday morning I got to work in time to find the most amazing link ever had made its way to my inbox.

It was a link to a CNN article (again, CNN, not The Onion) about a pair of guys from some backwoods town that claimed to have found... BIGFOOT!

And not just THE Bigfoot, but a whole family/herd of Bigfoot-like critters.

The article said these guys were going to hold a press conference to unveil some sort of DNA that was supposed to prove this was the real deal.

I’ll spare the suspense, and I’ll spoil the ending: as always, the Bigfoot discovery turned out to be a hoax. I can only imagine you’re as surprised reading that as I was typing it. ::eyeroll::

But there was a period of 15 minutes or so, while I was forwarding the email to anyone and everyone in the office, that I was actually quite hopeful this was the real thing. You know how that is. At one point, you’ve probably tried really hard to believe something. Like, Jack Black is funny, or the girl/guy in the next cubical desperately wants to have sex with you, or this really is the Maple Leafs year. We all do it.

I’m no psychology expert, but I’m sure one could tell you all the details about these little fantasies that help us make it through the day. So for a very brief period Friday morning, my fantasy was to hope this Bigfoot was real. So when it came crashing down, as expected, I was a little disappointed with the inevitable outcome.

Still no Bigfoot, but hey, maybe next year. I’ll leave you with an actual quote from the San Jose Mercury News, from Matthew Whitton, one of the discoverers: “It seems like there are lot of people in the Bigfoot world who are a little delusional.”

WTF Steve?

Hey all, yeah, I know. I told you there'd be more regular content than the old blog. I say a lot of things. Mostly, though, I went on vacation, and I'm actually still on vacation, and I have no intention of adding any new content until said vacay is over. So maybe I'll have something here Thursday, but more than likely, we're looking at Sunday evening updates from now on. See you in a week. In the meantime, I'm really not sure what this is all about, but it seems like it's worth sharing.

I'll show you indecency

Fantastic news, everyone! Free speech, freedom of nudity, and freedom of Super Bowl halftime shows struck a huge blow to the freedom-crushing, soulless bastards at the FCC. Well, technically, it was a federal appeals court striking these blows, but the source is hardly the point. The point is this: CBS is no longer being fined more than a half-million dollars for Janet Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction." While it seems like that phrase has been in our hearts and minds forever, it's actually only been around since 2004, which, in case you're counting along at home, means this fine has been tied up in a variety of appeals and courts for more than four years. Seeing how it takes four years to decide whether or not a giant corporation should shell out $500, 000 (which is typically less than the price of a minute of ad time during said halftime show), maybe 48 years to have a wrongful murder conviction overturned doesn't seem so long. And a 20-plus-year investigation into the Air India disaster certainly seems warranted. Good God, what have the Canadian and American legal systems come to? From where I sit, they appear to be nothing but a mockery of justice.

Take that you stupid bitch

Amazingly, that title is not directed toward any of my exes, currents, or potentials-that-spurned-me. Nope, that's all for Grey's Anatomy star Katherine Heigl. As reported oh-so long ago by the great WWTDD, this snotty little bitch refused to defend her reign over whatever hunk of plastic they give away to commemorate the garbage they put on my tv every night, because she felt the material she was working with wasn't up to par this past season. Now I've never watched a whole episode of Grey's, but one need not watch the show to know the old cliche that you don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Hands up: who out there knew Heigl before her turn on Grey's? This chick had a run of made-for-TV movies more impressive than your the average hitting streak. She went seven out of eight-- including the made-for-TV sequel to Romy & Michele's High School Reunion. That's damn impressive. She lands a part on a seemingly strong show, wins a hunk of plastic, ruins an otherwise enjoyable Judd Apatow movie, gets plastered all over dorm-room walls, and is suddenly too good for the show that made her famous. Amazing. Well the folks over at Grey's have never been known to put up with this kind of crap from the show's stars (see Washington, Isaiah). And it turns out Heigl's no exception. Rumour today is that the Grey's folks are going to kill her off next season. Well done, and hats off to you Grey's. You made her, not the other way 'round. P.S. Memo to Major League Baseball, Young children love the Home Run Derby. I understand the allure of prime time, but 9 p.m. ET is too late for this event to start. Parents don't let seven- and eight-year olds stay up that late-- even if it is summer holidays.