Month: September 2014

Sleazy drug-taking Toronto mayor’s even sleazier (alleged) drug-dealing brother participates in debate; circus ensues

Doug Ford’s first mayoral debate had it all, says the title of the Vice article, racism, homophobia and police intervention. The Ford brothers’ die-hard fans yelled at candidate Olivia Chow to go “back to China”, rooted for them because they’d never go to the Pride parade (one of the biggest, most money-making events in Toronto), and the worst of the lot had to be hauled away by the police. One of most rich moments, in so many senses of the word, was when Ford (a multi-millionaire thanks to the family business started by his politician dad) said that his opponent John Tory had everything handed to him on a silver platter.

The one-piece men’s suit that you put on like kids’ pajamas

Apparently, the combination of dress shirt, dress pants, and a jacket is so uncomfortable and time-consuming to put on that Jesse Herzog decided to solve the problem by creating the Suitsy, a “onesie” that looks like a suit. Here’s Herzog demoing the suitsy:

Here’s Herzog demoing the Suitsy:

“Imagine looking professional but feeling like you are in pajamas,” he says, to which GQ and I reply “imagine yourself not being lazy and buying a proper tailored suit instead”.

There may still be an interesting and non-ridiculous use case for the Suitsy: as dressier coveralls for mechanics, industrial workers, and other people who do dirty jobs but still want to look sharp.

See the crosswalk that the Beatles ruined, live!

You know the album cover:

Here’s what the crosswalk where the photo was taken looks like these days:

Apparently, traffic is often slowed down there thanks to legions of tourists and Beatles fans who insist on recreating the album cover for a personal photo. The best thing is that you can watch the hijinks live and from the comfort of your own computer, tablet, or smartphone thanks to the webcam that Abbey Road Studios (where the Beatles recorded that album) set up.

For those of you who wonder why there isn’t a “White History Month”…

…there’s a new soft drink for you, and it’s called Diet Racism. All the sweet ignorance of the real thing, but none of the guilt.

Everyone is Lonely

The folks at ADHD (that’s Animation Domination High-Def) often go for the funny with shock humor — Scientifically Accurate Spider-Man and Scientifically Accurate DuckTales are great examples — but they take a different tack with Everyone is Lonely, a sweet cartoon which does a great job explaining why it’s nice to be nice.

“1998? But that just happened!”

…and one more sleep until Thanksgiving if you’re in Canada; two if you’re in the U.S..

Thanks to Stephen Dean for the find!

As with just about any of John Oliver’s pieces on Last Week Tonight, this one’s fifteen minutes well spent.

The Miss America Pageant, in a fit of defensiveness, loves to remind you that they’re the largest provider of scholarships exclusively for women. The sad thing is, even once you factor away their fudged numbers, they’re right. That means the biggest source of women-specific scholarship money in America requires you to look good in a swimsuit and evening gown.

Want to change that? Donate to the following real scholarships:

• The Society of Women Engineers
• The Patsy Takemono Mink Education Foundation for Low-Income Women and Children
• The Jeanette Rankin Women’s Scholarship Fund

Today’s editorial cartoon in the Toronto Star captures the candidates in Toronto’s mayoral election perfectly:

Cartoon by Theo Moudakis.
In case you don’t remember them: that’s Richie Rich on the left, “Moose” from Archie in the middle, and Marcie from Peanuts on the right.

It’s not all that far from my article about the last mayoral election, which likened the candidates to characters from Family Guy, with Rob Ford as Peter Griffin…

…“Furious” George Smitherman as Stewie Griffin…

…and while not a candidate, outgoing mayor David Miller as Mayor Adam West:

Sometimes, I like having a little background noise going on while I work: a TV tuned to the news, some music, a little cafe chatter, or the splashing sounds of a pool (as you may have guessed, I work from a home office). The internet is often my source of said background noise, and once again, it has provided — this time, in the form of You Are Listening To, located at the easy-to-remember URL youarelistening.to.

Its formula is simple: take some ambient electronic music…

…and layer some city’s police and emergency services radio on top, and boom! Ambient mash-up!

I’ve been listening to You are Listening to Halifax for the past hour or so, which combines ambient music with the sounds of Central Nova Scotia’s Fire and EMS radio, and as you might expect, it’s been pretty peaceful.

The most popular channel on the site by far is You Are Listening to New York, which punctuates its ambient music with NYPD Special Operations Division and Traffic’s radio. Strangely enough, it’s pretty relaxing and unobtrusive, but there wasn’t a 9/11-scale emergency going on at the time. Your mileage is going to vary.

If you’re worried about being distracted by the chatter on the radio, try one of the channels that uses audio in another language. You Are Listening to St. Petersburg mixes its ambient music with the police radio of the copycat St. Petersburg (the original’s here in Florida, of course). Are you a fan of air control chatter? How about You are Listening to JFK Air Traffic Control? Do you like your chill-out music peppered with rocket engineering talk like “guidance is internal”? Then You are Listening to NASA’s for you!

You Are Listening To has all sorts of ambient-music-plus-radio-feeds for you to listen to, and you can even create your own channel: just pick a SoundCloud playlist for the music, a Broadcastify stream for the radio, a YouTube video for visual wallpaper, and a background image, and you’ve got your own chill-out mashup. I think I’ll be playing around with this site for the next little while.

This is America, where more is better, and this is also Florida, where no idea is a bad one. Hence Jasmine Tridevil (presumably not her real name) and her third breast.

Why three boobs? Because she doesn’t want to date anymore:

“I got it because I wanted to make myself unattractive to men. Because I don’t want to date anymore. Most guys would think [the extra breast is] weird and gross. But I can still feel pretty because if I wore makeup and cute clothes, I can still, you know… feel pretty.”

While many men might consider the extra one a turn-off, there are likely more than a few who’d consider it a turn-on. I get the feeling that getting a third breast to repel men is liking spaying barbecue sauce all over the picnic grounds to keep bugs away. Besides, there are probably less drastic measures she could’ve taken if she didn’t want to date — such as not dating.

In an interview with Orlando-based radio station Real Radio 104.1, Jasmine, who’s a Tampa-based licensed massage therapist, explains that she had to see “50 or 60 doctors” before she found one who’d perform the necessary cosmetic surgery. The doctor who agreed to do so had her sign a non-disclosure agreement and charged $20,000.

As you might expect, Jasmine is trying to get her own reality show and hired a camera crew to follow her around. On her Facebook page, she says she has upcoming appearances on the Jimmy Kimmel show and the Inside Edition.

Here’s a video of Jasmine showing off “the girls” in a bikini top. Radiohead may want to consider making it the official video for their single, Creep:

While she may not be completely right in the head — she’s a big Criss Angel fan, which should be a big warning sign — you’ve got to give her credit for her determination and financial sense. Rather than go into debt, she simply worked hard, scrimped and saved for her operation.

No, I haven’t run into her in town yet. But I’ll let you know if I do.