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Great Canadian minds with some kind of connection to Korea think alike

I’m a hard-drinkin’ heavy-thinkin’ Canadian blogger with a silly pseudonym and a Korean brother-in-law! He’s a hard-drinkin’ heavy-thinkin’ Canadian blogger with a silly pseudonym (stavrosthewonderchicken) and lives in Korea! Together, they photo-edit WWII posters!

Each of us made our poster — here’s his, here’s mine — independently, neither one knowing that the other was doing exactly the same thing. We were both inspired by SomethingAwful’s collection of photo-edited WWII posters.

Here’s another coincidence: Stavros’ secretary is named AccordionGuy and my secretary is named stavrosthewonderchicken. Good thing neither of us is going to the theatre or Dallas…

(By the way, go read his blog, emptybottle.org. It’s good.)

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Tina’s Birthday

Taken Tuesday, April 9th at the Bovine Sex Club, Queen Street West, Toronto. The birthday party of one Lady Miss Kristina “Tina” Gravelson, fishnets-and-PVC Queen extraordinaire. We all bought her drinks, her poison of choice being a double whiskey sour in a pint glass. Happy 22nd, Tina!

Funny story interlude

At one point during the party, some guy in his early twenties took a look at my digital camera, noticing that there was a small LCD display on the back.

Him: Is that a screen on the back of your camera?

Me: Yeah. Take a look. (I show him the camera.)

Him: What the — ? (looking at screen) That was the picture you just took! You mean you can see the film develop?

Me: No, there’s no film. It’s digital.

Him: It’s what?

Me: Digital.

Him: What the fuck do you mean, digital?

Me: It’s electronic.

Him: You mean it uses batteries?

Me: Yeah, but the picture is stored electronically.

Him: (A little agitated now, as if I’m speaking some kind of crazy moon language) I still don’t get what you’re talking about!

Me: (Trying to dumb it down a little further) The pictures in the camera are stored on…computer…chips.

Him: (Completely astonished, shouting) They can do that now?!

I decided not to tell him about the Internet, for fear his head would explode.

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Smile!

When Paul and I were last at the grocery store, we bought these strange and rather creepy potato treats:

They’re McCain Smiles (for which I can only find a Norwegian Web page), mashed potato treats formed into little visages, blissfully unaware of the fate to which they are doomed. The only way that these snacks could be more disturbing would be if they were British smiles.

I used to kid my former girlfriend, a vegetarian, that what made meat taste so good was the animal’s soul. I also said that the wonderful feeling that comes after eating flesh was in fact our stomach nerves’ interpretation of the anguished cries of an animal’s soul being slowly digested. (Surprisingly, that is not the reason she broke up with me.) If having a soul implies delicious taste, then Smiles have no more soul than the ordinary french fry (or chip, to my orthodontically-challenged British readers).

I suppose it gives vegetarians a chance to answer “yes” to Animal Alliance’s question: “Does your food have a face?”

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Gorgeous!

The second beautiful spring day in a row, and the girls are hitting Queen Street West in their spring clothes in droves. Perhaps it’s time to take the accordion out onto the street.

I’m certain you’ll understand if this entry’s a little short today.

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Oh, no, not a Star Trek-related entry!

Sorry, I couldn’t help it — I am a geek, and these are pretty funny…

Should you stalk William Shatner?

This handy quiz might help:

1. When I think of William Shatner, I:

a. Think of Captain Kirk

b. Think of the original “Star Trek

c. Push my tummy out as far as I can and say, “But, Ssssss… pock!

d. Hold all the muscles in my face totally still so no one can tell what I’m thinking. This is private to me, do you understand? I won’t have you blabbing to him and ruining my chances of becoming his best friend.

For more info on William Shatner, check out his website. Apparently he keeps a blog, and according to this report, he actually writes it himself. Someone else goes through the entries and corrects them for spelling (and…probably…pauses…as…well), but otherwise, it’s supposed to be straight from the Master Thespian’s keyboard to your screen.

How the character of Wesley Crusher could’ve been cool

In case you hadn’t heard yet, Wil Wheaton — the guy who played the character of Wesley Crusher — has a weblog. And he’s all right. I’ve forgiven him for all his sins (which were really the show’s writers’, anyway), and someday, I hope he can forgive me for all those comics I drew in university in which he died horrible, unpleasant and messy deaths.

Anyhow, he got this e-mail just this past weekend:

To: < wil@wilwheaton.net>

Subject: star trek

Ya know the writers could have solved that whole image problem of Wesley Crusher by

A. Giving him a cool name like “Sparks Mcgee” and a peculiar accent, possibly a tattoo

B. Having him kill people randomly on the ship for no apparent reason.

C. Giving him a cool car to drive around in, like a 1978 Trans Am or one of them Dukes of Hazard [sic] cars

D. Giving him a cool catch phrase like “I got a course you can plot”

E. Wear a cowboy hat

Then like Picard would say “Number One, where the devil is Sparks Mcgee?”

Then Number one would say “In his muscle car sir”, then everyone would laugh except Worf who would say some shit about honor or something. Then people at home would think, “Man that Sparks Mcgee sure is cool, a real rebel.”

I still think they should’ve kept Ashley Judd on as an ensign

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It Happened to Me

Quotes, Part 2

“What country is Laos in?”

Thursday, March 28th: Paul, Rob and I are at the Liquids Lounge on the trendy bar strip of College Street West. It’s a party for our friend Nasreen, who’s just successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis (mating behaviour in snapping shrimp). The bar is packed with at least three or four dozen well-wishers. Paul and I have been drinking weapons-grade cosmopolitans — only enough cranberry for colour — mixed by Sarah the bartender, who coincidentally happens to be in Paul’s tae-kwon-do class.

One of Nasreen’s friends was telling me what her plans were. “She’s taking a couple of months off — going to Vietnam and…what country is Laos in?”

“Laos is a country.” I replied, “It’s right beside Vietnam.”

I was suddenly reminded of a classic cartoon depicting a New Yorker’s view of the world: Broadway, 5th Avenue and the Hudson river rendered large with Chicago and L.A. rendered almost as dots and everything else on the horizon. To most non-Asians in North America, the map of Asia probably comprises of Japan (a good place to be if you have no marketable skills — they will pay you just to be a gaijin, Thailand (good backpacking, non-threatening food), China (too big to ignore, home of uber-hottie Zhang Ziyi), Afghanistan (a recent addition thanks to that cool war show on TV) and Everything Else.

“I think this monkey plays some other sport.”

Later that evening, I ended up chatting with my friend Liz — an old friend of mine from Queen’s University — and her boyfriend Keith.

“My Dad,” said Liz, “said that the younger me would’ve hated the present-day me.”

“Because you’re getting an M.B.A.?” I asked. “Back at Queen’s, I never would’ve guessed that you’d end up getting one, either. But still, isn’t your Dad a business prof?”

“Yeah. He just finds it surprising.”

“I don’t think the younger you would hate the present you as much as Elan’s younger self would hate his present, writer’s-credit-on-MVP2 self.”

Elan Mastai is a friend of ours and at Queen’s, he was the film student’s film student. He’d be the guy at the party telling you that the “Steps Scene” from The Untouchables — the one where Andy Garcia has to both plug the bad guy and save the baby carriage — was lifted straight from Sergei Eistenstein’s Battleship Potemkin. After The Phantom Menace, he let us in on George Lucas’ dirty little secret: that he’d liberally borrowed all kinds of plot elements from Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress and that Trade Federation bad guy Nute Gunray’s name is an amalgam of Republican names — Newt (Gingrich) and Reagan (with the syllables reversed). He and my ex-girlfriend Anne (also a film major) produced a film that won a small indie film award from TVO, the Ontario education channel, after which he graduated and entered the industry.

I’m not sure what kind of mental gymanastics he had to perform in order to justify it to himself, but his biggest writing credit to date is MVP2: Most Vertical Primate. Here’s the plot synopsis from the official website:

Jack, the most valuable primate, is back – and this time he’s taking skating in a whole new direction.

Everyone’s favorite hockey-playing chimpanzee from MVP: Most Valuable Primate returns to the ice after being drafted by the Seattle Simians into the ZHL hockey league. Jack amazes the Simians with his hockey skills and instantly proves himself to be an invaluable member of the team. But the Car Jackers, archrivals of the Simians, have plans of their own for Jack. Jealous of his success and popularity with the fans, the players plot to have him thrown out of the league. Confused, scared and with the authorities hot on his trail, Jack makes a run for it.

Alone in the big city, he meets Ben, a homeless boy who loves skateboarding. The two loners discover that they’re kindred spirits and form an instant friendship. Under Ben’s patient tutelage, Jack learns how to skateboard and is performing like a pro in no time. When Ben learns of an amateur skateboarding competition with a grand prize of a corporate sponsorship, he dreams of entering and putting an end to his life on the streets. But qualifying for the competition isn’t as easy as it seems.

Meanwhile, the Simians are struggling through the playoffs without Jack, their star player. With the last game of the series quickly approaching, the team is desperate to find him in time to have a shot at the ZHL Cup.

Can Jack help the team win the Cup and help Ben enter the skateboarding competition? The action – and the laughs – unfold as this big-hearted chimp gives it his all to come to the rescue of everyone who’s depending on him.

“He’s just paying his dues,” I said. “Mark McGee told me that Elan wrote some really clever stuff that ended up getting cut out of the script.”

Besides, bad animal-based comedy movie or no, he’s doing what he set out to do when he first came to school: make movies. Most of us ended up taking up whatever career path seemed easiest, and I’m sure there are some people in our graduating class who still don’t know what they want to do with their lives.

“The monkey-movie thing will be a little bit of colour in his resume, something for Premiere or Film Threat to have a little fun with when he’s big and famous.”

(It’s always good to keep things in perspective. There are many more embarrassing stories in the film-and-TV world, such as my actor friend Jeffrey, whose best-known scene to date is one where his head explodes on Earth: Final Conflict.)

“Of course,” Liz replied, “but…baseball playing monkeys and Joey Trebbiani?”

“No, you’re thinking of Ed. I think this monkey plays some other sport.”

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Thanks, Tom!

BBC 6Music

If you have a broadband connection and RealPlayer, I recommend giving BBC’s Radio 6 — better known as 6Music — a listen. It’s simply amazing — a radio station built on both the BBC’s excellence in broadcasting (commercial-free, even!) and a stable of DJs who eat, sleep and breathe music unlike any other. For their heavy rock show, they got Eddie the Head’s best friend, Bruce Dickinson, from Iron Maiden! The Saturday lunch show (or Saturday morning show for us listeners in the Eastern Time Zone of North America) features ska and rocksteady hosted by a man who should be considered an expert in those areas: Suggs, lead vocalist of Madness! There’s a show by Bob Harris, the guy who founded Time Out magazine, Craig Charles (he’s “Lister” from Red Dwarf) hosting the funk show, and Andrew Collins, former editor of two very good magazines, Empire and Q.

The 6Music DJ I know best

Actually, the BBC doesn’t call them DJ’s, they call them presenters.

Anyhow, the BBC presenter I know best is musician Tom Robinson, who hosts the evening show (or afternoon show, in my case). Tom’s been in the business for over 25 years, starting with the founding of Rock Against Racism and the Tom Robinson Band (2-4-6-8 Motorway, War Baby, Power In The Darkness, Atmospherics, Glad To Be Gay). In addition to being an excellent musician who knows the scene backwards and forwards, Tom also has a great announcer’s voice and delivery, which along with his eclectic musical selection, makes his show a pleasure to listen to.

Tom and I have crossed paths in tangential and unusual ways. I had all his albums until they were stolen in a bizarre snow-cone-related mishap (yes, the snow-cone vendor stories return later this week); he very kindly replaced them for me as a gift for my programming the enhanced CD portion of his 20th album, Having It Both Ways

Tom has a regular segment on his show called Heroes or Zeroes, which “examines the cases for and against some of rock’s most controversial artists”. Today’s star-in-question was Madonna. At the end of the segment, Tom asked the listeners to e-mail comments on Madonna: was she an important influence on popular music? I fired off a message to him. It was really just an excuse to say “hi” (I haven’t had a chance to talk or write to him since his visit to Toronto last summer), but he announced that he just had to read my e-mail on the air:

Subject: On Madonna

Hi, Tom!

At the very least, she’s been a positive influence on me, because from her, I learned the value of shamelessness. Shamelessness is very important in rock and roll, doubly so if you play the accordion.

Thank you, Tom. My plan to dominate the Earth is one step closer, thanks to your help.