Sunday, April 29, 2007
Please Stand By
Been ill. Will be on the road on business. I'll be back about Thursday. See you all then.
posted by Mentok @ 12:26 p.m.,
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Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Election Sketch
By way of a bit of dessert after all that heavy, savoury political talk, Mentok the Mind-taker is pleased to present Monty Python's Election Special sketch.
I've worked on too many campaigns and this sketch plays louder and more vividly in my mind with each one:
posted by Mentok @ 11:12 p.m.,
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Monday, April 23, 2007
Pick Your Politics
Carrying on with my strategy of mixing up the content to keep y'all on your toes and promote my other site-tabs...
Here are a few links to some political type commentary I found noteworthy. There's a little something for everyone :
First off, here's an ode to Americans from an unlikely source. Keep in mind that this reporter is usually left-of-centre and he works for a network, the CBC, that is notoriously ultra-lefty. Not that I'm a big America-lover or anything, but this piece really does say some important things that deserve to be said. His closing question is worth particular attention:
As China and India rise, and Russia wields its extraordinary resources, one gets the feeling we may be watching the decline of the American empire. Many will cheer that. I find myself wondering whether the next dominant power will feel anything like the same desire to do the right thing.Further on this topic, here's a story about all the outrageous pollution going on in China. So, tell me, why is it that we never hear David Suzuki, Greenpeace, etc. raise alarm bells about China? Why does the Left all over the world work overtime to come up with conspiracy theories to attribute all the world's woes to the US and the West in general - countries that have environmental regulations, that have civil rights and freedoms, that have systems, albeit half-assed, to keep governments accountable - yet never ever ever does the Left say a word about countries like China that are clearly, unabashedly, indisputably bad?
Finally, in honour of Earth Day, I give you the immortal wisdom of Dilbert. Damned if this isn't the smartest yet funniest environmental commentary I've ever read.
posted by Mentok @ 11:02 a.m.,
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Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Scot Free
View of Oban, Scotland from McCaig TowerToday I'll tell you one of my favourite travel stories.
This is by way of compensation to your friend and mine, mistah JC from the Vinyl Villain. The other day, I was goofing on him that he was from England when he is in fact from Glasgow.
Just to reassure everyone, I was just trying to needle his ethnic sensitivities. I'm perfectly well aware that Glasgow is in Ireland.
Ha, ha, OK I've pretty much killed that gag now.
On to the story, just to prove I actually know something about Scotland and British Isles geography...
When I was a mere lad in my 20s, I took half a year off of school to do the ol' back-packing through Europe bit. Yada, yada, yada, by and by I ended up in the Scottish resort town of Oban. It's on the west coast, up by Argyllshire I believe. (And btw, JC, the bus to Oban departed from your fair city of Glasgow.)
I instantly fell in love with Oban and it sings in my memory still.
When I first got there, I stood out on the docks and drank in the sea air (always a treat for prairie dwellers). A sound .... there was a faint sound drifting in over the water. God damn if it wasn't bag pipes lost someplace out in the misty islands.
Normally on the back-packing trail, a person hooks up with some fellow travellers at the hostel and then goes out with a group. Safety in numbers and all that. Oban excited my imagination so much that I couldn't wait for that procedure. I decided to head right out to the first pub I came across and strike up a convo with the locals.
Have you seen American Werewolf in London? There's this marvelous seen near the beginning where the two American boys walk into a raucous pub that falls totally silent as soon as the locals notice strangers at the door. I had exactly that experience.
I sat at the bar and was promptly treated like a ghost. People were literally having conversations over top of me and the barkeep was far too busy polishing glasses to serve me.
Finally, I had had enough humiliation. Rather than crawl out with my tail between my legs, I decided to give the proprietor a graceful way to get rid of me.
"Look, obviously I'm a tourist. I'm looking to go on a bit of a pub crawl tonight. Could you recommend some good pubs in town."
Well, now he was offended.
"A goood pub? Ye want ta knew a goood pub? You'rrre in it, lad! You'rrre in it!"
Then he served me and the locals warmed up to me a little bit. It was here I first discovered (and have verified on other occasions) that many Scottish people have a bizzarely detailed knowledge of Canadian geography. Through most of my travels, when people asked where I was from, I had to resort to things like "You know where Toronto is? OK, it's about 2,000 kilometres west of that." Not the Scots. Most of them were familiar with the location of every major city in every province. Only the Germans out-did them in detailed geographic knowledge.
I was studying political science at the time, so by and by I turned the conversation to politics. This was the 1980s and Margaret Thatcher was PM then, so the locals were moping that Scotland was under-represented in government, just as they always are when the Tories are in office.
They went on at some length about how powerless they were feeling at the time. So, off the top of my head, I ventured the opinion:
"Gosh, it sounds to me like what you people need is some sort of federal system."
Once again, the pub went totally silent. It seems that, over top of all the other noise, even people in the furthest corners of the pub had heard me say this. You could hear a pin drop. I thought I had made some major faux pas and was certain I was going to be lynched.
Then, the whole place erupted in a great cheer. People came up to shake my hand and slap me on the back. An incredible quantity of alcohol started to show up in front of me. Pint after pint of beer. Shot after shot of the most insanely delicious aged single malt whiskies I have ever tasted (all locally made, of course).
My dreamed-of pub crawl did indeed happen, in a much grander style than I could have imagined. I was escorted from pub to pub by an enthusiastic crowd (OK, maybe it was only three or four guys, but it seemed like a crowd at the time.) I never touched my wallet the rest of the evening.
I have a vague memory of playing pool in some other establishment, but the rest of the evening is black until I woke up the next morning outside my hostel.
Apparently, the notion of federalism was popular in that part of Scotland at that time. I'm pleased to report that the UK now has what we in North America would call federalism and that the Scots at long last have their own regional parliament. I smiled the smile of auld lang syne when I heard that.
A quick post-script:
Several months after the above events, I was in a hostel in Austria and told this story to a snooty English fellow. I had already told this story many times by then, so I had worked it up into quite an act with all sorts of wild hand gestures and little bits of acting-out of the parts (it's too bad you all can't see those parts of the story).
The Englishman listened intently, completely enraptured by my story. When I finished, there was a long pregnant pause. Finally, the Englishman, with a skeptical look on his face, looked me in the eye and asked:
"Do you mean to tell me that you got a Scotsman to buy you a drink?"
Here endeth my tale of Scotland.
Now, your turn. Let's have some fun telling our favourite travel stories.
posted by Mentok @ 10:16 a.m.,
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Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Annus Horribilis
Just a quick post to share the fact that it's been a year since I quit smoking.
For the record, quitting smoking sucks.
Of course, I'm glad I did it on any number of levels. But it's very hard. One of the hardest addictions to beat, harder than beating heroin, I'm told.
The monkey on one's back grows to King Kong proportions pretty quickly. Since quitting, there hasn't been one day - not one stinkin' day - when I've been free of this very loud voice in my head screaming: "I WOULD FUCKING KILL SOMEBODY FOR A FUCKING CIGARRETTE RIGHT FUCKING NOW!"
But, I've resisted, mainly because I've been through this so many times before and know how slippery the slope gets if you give the Monkey any leeway. If you tell yourself "Oh, I'll just have this one cigarrette because I'm really stressed out", before you know it the Monkey will invent 20 occasions a day when you are "really stressed out."
The process is also a very empowering one. If I can beat this addiction, then I know I can change anything else in my life if I really want to.
One year and counting. Wish me luck.
posted by Mentok @ 2:53 p.m.,
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Friday, April 13, 2007
Oh, Give Me A Frickin' Break!
This "Zero Trans Fat" spin doctory has to stop. Really, who do they think they're kidding?
posted by Mentok @ 9:36 a.m.,
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Thursday, April 12, 2007
Keep the Good Stuff
Mrs. Mentok and I are cleaning out our basement due to the aforementioned foundation repairs.
Now, here's a factoid some of you web stalkers may not know: I'm a former comic collector and an ongoing collector of Batman kitsch.
Not my fault, really. I was born in the midst of the first Batman craze so my older brother was eager to cast me in the role of Robin the millisecond I was able to walk. He did a thorough job of ensuring I was thoroughly programmed into the ways of all things Batman.
But now, 40 years on, I've got all this stuff. About a dozen large storage bins full of it. It's all good stuff, mind you. As I've been repacking it, my kids have been continually exclaiming "Wow, that's so cool! Can we play with it?"
But, of course, the heart-breaking answer is "No!". You can't play with the collectibles. And that in a nutshell is the whole travesty of pop-culture collecting. Stuff that was designed to be toys cannot be enjoyed as toys.
Consequently, I'm finding this encounter with my collection to be quite depressing. I've got all this stuff that I can't enjoy just sitting in bins cluttering up my life. Yet, there's no way I could ever part with them. I feel enslaved by these stupid objects.
I take some little solace in recalling that the mythical Dark Knight himself was a fanatic collector who maintained a gigantic room of trophies. He had the benefit of an apparently infinitely large network of caves to store his stuff. Nonetheless, I can easily imagine arguments breaking out between the Caped Crusader and Alfred the butler. "Seriously, Master Bruce, what are you ever going to do with a giant coin and a robot dinosaur? Do you know how long it takes to dust those things? Why do you bother keeping this crap?"
So I moped to Mrs. Mentok about these frustrations. In the past, she's acted as though she finds the collection a bit of an embarrassment, so I expected her to join in on my anti-collection bitching.
Instead, she asked "If you had your absolute ideal choice, what would you do with this stuff?".
"Well, there's no use talking about my ideal, because its impossible," I replied.
"Don't tell me what's practical, tell me your ideal."
"My ideal would be like those crazy old men you see in the paper sometimes who have their whole basement dedicated to their model train set or John Deere collection or something."
"OK, well, someday you'll be an old man, and you're already crazy. Someday the basement will be all fixed up and the kids will have moved out so you can do whatever you want down there. So just store all this stuff until then and we'll set up your dream display when that day comes."
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the moment when I realized that my most valuable collectible is my wife.
[So, no, you can't play with her... although, just out of curiosity, I wonder what she'd fetch on Ebay.]
Now, how about you guys: Got a collection? Got a friend or relative who's a loony collector?
posted by Mentok @ 9:55 a.m.,
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Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Scent and Stink Factions Clash in BC
Victoria (FN) - The normally peaceful island community of Caperstown, BC was the site of fresh bloodshed this morning as clashes between warring factions of obsessively politically correct groups entered their third day.
The community of 760 is well-known throughout the region as a leader on progressive issues. The village bylaws are said to be "thicker than the Toronto phone book" and include restrictions on plastic bags, smoking, bottled water, nuts, genetically-modified foods, nuclear weapons and Christmas. Most recently, the village council narrowly passed a bylaw declaring the entire island a scent-free zone. Many residents felt the council had in this instance gone too far in restricting personal freedoms and choices.
Tensions reached a boiling point on Sunday as the community gathered to celebrate its annual Festival of Eostre, Goddess of the Dawn and Springtime, at which were posted numerous large signs advising of scent-sensitivities and threatening stiff fines.
When local officials tried to shut down the booth of an incense vendor, Elmer Lombard, a 70-year-old poet and long-time resident of the island, reportedly shouted "Scent sensitive? Jesus Christ! I tell you what, I'm stench sensitive. Would it kill you to take a bath occasionally, you f--king hippies?"
A general brawl followed the outburst. The scent versus stench debate soon divided families and
communes across the island. By Monday, organized fighting was underway. The anti-stench faction formed an alliance with the island's marijuana farmers, who had long complained of the council's restrictive organic-only agriculture policies. Together, the groups seized control of the north-western tw0-thirds of Capers' Island. However, the anti-scent group held Caperstown proper including the docks, thereby cutting off the anti-stenchers from supplies from the mainland.
The BC government has not yet called in either the RCMP or the army to deal with the violence. In Victoria, BC Premier Gordon Campbell was non-chalant in the face of mounting criticism about his government's inaction.
"Yeah, yeah, I know I should get around to dealing with it, but frankly I've been enjoying myself a little too much. Really, the whole thing is just too freaking funny!" said Campbell late Tuesday.
posted by Mentok @ 4:28 p.m.,
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Wednesday, April 04, 2007
And Now A Word From Our Sponsor
... has been moved over to the Attempts At Profundity tab. You can leave further comments there or here as you please, you non-existent confluence of events you.
posted by Mentok @ 4:01 p.m.,
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Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Driving While Buzzed
...Has been shifted over to the Fake News and Such tab. Don't be a dildo - go check it out!
posted by Mentok @ 10:16 a.m.,
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