The Green Machine

I've always identified with Luigi. You know, the Super Mario Brother? Wore green? Liked to jump on goombas and koopa troopi? The svelte, sophisticated brother of Mario? Yes, Mario always got all the credit, and the lead in all the 3D adventures, and apparently the last name too. I mean, they're the Mario Brothers. Does that make Mario "Mario Mario" and Luigi "Luigi Mario?"

Anyway, point of the story is that I always liked Luigi more than Mario. Perhaps it's because, growing up the yonger sibling, I was eternally relegated to "Player Two" status. I became so used to holding controller two and sitting on the right that I found it impossible to play any videogame sitting left of the screen. Even on Dance Dance Revolution I avoid the left platform, even when I'm the only one playing.

And let's be honest. If you're 22 and playing Dance Dance Revolution, you're playing alone.

Some might think that being Player Two would be like being a second class citizen. Not true. I have grown to relish my secondary status and I wear it as a badge of pride. Just like black people took ther term "nigger" and made it their own, I have taken back Player Two and made it something that I self-identify as. When I play Mario-themed games like Mario Kart or Super Smash Brothers I play as Luigi, even if more "Player Oneish" characters are available. I refuse to hold the first controller. I will not pick the game settings. My memory card goes in slot two and I am damn proud of it.

No, putting my memory card in slot two is not a euphemism for anal sex, but feel free to use it as thus in the future.

So this today is a rallying call to all my brothers out there who were given hand-me-down shoes and the second controller with the buttons that didn't always work right. Starting today the right hand side is the side of truth and dignity! Starting tonight green is the colour of pride. Starting tomorrow is a new day for the second player.

Second is the new first.

Of the Highest Definition

I got HDTV the other day. The entire purpose of having a blog is for me to relate my feelings on topics, so I'd be doing a disservice to myself and to you, dear reader, if I didn't tell you every little thing that crosses my mind as a direct result of viewing programing in 16:9, 1080i resolution.

As an aside, before yesterday, I didn't even know what significance 16:9 or 1080i had to the televised world, or even if they were more than random numbers featuring punctuation and lower case letters like some kind of Missy Elliot/Timbaland joint. This sort of information is the foul knowledge that one must collect as penalty for wanting the most crystal clear programing.

The first surprise I got when I started watching TV in what I feel now is the manner God intended is that due to the relative dearth of HD programming, you find yourself watching things that you would never normally watch. DiscoveryHD, I'm looking at you here. For some reason the Discovery channel has decided that instead of the generally ass-kicking programming they run on their pesant station, on their HD station they won't run programming that is bad so much as it is bizare. For example, I watched a show about insects yesterday that was hosted by a man who sounded exactly like Jean Chretien. "Ah LA-kuh de-EZ buugs, AH-nu-duh mah EEN-gleesh EZ vur-EE mar-GE-nal." The guy actually goes to his home, Quebec, in an episode. After an episode about the beetles of the Amazon that are bigger than your head, Quebec bugs are just a letdown. As wacky as the premise for this show is, DiscoveryHD runs it all the time. You can catch it any time of the day as far as I can tell. I should know. It's HD, so I've been watching it.

One watches these programs because they feel obligated; like they have some kind of super-power. Me and my HD Superfriends have been given the power of SuperTV and it has allowed us to soar above the mouth-breathing, ignorant masses that walk aimlessly upon the earth and gaze uncomprehendingly at the wonders of the world they inhabit. We have been given Hi-Def World Cup soccer not as a blessing, but as a duty and we are thumbing our nose at the very balance of the universe if we do not watch the Netherlands play Côte d'Ivoire. HD is obviously not for those who lack strenght of will and character.

In case you're wondering (and by "you" I mean Brice and Rob) I have been reading a lot of Tycho's newsposts over at the Arcade recently. For those who don't meet the required geek quotient to know who I'm talking about, Tycho is a commentator on videogames who has become so excessively verbose in his writing that he is nearly unreadable. This makes him my hero in so many ways.

Double Post Day

Two posts in one day? What's up with this kid??

I wanted to appologize for the last post. I wrote it in a bit of a frenzy and I took an unnecessairly large chunk out of Kinsella. Sorry Warren, we cool, right? Besides, Dubya, Kinsella-bashing has been the latest vouge in Canadian political blogging since the internet was invented. I had to get on board sooner or later.

As for Greg Strange, go to hell. You're still an idiot.

The other reason I wanted to post again was that I needed to describe something about living in Ottawa to all my readers. Ottawa is like that girl that it hurts so much to love. I'm not talking about gonorrhea either. This is much more emotional. For instance, I was waking down Elgin on my way to the mall for a haircut today, and the Snowbirds just happened to be flying around Ottawa in formation just for fun. Not off in the distance, I mean directly overhead and rattling windows. When you see the red fighters in maple leaf formation fly over the war memorial, the patriotism is almost enough to give one an erection. Sorry for the crude metaphor, but it's true. I stand by it. Ottawa, I love you baby.

Then I get to the mall, and the place is filled with middle-school kids on a field trip to see the capital. A bunch of wide eyed, lanyard wearing, never-been-in-the-city, ohmigodwereonafieldtrip, kids standing around the mall like confused cattle. They infest the hill, they infest the mall, and we will never be rid of them. Ottawa, why are you such a bitch?

There has only ever been one group of children on the hill that I have liked. They were four girls, about twelve, who were running around with disposable cameras and trying to get pictures of all the statues of the Prime Ministers with a sense of urgency that they will not feel again until they are giving birth. It's a well known fact that when you have four girls together under the age of 16, they lose the ability to communicate by any means other than shouting at the top of their lungs. Since they also can't seem to move more than five feet away from each other, but didn't know where they were going, the group turned into a small, chaotic storm of pre-adolecent panic and shouting that seemed to bounce randomly around the lawn. I thought this was pretty cute in and of itself, then one screams out "Over here! This one is Difrenbaker!"

Adorable. At least until you're 14. By that point I expect you to be able to read.

What? Me worry?

People have been asking me for a while if I feel scared about the fact that there was a foiled plot to perhaps blow up my place of work. The short answer is absolutely not. The long answer is that if I worried about everyone that wanted to blow up Parliament, I wouldn't be able to get out of bed in the morning. I get mail every day from crazies all over this country who, I'm sure, would love to see the hill turned into a crater, and those are just the ones that are writing. Everyone wants to blow something up. Few have the inclination to actually do it. Fewer still have the wherewithall to actually accomplish it. We arrested a bunch who got closer than most. Good for them for following their dream. Better still for CSIS and the RCMP and whoever else had been watching them for two years before they caught them in a sting. Think about that. Two years. Did this little terrorist cell even have a chance? They were just getting strung along. Everybody, I encourage you to go out and support your local terrorist network. It looks like they can use all the help they can get.

What's irritating me about this whole thing is the way people are reacting to it here and here. Kinsella and all involved with iamnotafraid can be forgiven, people that are afraid need something to rally around and there needs to be community building. I'll support it even if I feel it's needlessly alarmist. The first link, however, is the rambling of an idiot. May I quote? Thank you.

... The question is how to marginalize Islamic radicalism in places like Canada? In one sense, it’s actually quite simple. If they’re not citizens and they’re preaching jihad, you ship them out of the country so fast it makes their turbaned heads spin. If they are citizens, then you watch them like a hawk, and if they so much as spit on the sidewalk, you come down on them like a ton of bricks.
[...]
Canadians might want to ask themselves: Do we want to continue with a senselessly extreme form of hypersensitive multiculturalism and risk tolerating the sort of people who would take advantage of our good nature and behead our leaders? Or do we want to cut the nonsense and become a serious participant in the war on terror, not only for our own sakes, but for the good of all civilization?

I've left out the bits where he criticizes psychological "experts" (his quotation marks of disdain, not mine) for attempting to understand why people would want to attack their home, and the bits where he typecasts the entire Muslim world as a hotbed of jihadist activity. What scares the hell out of me is that there are still so many people out there that seem to think that "cracking down" on extremism somehow works. When you target everyone with a turban and "come down on them like a ton of bricks" you only turn moderates into extremists. When you decide to become a "serious participant" in the war on terror you're only going to make yourself a target for people who might get a whole lot closer to blowing something up.

A note to the author in question: do not write anymore. You are far more dangerous to the people of this country than the terrorists are. And "senselessly extreme multiculturalism" isn't a pipe-dream, it's the future. Get used to it whitey.

A Party-Time Necessity

The always-dapper Derek Schutz has declared June 9th the International Day of Drinking.

Challenge made, challenge accepted. Little did he know when he handed me the beverage I now hold that today I have come to play. Today I am bringing strictly A-Game.

After a breakfast of champions this morning (coffee, coke, and eggs) I went into the office. There was an empty case of beer in the bathroom garbage, and I figured that before I make any venomous comments about drinking on the job I should check our fridge. Sure enough, it was thick with beer. I mentioned our sudden alcohol surplus to my boss and his only answer was "Want one?"

The fact that we have fridays is proof that there is a God, and he is one awesome dude.

I've been asked many questions in my various jobs:
"Is that watermelon rotten?" (yes)
"Can I take these off your cart?" (no)
"What happened to the website?" (it sensed that I was enjoying life again)
"Can you get this ad done by tomorrow?" (only at the cost of my soul)
However, today was a first for "How are you for beer?" (good, working on my second)

I would say that anyone who had dealings with our office this afternoon should feel honoured that they were served by public servants avec les bieres, but upon further examination, that isn't as much of an hounour as you may think. There is an incredible amount of public service that happens under the influence of alcohol, and it's a fine-standing Canadian tradition. John A. MacDonald drafted the British North America Act while totally drunk. In fact, one can argue that he created Canada, served as it's Prime Minister, and then died in office without ever sobering up. Say what you like about that, but it sure beats the hell out of a war of independence.

Insert Ubiquitous Churchill Quotation Here

The majority of our office took time out of our busy day to sit down and watch President Bush's statement on gay marriage and his proposed constitutional ammendment to "entrench the traditional definition of marriage." I'm going to say right up front that this isn't about whether gay marriage is good or bad. That's not my business, and it shouldn't even be your business unless of course you plan on marrying a gay person.

I'm just afraid that if I don't go on a rant, nobody will.

For the purposes of making something readable, I'm not going to get into the difficulty that the President is going to have getting this ammendment passed. In brief, it's possible but not likely, considering that it won't likely get the support it requires in the senate. My problem is with how the President justified the need for a ban. He claimed that "activist judges" were rolling back referendums within states that ban gay marriage. This bothers me on two levels. First, it bothers me that he would use such a stupid, illogical, and simply incorrect excuse, and second, because he's actually getting away with it, proving that people just don't know shit and democracy has failed us all again.

Here's my beef: in the case of minority rights, there's no such thing as "activist judges," only judges that do their job. Issues of minority rights always have been and always should be a matter left up to the courts, not the people. There weren't any referendums when they wanted to grant women or African Americans the right to vote, the courts just up and did it, and if you didn't like it, tough. It's their job to defend minority rights because minorities can never win in a vote. That's why they're minorities: there's less of them than there are of us. This isn't an opinion or even an interpretation of the constitution, it's math. You can't argue with math. Just try. I'll wait.

Two plus two still four? Thought so. Moving on.

So, in the US legal system, the courts have a pretty solid hold on their status as the place to go for all your minority rights decisions. They've been doing it for literally hundreds of years. So now all of a sudden when some idiots allow a minority rights issue onto a ballot we somehow think that we should just toss out tradition because the people know best and it's democratic?

Fuck democracy, and fuck the people too. The people don't know their collective asses from a hole in the ground, and I should know; they write me every day to tell me so. By all means, put as many decisions as humanly possible into the hands of the judiciary, because the majority of the people are pretty stupid, especially when it comes to people who are different and therefore scary. Sorry George, but I don't buy your comment on "activist judges." They're doing their job and you know it. Don't lie to us, just admit that you're doing it to paddle-back to the right wing religious conservatives or to distract from a bad foreign policy and worse economy, or whatever other reason you may have for it. Just don't pin it on the judges who are just out there trying to do their job.

In the worst-case scenario, this ammendment passes. That would be a big problem if there wasn't a big country next door with lots of houses for sale, liberal gay marriage laws, and a dollar that's going to over-take the American dollar in short order. George, if you figure that you can afford to alienate a surprisingly large percentage of your population (a percentage that has a lot of disposable income and spends an awful lot, which is so valuable in this time of economic uncertainty) then we are more than happy to take them off your hands.