Well, the unthinkable happened last week. Yes, Canadian Tire did what every Canadian has been wanting to do for the past 7 years: putting the Canadian Tire couple to death. Figuratively of course, the actors who played them are still alive, but for all intents and purposes Ted and Gloria have been put out of their suburban-minivan-complete-ratchet-set misery after terrorizing the airwaves for 7 years. 7 years? Wow, that’s not beating the life out of a marketing ploy or anything. I never really understood how any marketing agency could come up with such a lame attempt at selling off screwdrivers and pressure washers. It was always like those damn condescending infomercials where their trying to sell some new-fangled spaghetti strainer, but they first have to show a few morons using an old-fashioned strainer, flailing around like rabid zombies, throwing pasta and boiling water all over the place. Yeah, Ted’s idiot neighbor would always show up: “Ted, help me, I need to drill a hole. Ted, help me, I need to see better out of my windshield so I don’t die. Ted, help me, I’m an incompetent moron.” See this is why men hated Ted. While every other man in Canada was fixing problems with duct tape and baler twine and fixing their car’s engine with a hammer and a butter knife, Ted was always working at something with his new tools with his eerily happy family and his RV and his boat and his cottage and his ATVs. The man made Inspector Gadget look about as technically inclined as Michael Bolton. To add insult to injury, the punch-line endings to the commercials were always stupid and were never funny.
Ted: “Look at these new windshield wipers!”
Idiot Neighbor: “You really should shave your beard!”
Together: “Hahaha!"
Ted: “Look how clean my boat is!”
Idiot Neighbor: “Ted, why do you still camp in tents when you already own an RV and a cottage?”
Together: “Hahaha!”
Ted: “I just realigned my tires and braking system so we don’t crash into trees the next time we go on a family adventure!”
Idiot Neighbor: “Wow. I should borrow that for my car so we don’t drive into any trees either!”
Ted: “Too bad, you’ll have to get your own. Only at Canadian Tire!”
Together: “Hahaha!”
Ted: “No seriously. Get your own.”
The worst all-time commercial was when Ted was proving how rugged he was by packing for a day on the trail with his ATV, but his wife took off on it before he got the chance. I half expected him to turn to the camera: “New, from Canadian Tire, the long-range assault sniper rifle.” Where the hell did they get the money to buy all that shit anyway? I mean once they got started I’m sure their income in Canadian Tire money alone was comparable to the economy of an emerging Eastern European country, but unless Ted was robbing banks on the side (with the Motomaster Vault-O-Matic no doubt), I don’t see how he was making enough cash to support his wife, deadbeat son, a few cars, the cottage, RV, boat, ATVs, etc., not to mention spending upwards of $200,000 a month at Canadian Tire. Ahwell. Love them or hate them, Ted and Gloria are gone now, but they will live on in Canadian Television infamy, along the old Norwich Union couple, (“It’s Patrick! He took out life insurance!”) The Canadian Legal Will Kit, and Hal Johnson and Joanne MacLeod.
In keeping with recent events in the Middle East of late a Canadian, who works for a U.S.-based humanitarian agency, was kidnapped by extremists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in the Gaza Strip last week. The 57-year-old Ottawa man was taken at gunpoint, held in a basement, and was forced by his captors to record video for the media. As they went through his belongings, however, the kidnappers found Adam Budzanowski’s Canadian passport, and were immediately disappointed. They had thought they had kidnapped an American and therefore had leverage to negotiate an end to Israel’s attack on a West Bank prison. Obviously disheartened at the discovery, the kidnappers made sure Mr. Budzanowski was Canadian by asking about stores near his home in Ottawa before exclaiming, “We love Canada!” “Which is a wonderful thing to hear when you have guns pointed at you.” Budzanowski said later. Yeah, I’ll bet. What a bunch of morons.
PFLP 1: “All we have to do is kidnap some Americans and Brits so we can stop the Israeli attack on that prison!”
PFLP 2: “Yeah, because kidnapping people in the Middle East has certainly forced them to stop bombing us in the past!”
Can you imagine them when they found out he was Canadian?
PFLP 1: “Canadian? SHIT! What do we do now?”
PFLP 2: “Well, we could stop kidnapping people and instead turn our focus to instilling democracy and…
Nan: SLAP! “Say you’re sorry.”
Apparently one of the kidnappers even gave Mr. Budzanowski his phone number before they released him in case he ever needed help with anything. “Say hello to Canada!” Yeah. I’ll get right on that. Moron.
This brings me to another issue; it was brought to my attention this past week that some people on campus hate me because I, and I quote “Hate Americans.” This, first of all, is not true. On the individual level, most Americans I know are great people. My sister and her family, as I’ve said before, are American, and obviously if I ever said I hated all Americans, by association they would be part of that group. Granted, I do hate the government that is now in power in the states, and I hate Dubya as someone who is grossly incompetent, incredibly stupid, and is not exactly the person I would want to leave in charge of a pair of sharp scissors, let alone the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. I realize as well that many people share this sentiment, including a great number of Americans. At the same time, there are also many Canadians that I hate, Kalan Porter, Steve Moore, Theory of a Deadman, Stephen Harper, but I would never even attempt to group all Canadians in to a similar group, and it’s the same thing for Americans. Sure, there are some Americans that I hate, but I am not stupid enough to group all 300 or so million of them into a single homogeneous group. Mr. Dressup was American for God’s sake. In fact, I would guess that I hate at least one person from every country in the world, but most of the 6 billion people on earth aren’t that bad. The ones I’ve met so far anyway.
I think a more accurate thing to say would be that I hate stupidity and incompetence, and I’m sure that we can find plenty of people that fit this description, on both sides of the border: George Bush, Bad Drivers, Paul Allen, Kenny G, Steroid Ben, Lucille Poulin, Ron Popeil, that guy who does those Yoplait commercials, the Ottawa Senators, the KKK, the Burger King king, the 2000 Flushes guy, Richard Simmons, Lou Bega, Jared from Subway, the entire cast of “Touched by an Angel,” the list goes on…
Have a good one!
Monday, March 20, 2006
Sunday, March 05, 2006
...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#38)
What the hell are people doing with Christmas decorations still up? It’s March for God’s sake. And I don’t care if you leave your lights on your house all year because you’re a lazy ass, but holy shit, after mid-January maybe you could stop turning them on? I swear, like 75% of the houses on my street still have some sort of decorations on their house. And call it illogical, call it an overreaction, or maybe call it the sign of an impending massive stress-related heart attack, but I actually became physically angry when I saw the number of houses that still had wreaths on their doors. How hard is it to take down a damn wreath? So why have the citizens of Charlottetown become such a bunch of slack asses? Well, if I recall correctly, fifteen years ago the city asked people to leave their lights up to give Charlottetown “a more festive look” for the 1991 Canada Games. Evidently everyone took this as a license to throw as much random shit on their houses as possible, and to leave it up until the 5th of never, or at least until another Juan rips it off their house. That or until I go insane and start going door-to-door and punching people in the face.
Adding to a list of randoms, which include Pierce Brosnan and McIver, Paul McCartney has become the latest celebrity to crawl out on PEI ice floes in the dead of winter to yell at Canadians about seals and hunting and global warming or whatever. Islanders, in typical fashion, reacted by reading The Guardian to hear every detail of what he did, what he bought/ate/said/touched (“Then he went into Roots. Then he bought a sweater. It said ‘Canada’ on it.”), the same thing that happens every time Lucille Poulin or Steroid Ben or Prince What’s-his-face and his wife show up. Of course the average Joe Blow doesn’t give a rat’s ass whether he’s here for the seals or for a drink at the Legion. All they want to know was if their brother’s wife’s cousin’s daughter was working at Cow’s (which is right next to Roots) when he bought the sweater. Through this unique and complex “Oh yeah she’s related to my third cousin’s bus driver” scheme, I am convinced that an Islander has been involved in every major world event since the beginning of time including Noah’s Ark, the French Revolution, and the Kennedy assassination (Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother stayed at Blue Jay Cottages once.)
Following the visit to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Paul and his wife, Heather, appeared on Larry King Live and faced off against Newfoundland (or New Finland according to Larry) Premier Danny Williams. The problem with that, first of all, is Sir Paul had no idea what the hell he was talking about and looked about as comfortable on TV as he would be during a rectal exam. His loudmouth wife, on the other hand, was far too preoccupied with not shutting up that she didn’t allow any time for oxygen or reasonable thought to make it through her brain. Oh ok, the money the sealers make is inconsequential? Yeah, maybe for you and your husband’s $1.5 billion bank account. What? You think the guys who spend their winters freezing their asses off walking around on the ice killing adorable little seals are just doing it for kicks? By the way, who the hell do you think is buying all these furs? I think you’d be hard-pressed to see anyone in this part of the world who can afford that extravagance, let alone one who would be stupid enough to wear that shit. It’s on the runways of Milan and Paris and London that you find the yield of this hunt, so maybe you should go home and talk to your pop-star friends rather than preach to bunch of Islanders and Newfies who don’t really care what your point is anyway. My favorite part of the whole trip was when dear old Lady McCartney scoffed at Prime Minister Harper because he didn’t meet with them because he had meetings all day. Imagine! Well excuse us. We’re sorry that the Prime Minister of our country doesn’t drop everything he’s doing every time some two-bit celebrity and washed up rocker climbs out on the ice to harass seal pups.
Now I know already that people will be pissed off that I seem to be erring on the side of the seal hunters, but that’s not exactly the case. I am not going to stand here and defend the act of beating the life out of a seal pup, God knows I wouldn’t have the heart for that kind of stuff, but I also think it would be a tad bit inaccurate to suggest that the hunters themselves are having a blast out there and are beating seals for the fun of it. For them, it’s money in the bank and food on the table. I don’t endorse the seal hunt or its methods in the same way that I don’t endorse factory farms or slaughterhouses. My issue is mainly with the celebrities who come from around the world where there are many problems of their own I’m sure they could be solving, yet insist on getting pictures with the cute furry white baby seals (which have been illegal to hunt since the 80’s). If you want to advocate for humane treatment of animals, fine, but I don’t see any of them mucking around pig farms or chicken factory farms bitching about the conditions or about how they kill the animals. Today there are 5.9 million seals out there, almost 3 times the number there was in the 70’s, and that in itself is wreaking havoc on the cod fishery, not to say that that is a justifiable means, but it’s a hell of a lot more compelling than the McCartney’s arguments against the hunt: “Because they’re cute, because it’s mean and the money doesn’t really matter.” Well if the money doesn’t matter, then shell out the $20 million these families need to survive on. That way you can have peace of mind and these hunters can stop spending the dead of winter freezing their asses off. Actually, why even piss on our rug when in Britain, seals are culled on a regular basis to stop them from destroying fishnets. Maybe, try fighting the hunt back home before coming over here and telling us how to run our own country. Ah well. Live and let die.
Well the Olympics are over, and other than Team Canada’s Chokefest on ice, Canada’s Olympic Team, all-in-all, came out in good standing, poised to have the strength to actually win the games in 2010. With the exception of Jeremy Wotherspoon and Chris Pronger, who may as well just not come home, Canada’s athletes kicked a lot of ass and defied the typical Canadian pessimistic expectations. Stephen Harper was so impressed with the athletes in Turin that he released a special statement specifically to the men and women who contributed to Canada’s record medal haul. The official statement read: “Congratulations to Team Canada in Turin.” Wow. No wonder everyone was so keen on getting this brainwave into office. Idiot.
Have a good one!
Adding to a list of randoms, which include Pierce Brosnan and McIver, Paul McCartney has become the latest celebrity to crawl out on PEI ice floes in the dead of winter to yell at Canadians about seals and hunting and global warming or whatever. Islanders, in typical fashion, reacted by reading The Guardian to hear every detail of what he did, what he bought/ate/said/touched (“Then he went into Roots. Then he bought a sweater. It said ‘Canada’ on it.”), the same thing that happens every time Lucille Poulin or Steroid Ben or Prince What’s-his-face and his wife show up. Of course the average Joe Blow doesn’t give a rat’s ass whether he’s here for the seals or for a drink at the Legion. All they want to know was if their brother’s wife’s cousin’s daughter was working at Cow’s (which is right next to Roots) when he bought the sweater. Through this unique and complex “Oh yeah she’s related to my third cousin’s bus driver” scheme, I am convinced that an Islander has been involved in every major world event since the beginning of time including Noah’s Ark, the French Revolution, and the Kennedy assassination (Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother stayed at Blue Jay Cottages once.)
Following the visit to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Paul and his wife, Heather, appeared on Larry King Live and faced off against Newfoundland (or New Finland according to Larry) Premier Danny Williams. The problem with that, first of all, is Sir Paul had no idea what the hell he was talking about and looked about as comfortable on TV as he would be during a rectal exam. His loudmouth wife, on the other hand, was far too preoccupied with not shutting up that she didn’t allow any time for oxygen or reasonable thought to make it through her brain. Oh ok, the money the sealers make is inconsequential? Yeah, maybe for you and your husband’s $1.5 billion bank account. What? You think the guys who spend their winters freezing their asses off walking around on the ice killing adorable little seals are just doing it for kicks? By the way, who the hell do you think is buying all these furs? I think you’d be hard-pressed to see anyone in this part of the world who can afford that extravagance, let alone one who would be stupid enough to wear that shit. It’s on the runways of Milan and Paris and London that you find the yield of this hunt, so maybe you should go home and talk to your pop-star friends rather than preach to bunch of Islanders and Newfies who don’t really care what your point is anyway. My favorite part of the whole trip was when dear old Lady McCartney scoffed at Prime Minister Harper because he didn’t meet with them because he had meetings all day. Imagine! Well excuse us. We’re sorry that the Prime Minister of our country doesn’t drop everything he’s doing every time some two-bit celebrity and washed up rocker climbs out on the ice to harass seal pups.
Now I know already that people will be pissed off that I seem to be erring on the side of the seal hunters, but that’s not exactly the case. I am not going to stand here and defend the act of beating the life out of a seal pup, God knows I wouldn’t have the heart for that kind of stuff, but I also think it would be a tad bit inaccurate to suggest that the hunters themselves are having a blast out there and are beating seals for the fun of it. For them, it’s money in the bank and food on the table. I don’t endorse the seal hunt or its methods in the same way that I don’t endorse factory farms or slaughterhouses. My issue is mainly with the celebrities who come from around the world where there are many problems of their own I’m sure they could be solving, yet insist on getting pictures with the cute furry white baby seals (which have been illegal to hunt since the 80’s). If you want to advocate for humane treatment of animals, fine, but I don’t see any of them mucking around pig farms or chicken factory farms bitching about the conditions or about how they kill the animals. Today there are 5.9 million seals out there, almost 3 times the number there was in the 70’s, and that in itself is wreaking havoc on the cod fishery, not to say that that is a justifiable means, but it’s a hell of a lot more compelling than the McCartney’s arguments against the hunt: “Because they’re cute, because it’s mean and the money doesn’t really matter.” Well if the money doesn’t matter, then shell out the $20 million these families need to survive on. That way you can have peace of mind and these hunters can stop spending the dead of winter freezing their asses off. Actually, why even piss on our rug when in Britain, seals are culled on a regular basis to stop them from destroying fishnets. Maybe, try fighting the hunt back home before coming over here and telling us how to run our own country. Ah well. Live and let die.
Well the Olympics are over, and other than Team Canada’s Chokefest on ice, Canada’s Olympic Team, all-in-all, came out in good standing, poised to have the strength to actually win the games in 2010. With the exception of Jeremy Wotherspoon and Chris Pronger, who may as well just not come home, Canada’s athletes kicked a lot of ass and defied the typical Canadian pessimistic expectations. Stephen Harper was so impressed with the athletes in Turin that he released a special statement specifically to the men and women who contributed to Canada’s record medal haul. The official statement read: “Congratulations to Team Canada in Turin.” Wow. No wonder everyone was so keen on getting this brainwave into office. Idiot.
Have a good one!
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