The Canadian Lemming

Coming soon to a TV near you, I have no doubt

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:00:57 -0500

"Ssh-- ssh ssh ssh-- he's waking up." "Huh... buh... wha? What's going on? Who are you?" "Ssh! Hey, dude. Are you... Don Andreychuk?" "Uh, what? Who are you?" "Dave, um, I've got some bad news for you, dude. You... have cancer." "What?!" "Yeah. It's, um, yeah, terminal cancer. Bone cancer." "What?! Who the hell are you? What is this?!" "See, your doctor didn't know how to break it to you gently, so he sent us to your house. Yeah. You've got terminal bone cancer, dude." "What?! What?! Oh my [BLEEP] god!" "Yeah, we figured you'd be pissed. See, we were talking on the way over about how to do this, and Jimmy here tried to come up with a little song about it but he couldn't work out what a dancer would be doing here and then he ran out of rhymes, so, you know, we figured just rip that Band-Aid right off, right?" "[BLEEP] [BLEEP] [BLEEP]" "And, yeah, your insurance doesn't cover it. Hey, wait, Prancer, that's one of Santa's reindeers, isn't it?" "Mother-[BLEEP]" "Oh, wait-- I think he's crying. Is he crying? Um... Jimmy, get in there with the-- are those tears? Yes! We have tears! And that's... 27 seconds! Yes! Danny Andreychuk, you've just broken the record on... It's A Crying Shame!" "What?! Oh my god! You're Johnny Knoxville!" "Yes I am! And you have won-- wait for it-- you have won this episode's grand prize of 10,000 American dollars!" "Holy [BLEEP] [BLEEP]! Dude, your show [BLEEP] rocks! Damn, I watch it all the time!" "Thanks for that, Darcy!" "Dude! I'm on TV!" "Seriously, though, you've got cancer."

Screw Hollywood! (while singing)

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:08:43 -0500

Pass the word on. Whisper it, shout it, write it down on a note and pass it to the person sitting next to you and hey, I saw that, now bring it up to the front of the class and read it out loud so everyone can hear it.
Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo. It starts here on July 15th. Actually, I probably should have put this up before those 31 people dropped by from my link on James's blog. Um. Carry on.

Doctor Who and the Attack of the Adjective Nouns

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 14:01:49 -0500

There's one big problem with the "hints" that Russell T Davies keeps dropping about the Time War, and it's this: Too Many Nouns. "I was on the front lines at the Fall of Arcadia." "I was there when the Dalek Emperor seized the Cruciform." "I saw your timeship fly into the jaws of the Nightmare Child at the Gates of Elysium." Name-dropping all these nouns without any context makes us want to know what the bloody context is fer cryin out loud, and if it goes on for too long, we start to suspect that there isn't any. Once is backstory, twice is world-building, but thrice means it's time to deliver. Now that Russell's no longer devoting all his energy to the TV series proper, let's see a book about the history of the Time War. We don't have to believe it necessarily; it doesn't have to be considered canon; I'm not even thinking of it as a novel, but as a kind of faux reference work. But it would be nice to know that there was a detailed backstory here, rather than just a game of Time War Mad Libs. "I fought in the Battle of Place Name when Specific Dalek Type opened/stole/activated the Grecian Mythological Thingy. And you try to tell the young people of today that, and they won't believe you."

If George Harrison had written the theme song to Star Trek: Enterprise

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 16:26:48 -0500

I look at T'Pol as she lusts after Archer While her pon farr Quantum Leaps

Or stir-fry us in a wok

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:44:54 -0500

According to today's Social Studies in the Globe and Mail:

A small group of students at the University of Wyoming is tackling English 4050/5560: Interstellar Message Composition. In one of the semester's first classes, Prof. Jeffrey Lockwood asked the students to summarize the human condition in 250 words, then 50, then 10. [...] At the close of the semester, the students will send their writings to the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, Calif. Their efforts may one day inspire a message to another world.

10 words: "Please don't kill and eat us, especially not our children."

It's nice to know which specific imaginary world I inhabit

Wed, 28 May 2008 17:31:44 -0500

Your Score: Discworld

Your world is 36% Sophisticated, 74% Unconventional, and 13% Intense!

You're pleasantly ensconced in Discworld! Well, depending on where you're ensconced it may not be so pleasant, but that's life here for you: brilliantly unbelievable, whimsically odd, and deliciously unpredictable. You'll fit right in. Unless you don't. Which would probably mean you really do. Magic, mystery, terrible creatures and little blue men all await you. And Death. Never forget that Death awaits you. Unless he's on holiday.

Link: The Which Imaginary World Fits You Test written by Azurain on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test
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Half empty, of course

Tue, 27 May 2008 21:58:06 -0500

Just popped onto eBay to look for obscure Dr. Who stuff. While I was there, I also checked out the feedback I'd given to others in the past. I'd done so twice. One comment said "Prompt, efficient and courteous service." The other said "Prompt and efficient." First thought? Shit shit shit, the other guy's going to think I thought he wasn't courteous! You stupid thoughtless insensitive bastard! People will glare at you and spit on your shoes when you walk past them on the street! There's something so wrong with me.

Deep thought

Thu, 22 May 2008 19:40:15 -0500

If you were being chased by a swarm of bees, and you found a shotgun full of buckshot, and you picked it up and you fired it at the swarm of bees, and every single piece of buckshot hit one of the bees, wouldn't that just be the coolest thing ever?

Some small confusion

Sun, 18 May 2008 18:40:03 -0500

After watching The Unicorn and the Wasp with Brandon: "Don't know if you recognised her, but Agatha Christie was one of the lesbian detectives in Jekyll." "What??!" "...I mean, it was the same actress." "Oh. Gotcha."

More random randomness

Fri, 16 May 2008 17:04:25 -0500

I really need to get caught up on my Battlestar Galactica. This morning, my alarm woke me up at 6:20, and I immediately pulled myself out of bed, staggered over to the computer, and e-mailed James: "I just woke up from a dream in which it turned out that Starbuck had actually been to Narnia."

I doubt that I'll be going to see the Prince Caspian movie. I've become considerably more cynical since I saw the first one, and even then I couldn't help but notice that when the handsome blond blue-eyed boy went into battle alongside the allegorical Christians, he used tactics he'd learned from the people who'd been bombing his London home during World War II. Yuh-huh.

While I'm at it, I wish the other departments at work would understand that, in order to do our job properly, we in the closed-captioning department need the best quality audio that it's possible for them to give us. This week's edition of HypaSpace featured a guy who said that board games are steadily growing. It also came to us with no audio in the left speaker due to a dubbing bay with a loose cable, and very nearly went out captioned as "Board games are deadly boring." Slightly different meaning there.

Which Shakespeare Play Are You?

Sun, 11 May 2008 06:55:45 -0500

Your Score: Problem Plays

You scored 50% = Tragic, 55% = Comic, 15% = Romantic, 34% = Historic

You are the "Problem Plays!" The Problem Plays are a group of Shakespeare's plays that cannot be readily identified as either Tragedies or Comedies because they have an equal amount of both. The Problem Plays often present the protagonist with a situation that must be overcome, but after a toilsome journey, the hero almost always comes out on top! Often called "tragicomedies," the Problem Plays contain elements of dark psychological drama, light-hearted comedy, and a bit of romance. This means you are most likely a well-rounded individual with a perfect balance Tragedy, Romance, and Comedy in your life. While you may experience some hard times along the way, odds are you will fight through them and come out on top!

Link: The Which Shakespeare Play Are You? Test written by macbee on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test
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Memo to Hollywood actresses...

Sat, 10 May 2008 19:18:06 -0500

Why is this still an issue? Seriously, why? Ally McBeal and Drop Dead Gorgeous were both nearly a decade ago. Why does Gwyneth Paltrow, in Iron Man, look as if she weighs about 30 pounds? No, that's harsh. That's going too far. I'm sorry, there's no need to be cruel. Let's be fair here. Let's say 35. I mean, come the hell on now, she doesn't look in the least bit appealing or sexy, she looks like Bob Geldof should be holding a concert for her. I got paper cuts on my eyeballs just from looking at her cheekbones. I'd be afraid to say "Hello" to her for fear that the gust of wind would blow her out into the street. She looks like someone made a balloon of Kirsten Dunst, stuck a hose in the back of its neck and inhaled for ten seconds. I could go on.

Two scoops of you have got to be f---ing kidding me

Tue, 06 May 2008 21:05:56 -0500

You have no idea how much I wish I could believe these are actors. You have no idea.

And a bad case, at that

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:05:20 -0500

Okay, so today's Daily Planet segment for CP24 was about fiddler crabs affected by the residue of an oil spill that occurred back in 1969, and how marine biologist Jennifer Culbertson is investigating why they appear intoxicated. At one point, narrator Jay Ingram says, "Jen's partner in solving the mystery of the drunken crabs is Emily Peacock." In much the same way that Dave Barry is quick to notice good names for rock bands -- and yeah, The Drunken Crabs would be one of those -- the first thing that sprang to mind when I saw the word "mystery" was that this would be a good title for a Hardy Boys mystery. Or Nancy Drew. Yeah, I thought: The Hardy Boys Meet Nancy Drew in The Case of the Drunken Crabs-- ...um, or maybe not. This is why I usually don't say things out loud.

I think this line's mostly filler

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:56:03 -0500

I was going to e-mail James with a couple of thoughts about the re-appearance of the Sontarans on Doctor Who, on the grounds that I didn't really have enough thoughts for a full review; if I come up with anything insightful, he usually mentions my name in his own review; and approximately 47 billion more people read his blog than mine anyway. However, he's a bit busy, so instead I decided to post them on my blog after all. However, I've just volunteered to write a full review of both episodes for the fanzine Enlightenment, so instead I will be saving my insights for that due to my now desperate need to think up 1800 words that aren't entirely about the difference between bullies and soldiers. Which means I don't have a subject for a blog entry after all. So instead, I'm going to make a sandwich. Mmm sandwich.