Maybe Blamblog can find his blog soulmate now with Google’s Blog Search Beta?

Yes… I’ve Googled my own blog. I, loser.

I was so busy with freelance and painting that I failed to contact the owner of Timothys in the last two weeks. She had my old number and could not get a hold of me and since we didn’t talk, she gone done given away my spot.

I’m not upset about this at all, suprisingly. I was cramming two finished paintings before the weekend and was worried that the quality of them was suffering. Now I have some breathing room.

Plus I haven’t made all my “SOLD” cards yet.

So hold up, people. I’ll let you know when it’s going to happen.

My future boyfriend Cory Doctorow over on boing boing tells me of The Toronto Zombie Walk (www.torontozombiewalk.com – I for the life of me cannot remember banning this URL?). I’m gonna be in Allen Gardens with a plate of brains and a sign that says “Free Brains!” (and maybe I will catch me a zombie Roadrunner).

Last week the TTC announced the Pizzazz Me contest (http://www.toronto.ca/ttc/pizzazzme.htm) to improve the rider experience. Winners get a metropass!

Holy. Crap.

It’s quite clear that none of the TTC marketing department actually use the TTC. Okay I know that “they’re trying” and that if it’s so awful then they’re just doing their part to make the travelling experience a bit better. But if they actually used the service, then they’d be all “pizzazzed” over the guy I, and the rest of the northbound Yonge car had to deal with this morning. Long off his meds, this gentleman could only wander up and down the length of the car mumbling in high pitched squeaks. His pants boasted his inabilitiy to hold his bladder (thankfully this was a fresh accident because he amazingly had not started to smell of urine). He moved up and down the length of the car parting passengers like Moses. Nobody did anything.

Here’s my Pizzazz Me suggestion: Take the money from the marketing and prizes for this stupid contest and fund at lease one new security guard position. One guard will make a difference.

I am doing some fast research for visa requirements to countries our company sells to and there are some countries out there who insist that travellers staying within their borders over 30 days are subjected to HIV tests or are flat out refused entry if they are HIV+.

I won’t point any fingers, UAE, India (for Americans, not Canadians), Mongolia, America but that’s pretty stupid. Go back to monitoring for H5N1 and stop being idiots.

As an aside, this was on Canada’s Foreign Affairs Site’s Entry/Exit pages:

Although same-sex marriages are legal in Canada, many countries do not recognize them. Attempting to enter as a same-sex married couple may result in refusal by local officials. For more information, contact the foreign government office accredited to Canada.

Thankfully my ring can be converted to body jewelry!

Remember how I absolutely loved Joe Schmoe? You might remember I loved it because it took all the incredibly ridiculous things found in reality tv shows and threw them at an unsuspecting “schmoe” to see if he could withstand the barrage.

I have a new favorite show.

I have only seen one episode and it will probably never play in Canada. Its called Space Cadets and it is brilliant. If you have Bittorrent I suggest you get it right now. I’ll wait.

The first episode took 100 applicants and widdled them down to 12 (with three producer-hired actor plants amongst their midst to move the prank along) and then announced that they were to be taken to STAR City (The Russian Space Tourist boot camp) and 4 would be chosen to be the first British space tourists to be televised on TV.

They didn’t know that the whole thing was fake. And filmed in an abandoned military base in Ipswitch.

Apparently since the show was televised, there has been immense backlash from the British public saying the show was cruel and went too far. I would think that the people doing the biggest complaining probably never sat through a season of (American) Survior and then devoured Joe Schmoe in comparison. After seeing the fist episode I would say that the show’s producers might have omitted the spirit of satire and didn’t put instances of utter absurdity to hint that the show was fake to weed out the “smart” ones. Example: in JS, one of the elimination games was “Don’t take your hand off the hooker!” where contestants had to keep their hands on one body part of an admitted prostitute (actor) for hours. Any contestant who would have stopped for a moment and really thought about that challenge would have suspected the airing of such a racy contest.

In the first episode, the 100 applicants got a battery of mental tests to see if they were “suggestable”, meaning they would believe in something if the majority of the group agreed upon whatever was suggested, even if it meant gravity in space proved them wrong. While Space Cadets so far doesn’t seem like anything more than a practical joke (I am not going to spoil it by reading reviews or news claims stating contestants might sue), I hope they do throw in the odd satiracle jab at reality shows. Apparently there is a bit where they honour a fake Russian Astrodog while onboard the spacecraft. Looking forward to that one…

So far, I say khorosho, Comrade!