That’s fantastic! Now do HIV!

Can you hear that? It’s the grumblings of conspiracy theories brewing in the back of my head regarding the large pharmaceutical companies keeping the cure (or cheaper, less toxic treatments) for HIV/AIDS under wraps. Ebola was discovered a couple years after HIV and was considered a greater threat due to it’s ease of transmission speed of kill. Twelve years later there’s a major breakthrough. Meanwhile the “Until There’s a Cure” bracelet gets tighter around my wrist and all we can do is slow HIV. I know Ebola is not a mutagen like HIV. Indulge me: After reading this story I fantasized that HIVers banding together and fighting the drug companies by staging massive “purchase strikes”, refusing their high priced drugs and staging North American-wide die-ins while squatting in shanty towns on the well manicured lawns of Dupont, GlaxoWelcom, etc. Much like the rising of drag queens during Stonewall, these people would bravely die to advance the “research” of HIV treatment faster than the occasional “pill condensement” the pharms seem to be rolling out these days.

Then I woke up. Ffft! That will happen.

Do people sitting in a NYC theater go “yup!” or “hoo!” everytime Mall of Americas is splashed across the screen? Its hard for a movie shown in Canada to garnish respect when you know that the unnamed “American” city the heroes are cavorting around in is obviously the downtown core of Toronto. LotD had a “too many tight shots” feel, like Johnny Mnemonic, denying the viewer a satisfying base to reference from. You can usually sense a Canadian Tax Write-off movie when you see the characters exit the PATH underground out by the Toronto Stock Exchange.

And why do movies produced in Canada have these unnecessary story layers that do nothing to advance the action? Why the extra goons sent from Hopper, other than Star Trek Red Shirt fodder? Why the akward gun totin’ “love interest” if the damn thing ain’t going to go anywhere? Why the Picard-esque “Make it so!” line at the end ordering the ragged troop to Canada?

There were odd editing moments too. Ever see The Muppet Show when they are trying to create a sense of panic and have a chicken run in front of the action? That’s right, they used it. During a scene with Dennis Hopper and his butler (?) trying to get into a basement (??), zombies breech his stronghold (as they usually do) and are wreaking havok in his totalitarian utopia. Standing in the stairwell doorway a singular silver haired old lady zips in front of Dennis, just before he delivers his high hubris line: “You had no right!” It was pretty weird.

There were good moments (Best head-nearly-off zombie bite, ever! Best sprinkling of uniform-specific zombies! Best zombie reveal shot by having them come out of the water!) and there were small hommages to past Romero movies, but he’s a bit too little too late. Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later and even Shawn of the Dead leap-frogged over Georgeo and updated the whole genre.

Nothing new here folks, keep shuffling by.

Where were you when they landed on the Moon? I was in the creek beside the cottage, the usual place, with my rubber boots (I hated leeches) and plastic boats when my sister yelled at me to come in and see something on TV. I was 4 and was anticipating my 5th birthday. Its one of my earliest memories. Google Moon is pretty funny. Zoom in close!

Sadly, Scotty left us this day. He was one tough some-beeach:

At 11:30 that night, he was machine-gunned, taking six hits: one that took off his middle right finger (he managed to hide the missing finger on screen), four in his leg and one in the chest. Fortunately the chest bullet was stopped by his silver cigarette case.

Well that’s just great. All we have left now is Geordie LaForge. I don’t count Chief O’Brien because he deserted to that crappy space station.

Diner: Oh hey! Long time no see!

Waitress: Yeah!

Diner: How you been?

Waitress: Been better. I’ve been off a couple weeks because of my toe. They had to remove it.

Diner: No!

Waitress: Yeah I haven’t been the same since the 6 months I had to take off because of the (muffled whisper).

Diner: Tsk. That’s terrible.

Waitress: I know. The whole cyst. Right out of there.

I look down at my eggs, over easy and leaking into my well done sausages. The toast suddenly seems too limp to sop up the yellowy liquid.

Waitress: They say the toe was because of my hormones or something. It’s because I’m menopausal. Or something. I can’t tell these days, my head is so dizzy.

Diner: Ha! And you’re up and serving! You’re dedicated!

My fork and toast are long since down and getting cold on my plate.

Waitress: I gotta keep moving! You wind up owing your life away.

I just opened three creamers for my tea and dumped each one into the trash, instead of my mug.

Why am I groggy? I am completing paintings for my little “arte showee” at Timothy’s (Church and Alexander) in October, so I was up late watching TV.

I’m making more panels ripped from comics that inadvertently relate to the social impact of HIV infection (you can see some previous works in my portfolio). Coming down the pipe is a canvas of Betty and Archie at the beach, a couple of Tin Tin in trouble panels and a road surfing robot. Hillarity ensues!

It seems that the Tim Hortons at Carlton and Jarvis is gaining ground as the city’s Worst Tim Hortons.

Poor Apprentice Blog.

I feel your pain:

I wandered into that same Timmys for a quick tea.

“An extra large, Earl Grey tea, double milk, please.”

“Green tea?” she says. Her voice is alarmingly similar to Scooby Doo.

“No. Earl Grey.”

She punches in my order. GREEN TEA comes up on the screen.

“Uh. Earl Grey? I asked for an Earl Grey,” I say pointing.

“Not Green …tea?”

“Earl. Grey. Extra. Large. Double. Milk.”

The second staff member comes over and voids the entry. She flummoxes around the punchpad until the other clerk comes back, finds it and pushes the buttons for her. I swear to you, she mumbled “green tea” as she turned to fill my order.

Seems Photojunkie has had a similar experience up on the Danforth, near to my fave fruit market.

Share your stories. Tell me of your Canadian shame…

This morning, I did something I haven’t done since the mid-80s:

I put shampoo in my hair.

I actually woke up with bed head and had to laugh. It wasn’t much but I did have a small wing of hair sticking out perpendicular to my scalp. No I did not repeat.

Cut me some slack. I was busy last week and my “new” clippers snag on my hair when it gets longer than 2mm.

I just got called into my boss’ office.

Uh oh.

“Pony up! We gave you those tickets, now tell me: why do we need a blog?” he starts out.

Three weeks ago I suggested that our company travel site use a blog instead of bulky PDF files to present our travel mag online. For my idea I got 2 tickets to see Serenity*. I had forgotten about my comment and now here I was in this 60+something’s office, the owner of a travel wholesaler, having to convince him why he needed a blog. No prep time.

“Well for one, it’s hot. Hot like fire…” He’s unimpressed, not laughing. I read in last month’s Wired Mag that there is a disorder where the inflicted suffers from an uncontrolable urge to lecture on how techincal things work (Asperger Syndrome, actually). At that moment, I wish that disorder was in my genes. I rant on: “Basically its a way to feed information about your product to your customers and let them comment back on your product. It builds a stronger relationship with your client. It can bite you in the ass, but if your product is stable, then you have nothing to worry about.”

He liked that.

So now, I get to blog from work. Well… I’m not actually blogging but I do get to set up the blog, run it for a couple weeks and then release it to the managers.

* Serenity was good. I bet 30 years from now when they release Serenity 15: Revenge of the Boogaloo, this current generation will feel just as good when they come across some future movie that has the same satisfying feeling I got from Serenity, when it eradicated all bad feelings I had from the last three Star Wars crap.

Hello from Ocho Rios, Jamaica!

Im sitting in a cafe with a Red Stripe, looking at the back end of our ship and we just got back from Dunn’s River Falls where Sharkboy and I successfully climbed the falls without falling and cracking our heads open!

We saw three different James Bond sets so far.

Yesterday, Labadee, was wet but good. Not the best day so far but relaxing on a private beach…more later.

Dinners are incredible exercises in excess. There are at least 4 restaurants on every level all offering food 24/7. Americans are walking pharm commercials as we have breakfast with different ones every day and they all want to talk about their sea sickness pills. Sharkboy has managed to offened every American at every meal sitting by mentioning movies that were touchy subjects:

To the Marines couple: Hey have you seen Jarhead yet?

Mr & Mrs Jarhead: (Icily) No.

To the Couple from Utah: Hey have you seen Napoleon Dynamite yet?

Mr & Mrs Mormons:( Icily) No. Never mention that stupid movie again.

To the Brit Couple Who Were Not Having ANY Fun: Hey what’s happening on Corrie?

Mr & Mrs CSI, Thank You Very Much: (Icily) We only watch American TV.

Bless him for trying.

The ship is amazing. Definetly going back next year on a different ship (I said typed “boat” and got a maragrita-soaked hand to the back of my head just now). The weather could be better, we’re running a day ahead of a tropical storm so the skies are iffy.

“I’m drunky!” says Sharkboy over my shoulder

More later. I need to wipe out the spam.

I love the new Stumbe Upon extension for Firefox. I just found this demo reel and thought it was cute.