Author Archives: Rob MacD

I saw this on IFilm a couple of weeks ago, and now I see it linked on MetaFilter.  I don’t like linking to IFilm, so I’ll provide the link that was on MetaFilter.
The year is 1978, and William Shatner is on stage at what looks like some award show or something, performing/reciting the Elton John/Bernie Taupin song Rocketman.  It is an incredible performance.

Seriously, if you never click on anything else that I offer, you have to check this out.

I need this to be a joke.  I cannot exist in a world where a man would be so full of himself to do this seriously. My only hope is that his tongue was planted firmly in his cheek.  What an actor!!!

At a recent TAIPEI meeting, the Sketch 22 video sketch "Island Eye For The From Away Guy" was presented.  While I expected some of the stuffy-stuffs to chortle, word is that Mrs. Premeir was beside herself with laughter.

For Al:  Since he didn’t do a very good job, initially, with raking the leaves, I demanded he continue with  the chortle every leaf in the yard was in a garbage bag.

At a recent TAIPEI meeting, the Sketch 22 video sketch “Island Eye For The From Away Guy” was presented.  While I expected some of the stuffy-stuffs to chortle, word is that Mrs. Premeir was beside herself with laughter.

For Al:  Since he didn’t do a very good job, initially, with raking the leaves, I demanded he continue with  the chortle every leaf in the yard was in a garbage bag.

When I was in grade five at Parkdale Elementary, the school came up with a school-wide fund-raiser project:  students from each grade would submit stories, poems, pictures, some of which would be compiled in a booklet which parents would buy.
Nice idea.
I believe I had a poem selected for inclusion.  But the surprising thing was that a drawing I made was chosen by Mrs. Ross to be on the cover of the booklet.  Surprising because I didn’t consider myself an artist at all  (class-mate Stephen

MacInnis was the real artist in the school).  The drawing, which was a mix of crayon and pastels, was of an Island landscape: water, fields, cliff, etc.
Needless to say, I was flattered.
One day Mrs. Ross told me that since the drawing was a medium of crayon and pastel, it wouldn’t copy very well for the numerous booklets we were publishing.  We’d have to trace the colourful drawing and use that black and white tracing as the image.  No problem, I said.  She told me Perry (I forget his last name) would be the tracer, since, apparently, he was very adept at tracing.   ???  Ok, no problem, I said.
To celebrate the publication of this booklet, the school organised some type of event to get the parents to the school.  Many parents bought a copy of the booklet, and I personally overheard numerous comments on how lovely the picture on the cover was.
How lovely the picture on the cover was, and how smart a boy this Perry must be for coming up with it.
Huh?
But it’s my picture!!
Seems that Perry, when tracing MY PICTURE, signed his name to the tracing.  Perhaps the tracing was his artistic interpretation of my original artistic masterpiece, and perhaps he was legally justified to do so, but in my mind, he was a forger.
He received credit and praise for copying my artistic imagination.
In my mind, he stole my glory.
I’ve hated him ever since that day.  My hatred was pure and just.  And it still is.
My hatred for Perry went unmatched for many, many years.
Unmatched until I saw that smug prick from the Canadian Tire tv ads.  Now, when I see him in the numerous ads he’s done hawking Canadian Tire products, my fury and anger bubbles, barely able to be contained.  Sometimes I scream at the television.

I just figured out why I have such an adverse reaction to that bearded arsehole.  And it’s the same reason why I hated Perry so much.

Both of them take credit for other’s ideas.  The Canadian Tire guy seems to believe, just because he owns and is aware of the various products, and just because he tells his neighbours about them, that he is part of the team that actually comes up with the ideas.
But he’s not.
He’s just a guy who traces the ideas.

For about a week, I began to torment my son by saying, at random times in random voices "I am Spartacus".  This, of course, is in honour of the great scene in the Stanley Kubrick directed, Kirk Douglas starring Spartacus (1960) when, after finally being defeated by the Romans, the Roman General demands to know which of the assembled defeated slaves is the one they call Spartacus.  "Spartacus come forward or you all die!"  Douglas comes forward, knowing it means his death (but their salvation maybe), and declares "I am Spartacus".  Then, one by one, his defeated colleagues come forward (even though it probably means they’ll die) and each say "I am Spartacus" in an attempt to save their heroic leader.  A great scene.
Then, co-incidentally, I saw a torrent link for the movie and I thought he might enjoy watching it.  I soon discovered that it wasn’t the Kubrick version, but an updated 2004 version starring Goran Visnjic (Luka from ER).  I procured it and we watched it yesterday.
It was okay for an afternoon with nothing better to do.  Kind of by the numbers, though, and perhaps missing a spark or two.  The guy (Angus Macfadyen, who played Robert the Bruce in Braveheart) who played Marcus Crassus (the bad guy) was fun to watch.  As soon as Spartacus dies, though, the movie should have been over, yet it spent another 20 minutes or so meandering through, clearing up a couple of subplots.
Anyway, I was waiting the whole 3 hours (yes, three hours) for that great "I am Spartacus" scene.  It didn’t happen.  Instead, Spartacus dies, kind of anonymously, amid a pack of anonymous Roman Legionaires.
Disappointing.  And now my son probably thinks I’m crazy for my thousand "I am Spartacus" recitations.

Thank you
For signing up
And thank you for reporting
For getting on the ship that took you there
And for never coming home

Thank you
For your wet socks
Your frostbite toes and broken limbs
For the friends that you’ve seen die
And for sleeping in a hole

Thank you
For pulling the trigger
And for all the awful that entails
For your hard dreams and memories
And for coming home alive

Thank you
For crying
For laughing
For digging
For fighting
For hating
For shooting
For saving
For giving
And forgiving

Thank you

One full year of typepadding, plus many months before that of blogspotting.
Over the past month or so, I’ve been wondering whether or not to continue with this enterprise. 

I’m getting tired, people.
But I do like having a place to record these stupid pieces of nothing.

At the moment I have an "I expect I’ll continue, what the hell, why not?" type attitude.

Aren’t you lucky.

The excellent and safe Firefox browser became 1.0 today.  If you don’t use it, you really owe it to yourself to get it and have it forever replace Internet Exploder.
Congratulations to Steven Garrity‘s design team and the whole Firefox crew for the time and effort put into giving us the much needed alternative.

The Miami Dolphins have played nine games so far this season.  They won one and lost eight.  In all my years of being a DolFan, I beleive there’s only been one losing season.  So, I’m unaccustomed to cheering for the team that’s the worst in the league (although being a Habs fan and Expos fan certainly gives my some practice) and a butt of Jay Leno Monologue jokes.
After the first two losses, I made a prediction on the Dolphins newsgroup:  Coach Dave Wannsdedt will be fired the day after they lose the game just before their bye week.  Well, I was wrong.  While the Dolphins did lose Sunday’s game just before this week’s bye, Wannsdedt was not fired yesterday.  Nor was he fired today.
Today, Dave Wannsdedt resigned. 
So, in this week of bye, we DolFans say "Good-bye" to Coach Wannsdedt.

DaveS and I came up with this title for what would no doubt turn into an awful movie:  Once Around The Park
Below is my synopsis of the movie.  See if you can come up with a worse (better?) version.

Once Around The Park
Rich, bored socialite Katherine Bringham (Gwyneth Paltrow) is in an unhappy (but for complicated business/family reasons, necessary) engagement to power attorney (future d.a.?) Daniel Harris (Matthew McConnaughey).  The only person it seems she can truly confide in (and to whom she can ‘be herself’) is her chauffeur,  Bennie (Brendan Fraser).
Through their post-date drives back to her apartment ("once around the park, first" says K each time), Katherine and Bennie talk and enjoy themselves, and fall in love. Of course, she tries to deny their love, and remain committed to the engagement, but love defeats all, right.
She comes clean to Daniel and he seems to take their breakup well.  However, he begins to anonymously torment Bennie, using his power attorney power to wreak havoc on Bennie’s good name and nature.  Bennie loses his job, his relationship with Kathreine sours (because of well-conceived lies from Daniel) and the true-love couple seem to have lost, relationship over.  No more do they see each other.  Bennie’s distraught.  Katherine’s heartbroken.
Daniel is there for her.  Maybe she was wrong about him, he seems to be nicer now. They get back together.
Just before the wedding (on the way to the wedding), Katherine is somehow forced to hail a cab.  It’s Bennie, in his new job as a cabbie.  He tries to explain the situation, but she’ll have none of it.  He drives her to the church.  Just before the wedding, Daniel says something that causes her to realise that Bennie was telling the truth.  At the climax of the wedding, she runs out of the church and into the cab (Bennie is still there).
They ride off, in the cab, into the sunset.  But first they drive one more time, Once Around The Park.

Yuch!
What’s your version?