Category Archives: Uncategorized

Doesn’t this picture look like the type of picture you take by extending your arm, camera in hand, and snapping?  Did Mitch take this himself?

The photo is taken from this article from the online version of The Guardian (which covers the Island like the “your bill is past due”).
So is this quote:

It’s a very precarious, vulnerable and dangerous intersection,” Mitchell Tweel said of the Pond Street and Queen Street intersection.

Awesome adjectives to describe the intersection!  I’ve crossed that intersection many times.  I know, for a fact, that it is also a very lonely, obtuse and reserved intersection.  But those adjectives don’t have enough syllables in them, I suppose.

According to this article from the online version of The Guardian (which covers the Island like the Dewey decimal system), THEY will be distributing arm bands to make swine flu vaccination lines easier to manage.

That’s all fine and good.  Or so I thought.  Turns out this is what the arm bands will look like:

Anybody else concerned about this?  Is J.J. Steinfeld still in town?

CHARLOTTETOWN – The furor continues.  Plans to vaccinate P.E.I children for the swine flu have been put on hold because of a national shortage of vaccine, but Island inmates will continue getting theirs.  And now it’s been reported that the recently deceased will also get swine flu shots before children receive theirs.
Parents and the living are livid.  However, Dr. Heather Morrison, the province’s chief health officer, said inmates are considered a priority group because they are in a closed facility.  As for the recently deceased, Morrison said “they’re also considered a priority group because you can’t get a more closed facility than a coffin.”
GREAT NEWS
But not everyone is outraged at inmates and the dead receiving shots before children.
“I thought it was great news”, said Edgar McKenzie, who recently died after a long battle with cancer.  “I was too sick to go stand in the lines to get my shot, but now that I’m dead, I get to go to the front of the line.  Hopefully, someone’ll carry me there. Yeah, it’s too bad for the children, I suppose, but then again, I’m dead.  I mean, that’s pretty serious.”
Another person who is perfectly fine with the way the vaccine is being priortized is Madeline Arsenault.  Her son, Lonnie Arsenault, recently died in the Sleepy Hollow Provincial Correctional Facility.  “He was in there for hitting his wife and what not, but she’s an awful thing, her,” says Arsenault.  “Anyways, he died in there, and so now he gets two shots.  One for being an inmate and one for being dead.  He’s not going to get the swine flu now.  And we was worried he was right at risk, because Lonnie sure liked to fornicate with the pigs.”
Officials are advising parents of school age children that if they are truly worried about their children contracting the swine flu, they do have options.  “Get your kids to steal something.  Or, killing them would be good too,” advises Morrison.

This is fantastic.

Some person takes Barbie dolls and turns them into more realistic-looking versions of celebrities etc.
This is Nicole Kidman (but I think the doll’s arm has too much meat on it):

and here’s my favourite, Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter has the scariest eyes ever):

From the CBC website – Tamil Tigers Look To Regroup in Canada.
Didn’t read it all, but I figure that Jim Balsillie is wanting to buy the Tamil Tigers and move them to Canada.  But Gary Bettman is refusing to allow it to happen.

I know people don’t like to read things that are more than 140 characters long, but follow this link to a fascinating story about real zombies in Haiti.
It’s well worth the read.
Click here to take you to the story about Nadathe, who was turned into a zombie.

From The Guardian (the paper that covers The Island like the dew, except it’s a dew that puts black ink on your fingers) comes this photo of Michael Murphy, who won* the Alberton Mayoral race by two votes.
*pending a recount

This is, without question, the most awesome looking mayor I can imagine. I don’t know what his politics are, or his mandate, but I totally want him to be my mayor*.
*But my want is not enough for me to actually move to Alberton, obviously.

Compare this guy with the little leprechaun popup that shows up when you visit the webpage for my city’s mayor.

Congratulations Michael Murphy.  I hope you win the recount.

Here’s the new single from Adam Lambert, he of American Idol 2nd place fame.
To be honest, I haven’t listened to the whole thing.  I got pretty bored early on, and then skipped ahead a couple of times to see if the song got any better.
It didn’t really.  It’s not that it’s a bad song.  It’s okay.  It’s too auto-tuned (but what isn’t these days, other than Neko Case).
As I listened to its blandness, I thought “This sounds like it could have been a Michael Jackson song.”  Then I started imagining how much better it could have been if MJ had recorded it.  He would’ve infused it with the energy that seems to be lacking.
And I’m talking about a Dead Michael Jackson.  That’s how bland this song is – even a dead MJ would give it more zest than it currently musters.

Anyway, here’s the song:

So, yeah… The Balloon Boy.

What an odd little bit of Newstertainment.  I got a bit caught up in it yesterday afternoon at work when a co-worker came and told me it was happening.  I found a live local (local to the story) news feed on the internet and watched as the balloon sailed along high above Colorado.  It was rather fascinating. Horrible, of course, to imagine a little 6 year old boy in that balloon, no doubt scared out of his mind.
It’s always interesting when things like this get covered live, when there’s so much air time to fill up while everyone waits for something else to happen.  Often stupid things get said and ridiculous notions are brought up.
As I started watching, one of my first thoughts was “if it’s a helium balloon, I wonder is the boy breathing helium or does he have access to oxygen?”  Several minutes later, that thought occurred to someone being interviewed by the male and female local new anchors covering the story. “If there’s no oxygen, and he only has helium to breathe, well, he’d already be dead” said a somber expert of something-or-other.
This possibility struck the female news anchor rather hard as she gasped and said “Oh my, the thought of that takes my breath away!”   A bad choice of words there, perhaps, even if it was, literally, true.

So, yeah, they discover the boy wasn’t in the balloon, and that’s when I stopped watching.  I assume (in order of assumption) a) he never was in the balloon and that the boy is missing somewhere.  Maybe he went chasing after the balloon after it left the yard; b) he was in the balloon and fell out somewhere and is now dead; or c) it was a hoax.
Later I hear that the boy was found.  At that point, my interest in the story is done, especially after I start hearing reports about the family and its eccentricities.  It had turned from a legitimate news story to the usual voyeuristic nonsense that news channels love to investigate to death.  Count me out.

I considered it Case Closed as far as I was concerned.  But I couldn’t help myself getting back into it after I read the headline on The Huffington Post:  Falcon Heene Vomits:  WATCH Balloon boy Throw Up On Today & Good Morning America. 
That story is about how Falcon has the flu and threw up twice, once off camera and once on camera.

There is, of course, video.  I refuse to watch it, though.  However, for those of you who simply must watch, as the article informs you:  The vomiting starts 5:50 into the clip.

And this is what we have become.