The Annekenstein Monster

I’ve always regretted not being able to sing harmony.  I believe my problem is that I overthink it.  I can usually hear what the harmony should/could be, but somewhere between brain and mouth,  it becomes its own beast.  Too bad, since I have a passably dulcet voice.

or

I have a nice pair of bronze candlesticks which I keep polished.  My neighbour has the same sticks but doesn’t bother to polish.  My two candlesticks are bright and shiny.  My neighbour has a dulcet.

And Major League Baseball’s Most Valuable Player is…Magilla Gorilla.
Finally, it’s time for our highest award…and the winner of Most Difficult-to-Trace Performance Enhancing Cocktail is… Dr. Benjamin Clamperman.

I am told, by reporters and athletes, that fans don’t mind, don’t care, that athletes are taking performance enhancing drugs. They (we) just want to see more home runs, faster runners, higher jumpers.  I would be surprised if this is true.  I would hope that fans see this as I see it.  I can only speak for myself, but as a fan, I am absolutley against the practice of enhancing one’s performance through means other than hard work and perseverance.
To me, records become meaningless.  Breaking them become valueless.  I find it increasingly more difficult to allow myself to cheer on athletes, for fear of finding out they cheat.  I was so euphoric when Ben Johnson won Gold, so disappointed when I was told he cheated.  My enthusiasm for Donovan Bailey’s performances was greatly tempered because I didn’t want to be let down again.  I am saddened by that.
Now, when Barry Bonds breaks records, I think "Meh."  So what.

Sports are becoming less about personal achievement and more about experiment.

Let’s stop saying these people play sports.  Let’s change it to "exsportiments".

My question is this:  When were the three wise men told about Christ’s birth?  Was is that night, during the aborning?  If so, then how far did they have to travel to get to the stable?  Were they already in the vicinity?  Were the gifts they gave carefully selected, or just a selection from what they had with them?  How long did Joseph, Mary and baby stay at the stable?  How anticlimatic were her subsequent birthings?

or

Eben doe I hab a cold, I know dat aborning cup of coffee will be satisfying.

Here’s ten quick updates on nothing in particular, in no particular order:
1) Went to A&W with DaveS yesterday for lunch.  I had two Papa Burgers with cheese and a Root Beer.  Yum, yum and yum.  Was served by an inept trainee who, I’m guessing, has, by now, quit.
2) Watched King Arthur with my son a couple of nights ago.  I didn’t like it, he did.  Truthfully, I ended up not watching much of it, what with the occasional walking out of the room to do other stuff, and the falling to sleep while in the room, but what I did see I didn’t like.  Too much dramatic nothing in between action scenes of whatever-ness.
3) There were quite a few pretty women uptown today at lunch.  Not all together in a group.  Pretty in a Desperate Housewives kind of way.  I don’t watch that show.  None of the pretty women seemed to acknowledge my existence.  In their circles, that, I suppose, is a given.
4) I bought myself an iPod.
5) Currently my favourite quick and easy home-cooked-ish meal is Chicken Tikka Masala.   Go to Superstore.  Get a pound of boneless, skinless chicken breasts.  Get a can of (I forget the brand-name, but it’s not the PC bottle of, it’s a can of [in the imported foods section]) Chicken Tikka Masala paste.  Rice, too.  Cut chicken into strips, briefly cook, add paste and a bit of water, let simmer.  Cook rice.  Add the one to the other.  Eat.  Yum.  Have bread too.
6) I just walked down the hall at the office like I was on a fashion show runway.  My posture was fantastic.  Make a mental note to walk like a model more often.
7) Last Christmas, we ditched the "get a real tree’ tradition and purchased a nice artificial tree with lights already attached.  All the lights, the mini-lights, are white.  This year I replaced one of the white lights with a red one.  Now our tree glows all white, except that one special red light.  I REALLY like that, and I’m not sure why.
8) The back right wheel on our car has a sloooow leak.  Nuisance that it is causes me to refill it with air every 2-3 days.  Does it get fixed, or does it get replaced?  That’s the question I’m putting off.  Stay tuned.
9) Apart from the reality show idea "Pogey" that I posted below, I also have one that is much more un-pee-see.  I’m calling it "Tremploited".  An amalgam of "Tremploy" (the local company that does/did hire mentally handicapped people as workers) and "exploited".  Not sure of the format, but I think it’s time for a show where consenting mentally handicapped people compete against each other in non-athletic competitions, with one getting eliminated each week.  It would all be done, you know, tastefully.  I won’t mention the other idea I had for a sex competition, which I call "Special O-Limp-Dicks". 
10) My football picking on this site is atrocious, and as a way to maintain dignity I stopped posting my predictions a long time ago.  I still predict, though.  I go to The Weekly NFL Picks Page and pick each week.  I am currently at 96-80, or 54.5% correct.  And that’s with picking games against the spread, not straight-up.  I’m currently third in my pool and 1247th out of a total of 5065 players.  So, you know, above average.

First of all, is it "pogey" or "pogie"?  And shouldn’t it be "poagey".  How does one ensure the hard-g in its pronunciation?

Last summer, one of our Sketch 22 videos was called Joe Stamps, a take-off of the "reality" show Joe Millionaire.  The video documented the moment in the fake Joe Stamps reality show where the Joe Stamps character tells the three remaining "Tammy"s that he’s not actually the catch they think he was.  That he’s not, as promised, about to receive maximum Employment Insurance benefits, and therefore, the "winning Tammy" will not be able to live the life of lazy luxury for 9 months as Joe Stamps welfare woman.  Joe Stamps gleefully tells the women that he’s not getting his stamps.  He "don’t even got no prospects.  So any of yuz that ends up shackin’ up with me will be doin’ it outta love.  Or whatever."

Well, I think a show like this has real potential.  So, here’s my idea for a reality show I call "Pogey!".
The goal is to be the last remaining contestant, to be the one who accumulates 12 weeks of Insurable Wages and will therefore be the only one who qualifies for EI.
The show selects 12 people who have no job, and who currently have no accumulation of Employable Hours or Weeks (or however it’s designated now).  These people are Hired To Do Nothing.  They are all paid top dollar to do nothing (to ensure top EI dollars to the winner), and will all live together, in a duplex.  They will be required to perform tasks and challenges as part of their "job", but the majority of their time will be spent doing nothing much.
The tasks and challenges will all relate in some way to the stereotype of the lazy welfare bum.  Even though these contestants will be "working", their job is basically to live as though they are poor and unemployed.  It’s really the dream job of dream jobs.
Each week, one contestant gets laid off.  The longer you stay, the more insurable weeks you accumulate.

At the end of the 13 week job, the top two contestants battle to  see who is the ultimate winner… In fact, the ultimate winner does not get laid off, but rather remains hired by the production company and continues for the next three years, to get paid the same wage for doing nothing.  The runner-up gets laid off with the necessary accumulation to begin EI right away.
The show would "hire" all kinds of people from all walks of life.  They all would, however, perform challenges and tasks that might be more suited to, shall we say, the lower class of people.

Some challenges, off the top of my head:
In the first few episode, they’d be divided into two teams.  One challenge would be a relay race of sorts:  The team must bum enough money to afford the money for the following tasks:  Player 1 must go to Kens Corner and buy a tin of tobacco and rolling papers.  Run back to the apartment and roll 20 smokes.  Once completed, Player Two calls a cab which takes him/her to the Liquor Store across town to buy a two-four.  S/he must then take the box back to the apartment without the assistance of a vehicle.  Once completed, Player Three begins to cook up four boxes of Basics Macaroni & Cheese and, once cooked, must eat it all.  Following that, the entire team must then drink the beer as quickly as possible.
First team to finish all 24 beer is declared the winner.  The losing team must decide which co-worker gets laid off.

Another challenge, this one as individuals:  As an example of what will be expected of the person on who eventually wins EI, each contestant is told they will be interviewed by an Employment Insurance Agent.  To prepare, they each must go out and actively pursue work from 5 employers, so that each will have a list of 5 places they looked for work that they can show the agent when asked.
The one who best demonstrates to the EI agent that s/he was serious about finding a job, will remain hired for at least one more week.  One of the remaining losers will be laid off.

Any other challenges or tasks you can think of?

When That Guy Who’s Up On Child Porn Charges apologised for his actions, I don’t think he was very perfervid.

or

Scene: late at night, police officer has stopped a driver...
Guy in car:  …an’ annuzher shing, occifer…I think that porn guy is perfervid!
Officer:  And I think, sir, that you are drunk.

Mom, Pearl Harbour may have tried to take this day for itself, but to those of us who know you,  those of us who are fortunate enough to be comforted by your love and compassion, December 7 has an altogether different, more relevant and more important meaning.
It’s Your Birthday!!
To borrow a phrase from my rap friends:  Mom, you da bomb on Pearl Harbour Day.

Happy Birthday
Love
Robert

What the hell is it with those Burger King television ads for their Steakburger, where the guy seems to be having a sexual relationship with a cow?

What the hell is it with those Burger King television ads for their Steakburger, where the guy seems to be having a sexual relationship with a cow?

Last night the power went off for a couple of hours in my neighbourhood.  This is not unusual in itself.  Our section of "the grid" seems to lose power quite often, and I’d bet dollars to donuts that we lose power (even just momentarily) more often than anywhere else on PEI.  So, losing power, as I say, wasn’t unusual.
What was unusual was that, last night when the power went out, everything shut down, then a moment later there was the faintest amount of power still passing through our home.  The lights that were on a moment before the outage were still glowing, but ever so faintly.  I would guess at 5% of ‘normal’ capacity.  The televisions and computers, etc all shut down, but the power lights on the computers were still glowing, faintly.
It was kind of spooky.  We turned off all the lights etc, because the weak glowing wasn’t powerful enough for us to see properly.  After about half an hour of outage, the faint glowing disappeared, presumably as that lingering electrical enegy drained itself from the grid.  About an hour and a half after that, the power returned.

When the power returned, I discovered that our main computer had lost all its cookie settings, and I am now trying to remember the various cookie-stored usernames and passwords that I use for various sites I visit.