That Fine Line Between Reality And Satire Runs Straight Through Moncton

Like most liberal-minded people, I'm all in favour of the concept of unions. But this story (from my former stomping grounds), is certainly a case of a principle taken to absurd lengths.

That's why I find this story fascinating. You can easily imagine it as a piece of social satire, stretching an idea into the realm of the absurd to make a point. It would be a textbook example of satirical commentaryóif it weren't ruined by being true-to-life.

I love the quote from the city spokesman. Gotta love understatement.

I would also like to nominate the title of this blog entry as my favourite so far, as well as being the title of my upcoming novel (to be completed sometime this century, I promise).

Consumption Junction

Interesting idea posted on the GTABloggers site for observing Buy Nothing Day tomorrow.

I like it! Good thing it's happening now though, as opposed to a few weeks from now when the xmas shopping frenzy will be at its height. Because then the zombies would simply blend in.

ah-choo

I god a code.
*sniff*

Weirder & Weirder

Okay, this horoscope thing is starting to freak me out. Today's was another strange one. Here's the background:

I'm currently working on a story for the SOCAN web page. It's a story I pitched to them about musicians who are earning some SOCAN money for their music, but who need to keep a day job to pay the bills. Since there's no database of musicians with day jobs out there--at least none that I know of--I pretty much had to go with musicians I knew who fell into that category. That's where my experience writing the Showcase page in Canadian Musician came in handy.

So I interviewed Linda M (works as a "background person" in film and TV) and Colleen Power in Newfoundland (works at a savoury farm, packaging) and Jay Clark Reid of Jay Clark And The Jones (works as wait staff at local eatery/bar/music spot C'est What). I had hoped to talk to Jim Bryson, because he had worked at Songbird music store in Ottawa, but his people never got back to me. So, that's when I got hold of Jay, as kind of a last-minute replacement. (No offence, Jay, if you're reading this. You were on my list, but I was trying to get a geographically diverse trio and I already had local Linda. Don't want to seem Toronto-centric. But when I didn't hear from Bryson, you got the call. Plus, waiting tables is the traditional musician's/actor's day job, so it was nice to get that angle in there.)

So, given that scenario, here's the last sentence (it's always the last sentence!) in my horoscope from this morning...

"Last-ditch effort resumes to find a replacement."

!!!!!!

[cue Twilight Zone theme music]

Zodiac My Back!

Okay, first a bit of background: About two years ago, I started getting these nagging pains from inside my left shoulder blade, running down the back of my left arm. Tingling in the fingers. I went to the doctor, and he determined it was nerve-related, and sent me for some physiotherapy. First they hooked my arm up to a TENS machine (electrodes placed on the arm, which sends little electric pulses through the nerves), then they put me in traction for a series of half-hour sessions. That helped somewhat, but I was still in some discomfort. X-rays proved inconclusive, so they scheduled me for an MRI. They put me on the "express" schedule, which meant that if I sheduled it for a 3 a.m. session, I only had to wait three months to get in.

By that time, the pain had mostly subsided, but the MRI did reveal that I had a compressed disc just below my neck. The disc was bulging slightly into the spinal column, causing the pain. The specialist at Sunnybrook told me that surgery was an option, but that if it's not hindering my life--and at that point it wasn't--then I may as well just leave it alone. Fine by me. Back surgey not something I'm excited about venturing into unless absolutely necessary.

So, fast forward to about six weeks ago, and I'm starting to get the pain again. Again to the doctor, again with the physiotherapy, again with the scheduled MRI in the fairly distant future. Only this time the physio involves neck/back exercises, ultrasound, TENS and back massage. Had my first massage session on Monday. The therapist is very cool, quite funny and seems to have a very intuitive sense with muscles. Spoke about "listening" to what the muscles had to tell her. Her hands are good ears. But she's kind of whacky, too. Breaks into fake Russian accents now and then. "Ees good, yah?" It was great though. I had no idea my muscles were so tight and knotted.

Add to this, the fact that I also hurt my knee last week while playing ball hockey. Almost hyper-extended it, but not as bad as that. I was turning to run up "ice" (read: floor) and my foot just landed weird, my leg was straight when my weight came on it, and I kind of jammed my knee. Crumpled to the floor in pain, and limped off. Had to sit out a few shifts, but I was able to walk it off and get back in the game. It's still a bit tender, but I can walk on it okay.

So, that leads us to today's horoscope in the Metro transit newspaper. I've written here before about the strange horoscopes this paper offers. Ones that advise me to buy new footwear (I did) and look under the bases of trees for things I've lost (I did. Nothing there).

So, keeping in mind that yesterday was my first back massage therapy session, here's the last sentence from my horoscope today:

"Knees and back must be catered to for pain relief."

I kid you not! Is that freaky, or what?

A Jolly Swag Man

I went to our semi-annual Returned Merchandise Sale at work today, and came away with a very nice box o' swag. This is where Columbia House employees are allowed to comb over thousands of CDs, VHS movies and DVDs that customers have returned for one reason or another. In most cases there's nothing wrong with the product. And the price is certainly right. CDs go for $3 (double CDs count as one); DVDs for $5. Multiple-disc sets are the best bargain. You pay the $3 for the first CD, and then each extra disc is a dollar, so a 4-CD boxed set would cost $6. For a 4-disc DVD set, you pay for the first three only. So that's $15. We're limited to 20 DVDs, and there's an overall limit if $200. We're allowed only one CD boxed set.

This is my fourth or fifth sale, and I still have boxes of CDs from previous years that I haven't listened to more than once (I gave them a spin to make sure there are no defects, but haven't returned to most of them, or even had time to file them in my CD rack). So this time, I was hunting DVDs. But my strategy is to first go for the CD boxed sets, since they tend to get picked over quickly. Fortunately, the tastes of the vast majority of my co-workers run more to the mainstream, so the stuff that I'm interested in usually gets passed over. Heh heh.

So here's the swag list:

CDs:

The Last Waltz Boxed Set (4 CDs) ($6!)
Son Volt - Trace
Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon (SACD)
Lou Reed - Transformer (Remastered)
Radiohead - Hail To The Thief

DVDs:

Bob Dylan, Don't Look Back
The Beatles, A Hard Day's Night: Deluxe Edition (2 discs)
The Last Waltz: Special Edition
Bruce Springsteen, The Complete Video Anthology
Pink Floyd, The Wall
This Is Spinal Tap (1 hour of extra, never-before-seen footage!)
Almost Famous: The Bootleg Cut (2 discs & Stillwater ep)
American Beauty
Brazil
The Hurricane (just because I have a walk-by scene as an extra)
Blade Runner: The Director's Cut
Apocalypse Now
Reservoir Dogs: 10th Anniversary Special Edition (2 discs)
Pulp Fiction
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
2001: A Space Oyssey
The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers
The Lord Of The Rings: Fellowship Of The Ring - Special Extended Edition (4 discs) (beautiful set for $15!)

All of this for a grand total of $108, which just gets taken off my next pay cheque.

Now, I just need to get myself a DVD player.

Sites For Sore Eyes

There are always lots of wacky web things to be found in WFMU's Sites For Sore Eyes, but raptureletters.com takes the cake.

If you wish to do something now that will help your unbelieving friends and family after the rapture, you need to add those persons email address to our database. Their names will be stored indefinitely and a letter will be sent out to each of them on the first Friday after the rapture. Then they will receive another letter every friday after that.

How thoughtful of The Saved. It's comforting to know that The Chosen Ones are able to be this considerate. Not only will they leave a note behind, we'll get it emailed to us every Friday. Spam from the great beyond. For eternity.

Actually, I'm hoping the rapture happens fairly soon. The sudden heaven-exodus of millions of people will mean that there'll be some cool apartments available. And think of what it'll do to the real estate market. It'll be a buyer's bonanza! Newly married non-believing couples will finally be able to afford a nice home in the suburbs. Maybe it'll free up whole buildings and condos that can then be converted into affordable housing for low-income non-believing families and the heathen homeless. Our new slogan will be: "Don't repent; Save your rent! Your dream home is at hand!"

Of course, maybe if some of The Saved had put as much thought and effort into helping the homeless and the less fortunate as they put into this wonderful software and web site...well, who am I to criticize The Saved? Guess it really isn't what ya know, but Who ya know.

And speaking of religion, who knew that stove burners were not that far removed from religious icons? Or what beautiful structures can be built when we put our heads together (scroll down to see the pics of the Ossuary In Sedlec, Czech Republic).

And surely something--or someone--has possessed this three-year-old Korean girl.

Kinda makes you think, doesn't it? So make sure you live every day to the fullest, because you never know what might happen.

Radio, Radio

This is delicious! Check out this feature from Glorious Noise:

NEGATIVLAND PRANKS CLEAR CHANNEL,
FORCES RADIO FORMAT CHANGE.

High-larious! God bless Negativland and their little culture-jamming hearts.

To listen to their brilliant prank click here.