Read: I have too many papers to write and I tripped over an uneven sidewalk.

If it really looked like this I might stay.

i realize that more than one post in one day is unheard of. but i found this thing that i thought was funny and couldn’t wait to tell the internet about it. it’s called TV-B-Gone and i am pretty sure it’s for real. You can turn off any TV, at anytime, anywhere.

According to the Irish press, Dolly Parton has been caught up in a “lip synching scandal”. I know, right? It is like the world is falling to pieces and there is nothing you or I can do to stop it.

I’m going to put ‘Jolene’ on repeat for the next few days and try not to leave the house in case an anvil should fall on my head. And why shouldn’t it? Everything else bad has happened.

Y’all are hatin’. Admit it. You don’t love anything anymore. Your Mom told you you weren’t allowed to paint your room black and you’ve been fuming for months. Well guess what? You are lying to yourself and it’s making everyone depressed. Stop it. The following is a guide to things you can’t possibly hate.

1. Old couples. Old couples holding hands, old couples laughing, old couples helping eachother remember things…

2.And on the other end of the chronological spectrum, little kids are pretty effing cool too. Today Mira and I were looking at the Ogilvy’s Christmas display downtown, and this little kid came up beside me and was all “Hey, look at the Christmas guys Mom!” But he was just looking at these frogs that didn’t look like Christmas frogs at all. Then his mom was like “Yup, that’s what we came to see.” and he was like “Oooooh,” like he was coming to some brilliant conclusion. Which I think he was.

3. Last week some chocolate bar company was handing out free chocolate bars. If you say you hate free chocolate, that’s like saying you hate freedom. And you’re a dirty liar.

4. When it’s raining and you don’t have an umbrella on you, and your friend shares their umbrella with you, it means you guys are BFF. Or at least FF. Both of your arms and half of each of your faces still get wet, but that’s okay because you’re probably laughing about how you both totally have soakers anyway.

5. The Vinyl Cafe on CBC radio is pretty good. It took me a while to warm up to the idea of listening to stories on the radio but guess what? There are books too, and the stories are so nice you could read them every day.

6. People falling down. Not old people, and not people that get really hurt, but if someone fell down in front of the saddest guy in the world he would probably crack a smile. Once I fell getting on the shuttle bus and no one laughed except for me and I wondered ‘what is wrong with these people?!” Then I realized they were probably saving it for later when they could let their friends in on the joke, and that’s fine.

7. This.

Ummm yeah there are lots of good things and quit it with all the hate already. What are you in like grade 10?

but this is most definitely the last thing you would expect.

My professor was massively depressed today (his words not mine). There was that whole election business, and also nobody in class finished the McLuhan reading last night, total bummer. Anyway, we were talking about these guys, The Frankfurt School, who believe that the whole system of media are corrupted by economics, and everything we see and trust and believe is just theatre. Then we were talking about Marshall McLuhan (you know, the dude from the Heritage Minute? The medium is the message…whatever). Anyway this McLuhan guy thinks that technologies are extensions of our bodies, like the radio would be an extension of our ears because it lets us hear things we couldn’t normally. So McLuhan thinks that technology, outside of economic systems, is what precipitates change in society.And the Frankfurt dudes are all
“Fuuuuuck that Marshall. If you wanna precipitate some change, you gotta have some change first. Meaning money. Ya heard?”
And then McLuhan says
“Whatever dudes, social relationships are reorganized by only 5 things. And those things are Sight, Sound, Touch, Smell and Taste. Put that in your collective pipe and smoke it.”
And then the Frankfurt School is all
“Yeah? Well guess what, you don’t know WHAT you feel because all you feel is what the muthafuckin’ media spectacle tells you to feel, and that’s why dialogue doesn’t exist anymore, cause people are so caught up in shit that doesn’t matter that they don’t know what the hell else to talk about!”
Then they all start to bitchslap eachother and it gets pretty juvenile. So anyway, we were talking about all these dudes in class, and this one kid in class started talking about Firefox (which is this geeky alternative web-browser, for non coms-students) and how him and his friends use that instead of Internet Explorer as a form of rebellion. Professor Danisch was apparently not impressed, because then he totally went of the hook about the problem with youth today, and how they need to get off their asses and out into the streets and start a revolution ’60s style. But instead they download alternate web browsers and look at political blogs and feel like they’re rebelling. And everyone is always talking about the democratic potential of the internet but all that your computer is is a tool of the spectacle; a tool for alienation. Danish said
“You’re sitting at your computer thinking — Here’s a revolution! — but you’re sitting ALONE at your computer.”
Yeah.
But I think it’s going down to like, -3 tonight.