Spring into flu - and other media created illnesses - part deaux · Thursday April 30, 2009 by colin newell
10 reasons you know you might/might not have swine flu!
- Number 10 – It’s Friday. 99% of cases appear on Fridays.
- Number 9 – The sun is shining. You feel good. Don’t be deceived – you are not well!
- Number 8 – You partied on Thursday night and your throat is sore the next day. It’s swine. Stay in bed.
- Number 7 – You had a pulled pork sandwich at your favorite BBQ joint. You feel queasy. This is swine flu.
- Number 6 – You really don’t want to go to Mexico with your girlfriend – that anxiety you are feeling? Swine.
- Number 5 – You woke up next to a stranger you met at a Vancouver club. Is this swine? No but you are crazy.
- Number 4 – Home sick. Updating Facebook. Boss catches you. You’re fired. Swine.
- Number 3 – You find yourself in an actual James Bond movie… but it is not a movie, it’s real – and James nemesis, Fang, has locked you into a mysterious machine that makes you look sexy and 60’s retro chique… Swine.
- Number 2 – You have just smoked 3 cartons of Lucky Strike and are not feeling so lucky anymore… and we all know smoking is harmless
- And the number one reason you may or may not have swine flu…
- You haven’t had a weekend off since Christmas… and something had to give!
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Spring into flu - and other media created illnesses · Tuesday April 28, 2009 by colin newell
The headlines scream, “3rd case of swine flu reported in British Columbia!”
… “responsible for DOZENS of deaths in Mexico!” Dozens! Dozens!
Looked outside lately? Noticed that the sky is falling? No. Me neither.
It must be an awfully slow news week when the media gets utterly hung up on a couple of cases of the achy breaky sniffles.
People are canceling their trips. People are dumping their Air Canada stock. People are wearing masks to work.
Why? Because the radio said so.
Here is a statistical wake up call…
In 2002, 65,313 people died of flu related illnesses in the U.S.A.
Over 65,000! Aaaiiiiiiiieeeeeeee!
43,354 died in Auto accidents. Oh. My. God. No!
936,923 died of cardiovascular issues. Mary mother of God, what, what, what
Coke machines have killed more people in the last year than this current pandemic.
Message to media? Shut the f*ck up and get back to reality.
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Spring into the truth - I mean, why not - America and Canada · Sunday April 26, 2009 by colin newell
Keywords being Napolitano, McCain, 911 Myth – Border security – Terrorists from Canada.
Okay. Listen up. I saw no point in writing my own spin on this… because James sums it up with aplomb.
Bottom line (for those too weak to click on the link above…)
911 terrorists did not cross the Canadian border into the US prior to the 911 attacks. They came from Britain, the United Arab Emirates and… Florida. Yea. Florida, where they were doing flight training. And they had been in America “legally” for some time.
One of the most obvious sub-thoughts about the American zeitgeist is the following (which I believe to be true…)
- Americans spend about as much time thinking about Canada as they do wondering if their next breath contains life giving oxygen (which is to say, rarely)
Americans are not alone in their blithe ignorance of Canada. I had a telephone conversation with a colleague in Australia who was unsure about what currency stiffens up our wallets; American dollars, Euro, what?
Actually, mate… we live in Igloo and we don’t use money – we trade Hudson Bay pelts and get from A to B by canoe… generally in inhospitable weather…
and that has been the rumor for over a hundred years…
as for the right now from the Canadian perspective?
Get used to explaining to our Southern friends…
as if they will listen.
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Spring into the Victoria night life - with the Shark Club · Saturday April 25, 2009 by colin newell
When you are 19 to 34 years of age, it is commonplace to put on some tacky threads and hit the night life – to head to the other side of the tracks – to see how the other half lives…
And when you turn 35… Well…
There comes a time when you stop going out on the town…
Which is utter nonsense.
Now unless you have popped out 2 or 3 kids and have been lost at sea for the prime of your life, there are many great reasons to grab the car keys or the cab fare and seek out the gritty side of the downtown.
Example: I am coming up on my 5th century on the Planet Earth…
Duh. I mean… my 5th decade. Yea. That is what I meant.
And I have one very important reason to go out on a date night from time to time:
A much younger wife.
Oh. And the lack of kids.
The Shark Club (many locations in Victoria, Vancouver and the interior…) is custom made for a tasty and thirst quenching couple of hours on the town.
But you have to love at least one of these four things:
- Girls in short black dresses and revealing tops balancing trays of savory snacks and steins of local beer.
- Crowds of girls on the town in party dresses.
- Parched and beefy dudes in plaid shirts with a desire for cold beer and/or girls in party dresses.
- Loud and colorful sporting events on the High-definition flat-screen TVs (of which there are about 28 in each bar).
It is a fun place, really. The wait staff are sweet, mature and ultra professional and courteous. I have never seen an order of apps (we ordered calamari, ginger spicey beef and BBQ Chicken wings) and 2 pints of ale come to a table faster – it could not have been more than 5 minutes from order to delivery. The food at the Shark club is a click ahead of places like Boston Pizza and Earl’s – and the eye candy for both genders is mind numbing.
Alas, I only have eyes for one – and she always comes home with me.
So get out there… into the night. Because, it won’t bite.
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