Weblog and Playground of Gord FynesFlattery will get you everywhere that bribery won’t.
Money goes through my hands faster than water. Though, with water, my hands are still wet.
I sleep, therefore I am.
My wife does the laundry and I do the dishes, except when I don’t.
Medium, double cream please.
Seeing as it’s Olympics season (my favourite time of the every-four-years), and I’ve been a little light with content as of late, James has kindly passed me the latest relay torch of internet memes:
Four Jobs I’ve Had:
1. Globe and Mail carrier
2. Envelope stuffer
3. Short-order cook
4. Telemarketer selling biodegradable garbage bags
Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over:
1. Les Triplettes de Belleville
2. Following
3. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
4. This Is Spinal Tap
Four Places I’ve Lived:
1. Scarborough, ON
2. Brampton, ON
2. Oakville, ON
4. Mississauga, ON
Four TV Shows I Love:
1. Lost
2. The Daily Show
3. The Colbert Report
4. Corner Gas
Four Places I’ve Vacationed:
1. Singapore
2. Ballymena, N. Ireland
3. Los Angeles, CA
4. NYC (I was married in Central Park)
Four of My Favourite Dishes:
1. East Side Mario’s chicken parmesan
2. Sakura’s ramen noodle soup
3. My wife’s chicken lasagna
4. Lick’s nature burgers
Four Sites I Visit Daily:
1. Flickr
2. Globe and Mail
3. Slate
4. CBC.ca
Four Places I’d Rather Be Right Now:
1. San Francisco, CA
2. Vancouver, BC
3. Cashing a large lotto winnings cheque
4. Snuggling with my babe in front of the tube
I’ve been buying the Saturday Globe and Mail less and less over the past few months, on account of not touching it some weeks until it’s practically been tripped over and tossed in the recycling bin. Nothing personal against the Globe. For many years now, the Saturday Globe has been a staple in our household; it usually lasts us the whole week. Alas, life has been way too busy as of late, what with work, school, parenting and attempting to drop a few pounds (the fat bastard). As I’ve been subscribing online for about six months, I’ll log in – again, when I make the time – to catch up on Rex Murphy, Ian Brown and Heather Mallick.
A few weeks back, I went trollilng for Ms. Mallick’s stuff, seeing as her name wasn’t appearing with the other columnists. I found it very odd that recent-ish columns weren’t coming upon searching.
Much to my (our) chagrin, Ms. Mallick quit the Globe in early December 2005 over a dispute in running a column of hers with regards to the whole Guardian/Chomsky kerfuffle.
bq. Ms. Brockes had not read Prof. Chomsky’s work, clearly thought linguistics was a sex act, and knew nothing about the history of Cambodia on which she questioned him or even the journalistic sequence of events accompanying the Srebrenica massacre. She wrote a profile that manipulated his quotes in such a way that the libel must have glowed in red letters on the page for the editors, junior and senior, who let it through.
I think I’ll now be saving myself the $16 a month for that virtual subscription.
With the election just four days away, The Walrus is splashing a link to this brilliant gem by Marci McDonald from their archives, previously referenced on this site. Back when Harper didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of becoming PM, this article still had me questioning the morality and intelligence of the Conservative’s membership. I quickly understood why former Conservative leader and lunchtime PM Joe Clark was so pissed off all the time.
Certainly, by last June there was no lack of opinion that Flanagan’s own writings were controversial, if not right off the mainstream map. As the Conservatives’ campaign director, he seemed perfect fodder for the sort of Liberal attack ads already depicting Stephen Harper as a scary extremist with a hidden agenda. The mystery is why Paul Martin’s admen didn’t jump on that tailor-made target.
This morning’s edition of The Current on CBC Radio One featured an interesting viewpoint of the impending doom upcoming election from the U.S. perspective of Harper’s Magazine publisher, John MacArthur, on just what a depressing, Conservative alignment win will mean for rogues like Dubya. Mr. MacArthur was at one-time a columnist for the Globe and Mail and obviously is still looking out for our best interests.
Now, where’d I put that Irish passport?
We were driving home from our weekly downtown dinner outing for real Ramen noodle soup at Sakura in Village-by-the-Grange when the topic of Monty Python came up. I immediately launched into a poor rendition of “Novel Writing (from Essex)”, which I’d heard at some point this week on CBC’s Freestyle. I have to admit that the show has grown on me, thanks in part to Kelly Ryan’s jabbing at co-host Cameron Phillips’s nerdiness (though he does reference the Simpsons). I told Laurel how Phillips had mentioned that Michael Palin would be one of his three dinner guests (you know this game: who’d you have over for dinner?). Our list has grown so large that we’ll need a banquet hall.
Laurel too is a huge Palin fan, though John Cleese may be the popular face of Python. This started us off on ranking the members in accordance with the Beatles template: John Cleese = John Lennon; Eric Idle = Paul McCartney, both Michael Palin and Graham Chapman = George Harrison; Terry Jones = Ringo. And of course, Terry Gilliam = George Martin.