Jon Ashton Presents!

News from the Fetus Front

2010-10-19T09:56:00.000-07:00

Is this seriously the first essay I've procrastinated on all semester?

Hey kids. Sorry your dad hasn't been home in over a month. I've been working very hard as an Art Director for an animated TV show! (Not a real show. Just a giant student project -ed.)

It's about fetuses. Wanna see some PICTURES?

Oh, and I also designed a related t-shirt to promote/raise money for the damn show. You know you want one:

Looks like my cell phone's ringing. Back to work! I'll play catch with ya later, okay? Chin up, kiddo.

Scenes from Reading And Writing Women

2010-09-28T06:40:00.000-07:00

Misogeny misogeny misogeny misogeny

Women aren't that worse off than men. Sure, historically we used to gang rape you in caves, but that's all different now. Voting. Glee. Plus, modern society is all about how many connections you have, and the average woman knows 73259023982638 people. I know about 40. This generation of ladies is going to fucking destroy men. What I'm saying is, stop complaining about an uneven playing field--women took some exotic creams and a discreet razor and leveled that a long time ago.

My women's lit class didn't get that memo, so for this entire semester I'll be learning about how integral motherhood is to the female experience.

The following two short scenes actually happened:

LADY PROF: This author, in writing about ecriture feminine, appears to have made the conscious decision not to write logically. Instead, she repeats her points over and over again--almost writing in circles. Can anybody tell me why that is?

PIERCINGS GIRL: I think she's writing as a metaphor for menstruation. Our natural bodily cycles have a rhythm to them that repeats itself all throughout our lives.

LADY PROF: That's exactly right!

The end. Fin. Women write essays with their fallopian tubes instead of their brains. That's so empowering it's kind of insulting! Next scene:

LADY PROF: This essay is titled White Ink. Can anybody guess why?

CLASS: several incorrect guesses

LADY PROF: Give up? Breast milk!

I wonder what Reading and Writing Men would be like, if it could legally be offered. The prof would probably beat us all up.

Data Man Has Met His Match!

2010-09-11T10:38:00.001-07:00

And she's gonna BURN him!

Data Man, earth's digital defender! You've seen him defeat an evil corporation bent on farming orphans. You've watched him explode the Hyperbrain. Week after week, his mid-80s technology movies have raked in enough box office gold to fund a cold war.

His third film (Data Man 3: Duplicate File Detected!) is released straight to Laserdisc and is promptly forgotten. But now it's the early 90s and the execs need new fodder for animated kid's shows. Data Man: The Animated Series is rushed into production.

In one episode, he'll meet his new archnemesis.

Data Man, meet Datum Anne.

She only knows one thing.

Data Man must be deleted.

New Place/No Internet

2010-09-04T11:07:00.000-07:00

It's like camping but you're not allowed to burn your garbage!

So long without an update! I haven't seen a literary dry spell like this since Harry Potter tried whacking off in first year.

I have a place downtown. It's a student co-op, not a residence. The difference: no delicious food. But also no teambuilding activities. So that's good.

Sometime next week I'll have Internet there. And hopefully I'll have something to write about by then. Last time I drew a blank this big it was a sketch of Chevy Chase's sperm sample. Heyo!

FaceTome

2010-08-24T09:16:00.000-07:00

Extracted from the secret files of I Woke Up With This On My Desk.

Yeah, I have no idea where this came from.

And speaking of Facebook: this was way too hilarious not to get any comments. So you're all looking at it again. Just a screen capture.

4D Movies

2010-08-23T16:04:00.000-07:00

It's all you, Jame Scameron!

I cracked the secret of how to do a 4-D movie. This would be irritating as hell to experience or create, but here's how you'd do it:

1. Acquire a geodesic dome.
2. Line the inside with hundreds of 3DTVs, blaring down towards the center from every angle.
3. Link each screen to a hypercomputer.
4. Have the hypercomputer find out how long the movie is, then divide this time between the number of screens you have. Make your dome large enough to allow for less than 1 second per screen.
5. Play the movie simultaneously on all screens, each screen starting from a different point, one interval apart.

And thus you subject your audience to the fourth dimension, time.

Nobody should do this.

Joe's Crematorium...

2010-08-21T21:15:00.000-07:00

Got paid $24 to write this on Friday.

Here's a little something for next time you answer your phone...

Joe's crematorium, you kill 'em we grill 'em!
Joe's taxidermy, you snuff 'em we stuff 'em!
Joe's mortuary, you stab 'em we slab 'em!
Joe's executioners, you book 'em we cook 'em!
Joe's cryogenics, you disease 'em we freeze 'em!
Joe's foster care services, you beat 'em we feed 'em!
Joe's STD clinic, you molest 'em we test 'em!
Joe's school for the disabled, you deform 'em we inform 'em!
ZombieWatch radar services, you infect 'em we detect 'em!
You've reached BLASCAR--it's NASCAR with all black drivers! You segregate 'em we accelerate 'em!

My favorite one's the STD clinic, but that's because apparently I'm still in grade 9.

Poor People: Are They Inferior?

2010-08-19T22:48:00.000-07:00

Like, do they suck?

I'm typing this from my iPod so I can't link you, but I was just reading an article on hearing loss in teens. Apparently it's rising. I blame rap music and boom boxes and alternative forms of transportation, etc. Also, get off my lawn.

Apparently hearing loss rates are higher in lower income families. The article offered two hypotheses: either poor people can't afford to treat ear infections properly, or poor people have genetically worse hearing, causing lower performances in the classroom and underperformance in life in general.

Yeah. This was from Discovery News.

It's an interesting theory. Definitely controversial. Are poor people actually genetically inferior? Did they get that way because of their naturally shitty ears, or weak eyes, or smaller brains? The last article I read that openly discussed a relationship between genes and socioeconomic standing used the phrases "A-1" and "wretched stock."

Eugenics is a touchy subject. On the one hand, all men are created equal. On the other hand, we all know that's bullshit.

So do your genes actually affect your social standing? Are rich people, on average, genetically superior?

Brace yourself. I'm gonna say yes. But it's got almost nothing to do with intelligence, strength, height or level of attractiveness. For my money, your level of success relies entirely on your level of self-motivation.

And yes, self-motivation is either genetic or chemical. There's nothing in our brain that didn't come from a series of logical physical reactions. God wouldn't make lazy souls. And if drive is caused by a specific chemical balance, Pfizer would have produced a motivation pill by now. My money's on genes.

Everybody has spare time, and everybody has access to resources, however limited. I wrote earlier (and again, no links, iPod) that procrastination is necessary for capitalism to work. Steve Jobs just plain tries harder than the middle class, and the middle class tries harder than the lower class. We all have some understanding of this. Anybody in the lower class can get the hell out if they work at it instead of watching TV--just write a book, build a thing, start a business, or whatever. There's nobody stopping you from trying. Just look at every rapper ever!

Anyway.

Discovery News, if you're reading this, you made a pretty terrifying suggestion pretty dismissively, and you kept me awake for an extra damn hour, and I hate you. I'm taking all my Discovery Channel ideas to Scholastic now.

If I ever get up the motivation to pitch them.

Taylor Swift = Too Popular

2010-08-19T17:57:00.000-07:00

These last two post titles have been math thematic.

Before I forget, I found this on Facebook the other day.

I'll let that speak for itself.

Adulthood = Cooking

2010-08-19T17:26:00.000-07:00

Maybe that's what I'm missing!

Adulthood means:

Driving (check!)
Rent (check!)
Job (check!)
Cell phone that you pay for(check!)
Drinking (check!)
Using bank machines (check! [no pun intended])
Sex (trophy gathering dust on shelf)
Cooking...

Today was Budgeting Day! Apparently I can afford to live downtown, as long as I never leave the house. Part of budgeting was figuring out how much I had to spend on food, which means figuring out what kind of food I can make for myself. Here's my list:

-Scrambled eggs
-KD and hot dogs (available separately)
-Grilled cheese!
-Spaghetti with meat sauce
-Meat sauce on toast
-Anything frozen

Thanks for the extra year of childhood, McGuinty. I think I need it. But by this time next year, I'm going to know a zillion recipes. They might even have nutrients in them.

(For the record, I make a mean meat sauce on toast.)

Closet Comics!

2010-08-18T20:35:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry mama, I never meant to hurt you, I never meant to make you cry, but tonight I'm cleanin' out my closet...

I cleaned out my closet today. I found about $45 in rolled change (hell yeah!) and a few old comics I never did anything with. Check 'em check 'em check 'em out!

Scholars date this to late 2007. Text: APPLICANT, DRESSED AS HOBBIT: "I thought your sign said now shire-ing." INTERVIEWER: "I don't believe for a second that's what you think it said."

An inkman runs for his life in this early sketch pitching an MTV animation, fall 2008.

Grubby and Mick--my first cartoon characters, who haven't done anything since tenth grade-- introduce their series skewering every world religion (never produced). Part of a planned Bot9comics.com launch, summer 2009.

I drew this at work like, last week. I have no idea how it found its way into my closet.

Also discovered were 100+ comic books, neatly stacked and organized, that I drew between Grade 7 and Grade 9. You're uh, you're never gonna see those. Ever.

Also Chompy The Gator!

2010-08-15T18:14:00.001-07:00

The thrilling poster conclusion.

Heh heh heh heh heh.

For uh, for those of you just joining us, I drew this last year. I have no idea whether or not that link works. Do a Facebook search for Fun in the Swamp!

Turtle The Turtle Got Drawed Again

2010-08-15T16:38:00.001-07:00

Like, 15 more times!

I had a lot of fun with that comic thing the other day. Here's a redux, POSTER STYLE!

Yeah!!

Turtle The Turtle Got Drawed

2010-08-13T11:54:00.000-07:00

Like, 10 times!

I'm going to try to adapt this (with more emotions) into a test iPod app. Success Team Activate!

Framing Somebody for the Zombie Apocalypse

2010-08-12T22:21:00.000-07:00

Here's somewhere the meme hasn't been yet!

So here's how it would happen.

Two medical scientists (male/female, obviously fucking) are sharing resources with a larger research lab. One of these resources? A human cadaver. Both labs are experimenting on the corpse--our heroes are trying to use a "positive virus" to regenerate nerve tissues and bring it back to life. Or something.

The couple was supposed to pick up the corpse on the Friday before a long weekend, and bring it back on the Tuesday. Instead, they fuck all Friday. And most of Saturday. Saturday night, they show up to the lab to grab their corpse--but it's locked. They gotta break into the facility and steal the body.

Some chemicals are spilled in the dark.

Anyway, they get the body into their van and start driving back to their own lab, when they hear a pounding from the back.

MAN: I'll go check it out.

They pull over to the side of the road, the man opens the back, and--

Yeah, it's a zombie. It breaks out and immediately attacks a passing motorcyclist. The biker drives into town and subsequently attacks like, 50 more people. It's the outbreak of a zombie apocalypse.

The man and the woman look at each other. They know what must be done.

They gotta get the original zombie back to the original lab, and let it break out, so that it looks like the other guys started the end of mankind.

I think that's kind of awesome.

Catalogue Scatterlogue 2010

2010-08-12T14:41:00.000-07:00

Yeah!!

As per your request*, here are rough doodles of as many of my characters as I could fit on one page. I'm thinking of doing this once a year, just so I can track the development of the cartoons I'm not actively producing.

This is definitely a clickbig.

How many do YOU recognize?

*nobody requested this

Fodder for the Feminists

2010-08-10T19:35:00.000-07:00

A Y is just a three-legged X!

A brief recap of my understanding of feminism: Men have been dominating women for millennia and it stops NOW.

A brief recap of my understanding of evolution: If you suck at surviving or breeding, you don't pass on your busted genes. Over time, the species develops for maximum comfort in its environment.

These are both obviously oversimplifications, but I think I've licked my way to the middle of the creamsicle. (METAPHOR.) So feminists! Check out this theory:

1. Giving birth fucking hurts.
2. But some women can just squeeze 'em out like the last Mentos in the roll.
3. If only those women had babies--or only these women had more than one baby--eventually the majority of the human species wouldn't be cursed by hellbirths.
4. Because only the easy birthers would be passing on their genes, right?
5. Right.
6. But for some reason, women who had pain during childbirth were the ones to pass on their genes.
7. Because men are rapists.
8. And men want sons.
9. So men forced women to make babies, and arranged society to put pressure on women to make babies, over and over again.
10. Even though giving birth fucking hurts.

There you have it, feminists! Logical proof that MEN are to blame for the pain of childbirth. Unless you want to go the creationist route and blame Eve for eating a talking snake.

(I've blacked out most of my religious upbringing.)

I Just Solved The Gay Marriage Debate

2010-08-09T20:04:00.000-07:00

Through farce!

I know it's about six years too late, but I came up with the perfect gay marriage debate compromise. A short script, gratuitously starring Norland and Sprott:

NORLAND: Gay people? Marrying? What's next, a man marrying a hamster?

SPROTT: If you let us marry, we'll join forces with you in your true fight against hamster marriage.

NORLAND: (speechless)

The best enemies to vanquish are the ones who are already dead. Congrats on killing Prop 8, California!

Who'd You Believe If They Said That??

2010-08-09T08:11:00.000-07:00

Huh?

Hello friends I love you all! If you got tagged you MUST DO THIS NOTE. For every statement, write down the person you know who'd be most likely to be telling the truth if they said that statement. Copy and paste and tag your friends and pass it on!

"I was homeless for about 6 months in the '90s."
"I once punched an aquarium."
"I accidentally bit through my index finger while eating bar chicken wings."
"My car got stolen by my girlfriend's coke dealer."
"I've only ever bought one shirt."
"Longest I ever slept? 54 hours."
"Longest I ever stayed awake? 6 and a half days."
"My buddy and I fished a shark."
"Don't worry, my buddy knows a cop."
"Don't worry, my buddy knows a judge."
"Don't worry, my buddy knows a dentist."
"I think my landlord's been dead for about three months."
"I can MAKE the tire fit."
"We could buy a bowling alley if we all went in on it."
"Why do you gas up at a station? Come by my place."
"Fuck, that chick is still in my basement."
"Fuck, that guy still has my dog."
"I can't tell you my last name--long story."
"This isn't my original face."

If you can read this, thank a teacher! If you're reading this in English, thank a veteran! Pass it on!

Fun fact: I wrote all of these with my old manager Greg in mind. The most interesting man in the world?

HOPE!

2010-08-08T12:20:00.000-07:00

A possible alternative to dope?

I recently dropped 20 bucks on a couple misprinted Life in Hell anthologies. It's a comic strip by Matt Groening--the Matt Groening--that I keep rediscovering every couple years.

But I hadn't seen this particular strip before:

I feel like Harry Potter did when he found out his dad also played Quidditch.

Return to 7th Grade: Emoticons!

2010-08-06T12:43:00.000-07:00

Why grow up? Because I legally cannot for another year.

I've decided to make the best of my bonus year of childhood. So I spent all day looking up hilarious emoticons. The crop was bald, immature and uncut, but through light coaxing and gentle manipulation, I was able to extract the cream.

If that sounded like pedophilia, remember: I too am a child! Let's begin.

EM( o )TIC( o )NS

:(|)monkey
:{|)moustache monkey
=](^)(.7.)( )paranoid Frosty
~-[}] a birthday cupcake
~-:D a birthday boy
(:} a friendly turtle
(:} a friendly owl
{:) a frenchman
[}{]is it a vase? or two faces eskimo-kissing?
( this is how you make emoticons look like they're talking! } :D
( $#!& } |:( or swearing

Yeeeah!

Another Year of Childhood

2010-08-04T17:53:00.000-07:00

I guess.

So... I didn't realize until yesterday that the young driver alcohol ban was going to apply to me. I interpreted "21 and under" to mean up to and including 21, the same way that "$1.00 or less" means your cheap Chinese lead item could cost $1.00 before taxes, but not more. I turn 21 next Thursday. I was fine with the 12-day ban on one drink driving. But once I'm one second over 21, BAM! I get to have a beer with dinner again, like an adult.

But nope, turns out "21 and under" actually means under 22, somehow. Which should have been the headline. But whatever. I drew a political cartoon about it:

Intermediate-level math symbols aside, this is childish. I guess it's like saying "I'm not 4! I'm 4 and one quarter! Why am I sitting at the 4 year olds' table?" And it displays a complete lack of understanding of the law on the justice level-- you guys are mostly 20, right? I'm sure you have some legitimately intelligent and educated criticisms.

But, I dunno... I was kind of looking forward to being 21. 21 has always been that age where you are an adult, everywhere. 18 is kind of a fake out, and at 19 you get to drink (here), but by 21, around the world, you can do pretty much anything. There are no more age restrictions. When you turn 21, you are an adult. Your autonomy is respected; your choices are your own; your ID is valid.

I got my full G license. I've stopped smoking up. I recently got that horrible haircut, which has grown back into something I can see myself sporting if I fail at cartooning. I have a new style of glasses. I'm eating vegetables. I bought some full-sleeve button up shirts, which none of you have ever seen on me outside of work or prom. I'm even needing to shave more often, somehow. I was hoping that 21 would be the year that I actually move on from eleventh grade, and become a person, and move to my own place in Toronto, and start my empire already.

There was a lot of anticipation for next week. But now it turns out that Ontario is pushing me down for another year. As of a couple days ago, 22 is the new adulthood. 22 is when the paternalism stops. 22 is when I can be trusted with my own judgment.

12 days from the finish line, and they add another lap. I guess I'm a child for another year.

Did You Hear The One About The Party?

2010-08-04T14:01:00.000-07:00

Don't read this, Nico!

Because I am an old man with bad stories, I've decided to start writing them from an old man's point of view. This one is about that college party I crashed.

Young people shouldn't drink. There are laws against it now--no tolerance for young drivers having a beer with dinner--and I fully support them! Which is why, from time to time, I'll go to college parties and steal all their booze.

It's easy. You wear a tshirt, a backpack, and whatever rocket boots the kids are wearing, and just go to the houses with the loud music. Carry a skateboard in case they suspect you're old. Nobody ever turns away a skateboarding grandpa. Then you run to the kitchen and swipe as many bottles as you can. Done and done!

This party I went to last weekend, though--they didn't have any liquor bottles. They didn't have any beer empties hanging around. They didn't have a bar. I had to ask one dude for directions. "Hey broseph," I said, "where's all the hooch at?"

He pointed to a table. When I got there, all it had on it was a giant bowl with a ladle and some cups. It was empty.

I guess somebody beat me to the punch.

Speaking of the zero tolerance laws... Isn't that kind of like not teaching kids to write until grade 4, because first graders make too many spelling mistakes? I'm only asking you to concede that it's kind of similar. Darryl.

Where IS The Justice In Love?

2010-08-02T10:30:00.000-07:00

That's what I wanna know, too!

So my good buddy DAVE and I did some drinking last night, and inhaled a lot of smoke from a bonfire, and had most of our blood drained by mosquitoes. When we woke up the next morning, it turned out we'd written a song.

I give you: Where Is The Justice In Love.

Even Hitler had a girlfriend
Even Stalin had a wife
Saddam's got his 72 virgins
George Bush isn't lonely tonight

Jesus never got a blowjob
Ghandi fasted alone
Satanists get freaky orgies
While the Pope has to wax his own bone, oh oh oh oh--

There's arrows in all the wrong chests
Cupid must be drunk
When do I get my chance
Where is the justice in love?
I want to dropkick an angel
Or maybe curb stomp a dove
Gouge out the eyes of an eagle, screaming
Where is the justice in love?

I volunteer at a day camp
Paid just over minimum wage
I support the use of wheelchair ramps
Why can't I get a date, oh oh oh oh--

There's arrows in all the wrong chests
Cupid must be drunk
When do I get my chance
Where is the justice in love?
I think about abandoned strollers
I think about giving a shove
The kid gets creamed by traffic, screaming
Where is the justice in love?

Mother Theresa, nice to meetcha, can you tell me just one thing
Did you ever meet a man who made you want to sing
And kiss him on a whim
And give yourself to him
And lie deep in your bed and feel the joy of tender sin
And keep thrusting back until the room begins to spin
And breathe and pant and moan until you're out of oxygen
And collapse into the rumpled sheets with sweat drops on your skin
No, no, no, nooo--

There's arrows in all the wrong chests
Cupid must be drunk
When do I get my chance
Where is the justice in love?
I know that I'm a good man
I've earned at least a hug
But all I can finger are these strings
Where is the justice in love?
Where is the justice in love?
Oh, there's no justice in love.

Thank you, thank you.

What Kind Of Sister Blog Should I Write?

2010-07-30T20:23:00.000-07:00

Answer: none. None kind.

I'm shocked, surprised and honored: after just a few short months, this blog has skyrocketed to 11 followers and at least one anonymous shadow-reader, who I shall name Spinderella deCurlz for obvious reasons. I've spawned or at least godfathered a son-blog (James! I'd link to you but I'm typing on an iPod) and I've recieved a comment from somebody I've never heard of.

That's enough success to justify financing a sister blog--one that isn't just whatever brain gravy I can splatter on the screen. I've got some ideas here. If you'd like to see any of them happen, let me know!

-A fake celebrity tabloid blog. I had a lot of fun suggesting the Black Guy Peas were holographic memories of Fergie's parents. I could do that regularly.

-A sketch-a-day blog, similar to all of the practicing artists you see on here. You've seen my artistic power; now imagine that juxtaposed with flowery language about "shading" and "texture".

-A parody pregancy blog. You've hit that NEXT BLOG button before. They're all pregancy blogs. I would affectionately refer to the imaginary father as The Hubs, and I expect my future wife to do the same.

-Back to seriousness: a while back I started writing Child of the Destiny Sword: An Epoch Lands Fable. Anybody want to watch me finish it? Chapter by chapter via blog post?

-A blog wherein I Google all the "MAKE YOUR BLOG FAMOUS" tips from 2005 and implement them.

Text your vote NOW to 252 525! A one dollar fee will apply as well as all regular cell phone carrier fees.

Israel! Controversial!

2010-07-29T18:18:00.000-07:00

Subversive!

Isn't it interesting that there isn't even a Wikipedia article on criticisms of Israeli settlements? If you type that in, it redirects you to the page on anti-semitism. Seriously. Anti-semitism. How defensive can you get?

There's a popular accusation that Jews control the media. That may be debatable, but at least they've got Wikipedia.

This Is How I Write Essays, By The Way

2010-07-28T11:58:00.000-07:00

Just so you know.

Here's an except from my recent Bioethics essaytastrophe. We had to deconstruct an argument premise by premise and confirm or reject each premise. Mine was about an unconscious Jehovah's Witness getting a blood transfusion; the first premise was People Need To Consent To Shit. Enjoy!

------

When I was in ninth grade (and here the educator may come to regret encouraging a first person tone) I wrote a short comic book introducing one Dr. Vigilante. After a troubled military sniper comes in contact with a radioactive doctor, the sniper gains all the powers and responsibilities of a surgical physician. Fuelled by a passion for justice and health care, and fully trained as an assassin, Dr. Vigilante streaks through the city on a wild bender of unauthorized surgeries.

An elderly woman in a respirator is forcibly given a new pair of lungs, recently harvested from an orphan murderer. Two friends—one with a kidney disorder, the other blind—are attacked in a blur, and left with one working kidney and one eye each. George W. Bush has a small brain tumor removed. Topical!

Though humorous, insightful and decidedly utilitarian in its tone, Dr. Vigilante failed to recognize the most fundamental tenet of bioethics: the duty to treat all human beings as human beings, and never as objects or a means to an end. My rogue doctor saw health problems, but failed to recognize the people possessing them. No thought was given to whether or not the elderly woman would have preferred passive euthanasia or whether the friends were comfortable with the level of intimacy they were forced to share. The comic worked because the subject matter was so ridiculous; in our present-day society, a vigilante doctor performing experimental procedures on unsuspecting patients is actually quite horrifying.

Benjamin Freedman writes that “perhaps the worst which we may do to a man is to deny him his humanity, for example, by classifying him as mentally incompetent when he is, in fact sane.” (Health Care Ethics in Canada, 215). He goes on to argue that patients have the right to consent, and have their consent honored. The same right applies “with still greater force… with regard to refusals of consent to medical procedures” (Ethics, 215).

The understanding is that a person capable of making a decision about their body should be allowed to make this decision themselves. To make a choice for another person suggests a paternal role; an invitation to suppose this other person is not capable of handling their own life; an accusation, in fact, of invalidity. Though doctors are expected to have a much greater understanding of medicine than their patients, it is still the patients who must have the final say after being given all relevant facts.

In the case of Mrs. Malette, a key player in the substance of this essay: in the moments directly preceding her accident, she was sane. Nowhere in the case study is she suggested to be mentally functioning at any level below average. In fact, she demonstrated a prescience of mind and responsibility in preparing in advance a notification of her religious beliefs in regards to blood transfusions (“NO”). Under entirely different circumstances, this level of planning and forethought would have been enough to bump a second degree murderer to a first degree charge—why, then, was her sane decision to refuse treatment not honored? (A discussion of why her sane decision to refuse treatment was not honored will be included in our deconstruction of Dr. Shulman’s rationale.)

I declare the first premise of the Court’s argument upheld.

For those who are curious: Dr. Vigilante’s adventure came to an end when he was confronted with a dramatic decision—both he and his archnemesis were mortally wounded, facing certain death. It was possible for Dr. Vigilante to save his enemy’s life by performing a heart transplant, with himself as the donor. He opted not to do the surgery. Both of them died. It was the logical choice.

------

...and yeah, I made up the Dr. Vigilante comic specifically for this essay :p

I Just Fixed The Everything

2010-07-28T07:23:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna go ahead and preemptively tag this under "complete lack of understanding."

I go to university in Canada, which almost automatically makes me a dumb liberal. Here's what I think I know about economics and politics:

1. Corporations are more powerful than the government.

2. Money, food and information are the three most important resources for a productive population.

3. The banks are fucked because mildly corrupt executives stay in power long enough to casually control the entire economy.

4. The food industry is fucked because everybody is trying to make food that will sell, not food that will nourish.

5. The news is fucked because it's reporting stories that will attract an audience, not stories that will inform the audience.

6. Money, food and news are all controlled by corporations; the government guides them the same way a playground monitor can tell kids not to run.

7. So what good is your vote, exactly?

There are two ways out of this mess. We either abandon capitalism and let a stronger representative democracy take control of everything--allowing citizens to participate in developing a system for a national diet, an accurate news source, and a stock market that exists outside of its own ass...

...or we use capitalism to start new corporations in each of these three industries. Their selling point? Consumers get to vote.

Don't give me any of your nonsense about shareholder's meetings. I'm saying if you bank with them, or have a points card with them, or subscribe to their news service, you get a vote in who runs the company. And nobody within the company gets a vote. It's entirely from the consumers.

I'd rather be able to vote for the CEO of, I don't know, Metro supermarkets than the prime minister of Canada.

In this model, executives need to appeal directly to the public in order to keep their jobs. It's generally believed that bank interest rates could be lower. What if the opposing Scotiabank candidate announced that he could lower it to a fair rate if he was elected? It's genius!

Eventually, because pretty much everybody agrees with my 7 points up there, these new elected corporations will dominate every industry. That's capitalism. You like something better, you buy it instead, its competition dies. If everybody likes a system where their votes can shape society better, they'll go with my system. The old corrupt corporations die.

My prediction is that this starts happening in our lifetime. People are going to call it socialism, but it's not. It's representative Capitalism. July 28, 2010, history books!

Time Travel Is Now Possible, Bitches

2010-07-27T19:16:00.000-07:00

Who's your daddy? Me, literally, ever since my trip back to 1989.

I just solved the following time-travel conundrums:

1. If time travel is possible, where are all the time travelers?

2. If you go back in time and solve a problem, it won't exist in your timeline anymore, negating your need to go back and solve it, meaning you won't have solved it, meaning the problem exists again, meaning you have to go back and solve it again, meaning it doesn't exist in your timeline anymore, etc, until your head explodes.

I'm going to assume that #1 is entirely because no future time travelers want to put up with all the bullshit of #2. No pun intended.

And I'm going to solve #2, right here, right now, in front of all y'all.

The Time Traveler's Office.

What time travelers need is a place to responsibly document their nefarious meddlings. An office where they can make a full account of everything they did to interfere with the past. This office, which could be opened tomorrow, will hold on to these documents until time travel is possible. Then it will send agents back in time to make these changes.

The assumption, if you didn't understand Problem #2, is that once a problem is solved in the past the people in the future won't even know it was a problem, and therefore not send somebody back again to interfere. If you kill Hitler's dad, the new timeline has you grow up without ever knowing about the Holocaust. Without knowing about the Holocaust, why would you go back and kill Hitler's dad?

Answer: because there's a Time Office document specifically requiring you to kill Hitler's dad, for no obvious reason.

My hypothesis is that once a reliable Time Office is established, time travelers will finally be able to pop back to our time and fuck with us as much as they want. All they have to do is leave a note declaring their intentions first, then do those things, then leave. We keep the note until we develop our own time machines, and then make sure we do it all again to avoid paradoxes. Finally, responsible time travel!

There's a kickass book in this somewhere. In fact, there are at least two:

1. A faux-british comedy about a present-day clerk in this office getting caught up in interdimensional time/space calamities.

2. A Minority Reportesque thriller set in the future about a Time Office agent sent back in time to make changes that would wreak absolute havoc on the timeline. Who set him up? Who's giving him these instructions? Why are there flying lasermen chasing him through 1930s Chicago?

Also, of course, somebody should set up an actual time office.

Yo Momma's So Pro Choice...

2010-07-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

Maybe I've still got it!

Okay, okay, maybe the writing fire's coming back. It's still not directed towards the essay that was due on Thursday, but this is still a cool concept. You know You Have Two Cows? Or maybe Shit Happens? I wonder if the same kind of ideological simplification could be done with Yo Momma insults.

I owe it to the Internet to try.

Atheist: Yo momma doesn't exist and you're dumb for ever loving her.
Christian: Yo momma is probably going to hell, no offense, just sayin'.
Muslim: My views on yo momma are far too offensive to voice in this context and so I will remain respectfully silent.

Liberal: Yo momma is a crusty, selfish, racist idiot.
Conservative: Yo momma wants to run naked with her saggy tits bouncing everywhere.

Pro-Life: Yo momma's a slut who deserves a kid as retarded as you.
Pro-Choice: Yo momma should have killed you when she had the chance.

Against Legalizing It: Yo momma's a crack whore.
For Legalizing It: Yo momma's been secretly addicted to antidepressants for twenty years.

Israel: Yo momma's been camping in my backyard for fifty years and I want her to die.
Palestine: Yo momma's so fat and greedy, I'm considering blowing up a wall just so I can push her pimply ass out of my house.

Okay, I really need to get to work. But this was fun. And it can be expanded. If you can add anything, comment! 1 isn't the loneliest number. It's 0.

The Thought Sauce Isn't Working!

2010-07-26T09:46:00.000-07:00

Crap, guys!

This is bad.

I have an essay due. Like, really due. It's barely started and I'm leaving for work in a couple hours. When I get home, I'll have to stay up all night to finish this thing.

The words to write it just aren't coming. And what's worse, the words to procrastinate just aren't coming. You know how when I have an essay due, I wind up blogging instead? That's happening now, except I don't even have the words for that. I've got about six drafts saved of entries I have no energy to finish.

This is bad. This is like paralysis. I don't like this.

Some thoughts I've had:

-Today about 90 000 documents on the illegal shenanigans in Afghanistan were leaked online. All the people who were vaguely opposed to the war on grounds of suspicion and distrust now have 90 000 documents full of evidence to support them. If this leak was intentional, it's genius--now, if any dissenting citizens want to voice their opinions on the war, they'll have to read those 90 000 documents or risk looking like an uninformed idiot. But who has time to read 90 000 documents? Again, procrastination just saved capitalism.

-I wonder how atheists look to religious people? My guess is "generally unattractive" (I've only ever seen one hot atheist, including on YouTube) and "annoyingly condescending." Personal brainwashing aside, I think religion is fine as long as it stays the hell out of politics. Most atheists take their anger further and attack the peaceful proponents of religion. Essentially, atheists are hitting religious people with an insult along the lines of "your mom doesn't even exist and you're dumb for ever loving her."

-The Soda Tax. I think it's a great idea. You put a tiny tax on pop. Everybody drinks pop. Everybody knows pop is bad for you. Everybody knows the government needs more money. Everybody should be fine with this, but, for some reason, they're not. Sometimes I wonder if Fox News consists entirely of liberal actors setting up a straw man against Republicans.

That's all I got in me. That took about an hour to write.

This is bad.

I'm Gonna Be A Great Dad

2010-07-25T19:29:00.000-07:00

Just call me when it's old enough to ride a bike, honey.

My greatest goal in life is to lie on the living room floor with my future child and draw with them. At one point they'll point to a vague purple blob and say "Look! It's you, daddy!" My wife, en route to a windowsill with a steaming pie, will look over and smile. The Crayola logo will appear. And then I can die.

But parenting is about more than forcing your spawnmen to draw tributes to you. You also have to deal with issues like sex, drugs, popularity, religion, race, and swearing. And sometimes I wonder, when I myself confront these issues, how I would explain them to a little selfish idiot.

First off: if my kid wants drugs, he's growing his own. No kid of mine is buying their dope off some jackass with a rat tail. Home grown herb would be safer and healthier--and a great way to teach responsibility! Farming is work. Work builds character. And the motivation comes from a visible, self-determined reward.

Second, once the kids are 13, the wife and I are going to take frequent out of town trips on friday nights. The backyard and basement will be given over to the kids. Complete control. They're gonna have parties, and that will give them a self-motivated reason to keep the lawn mowed and the floor vacuumed.

My religion speech, as soon as they give up on Santa Claus: Nobody knows why we're here, or what happens when we die. Religions are just very complicated guesses. A lot of good people follow them, so it's okay to be curious--just promise me you'll never pretend to believe something you don't. That's lying to yourself. And if anybody tells you you'll have a bad afterlife if you don't believe, just smile and come ask me what chain e-mails were.

I'll also stress to them not to make fun of religious people. Weren't you happier when you believed in Santa?

Swearing is vocabularic cheating. There's a time and a place for "fuck," but for other times, here are some more clever insults.

You're at least half white. In the past, white people did some damn terrible things to all the other races. Our collective punishment is to feel slightly awkward around all other races for all eternity. If you think collective punishments are stupid, you're right. Go make friends with an Indian kid!

Okay, back to first person. I'm considering the idea of a white board covered in "power up" options. My kids will play video games; I want them to consider themselves as the most important avatars they have. Swimming lessons will be like giving them a new ability. Same with bike riding, skateboarding, rollerblading, soccer, tennis, musical instruments, singing, dancing, sewing, knitting, cooking, math, etc. When they gain a new ability, we track it proudly on the Board. Self esteem issues can be solved just by looking up at it. Look at all these things you can do!

In high school, they're getting jobs. They can quit if they hate it but they have to articulate why.

My biggest punishment form is going to be the Boring Dad Lecture. When they fuck up, they have to listen to me talk, for as long as I see fit, depending on the nature of the crime. I'll work bad pun stories and rejected sci fi movie plots into my long-winded schpiels on right and wrong. They will come out dazed, and Hypothetical Wife will pat their heads sympathetically.

For driving: I'll pay their insurance if they save up and buy their own car.

I think that covers almost everything. Rereading it all now, it's weird how my tone switched around the religion speech. I'm obviously not going to make my kids run a grow op, but the rest of this is honest....

Somebody link this to an ovulating woman, please.

Awesome Title: PREDICULOUS

2010-07-24T21:03:00.000-07:00

I got an awesome name for a flower! I call it "rose"! Now to find a flower that smells so sweet any other name would be so inconcievable it could hypothetically impact the scent.

The italics don't have to make sense. Anyway, my latest greatest title is Prediculous! Is it a Will Ferrell (Arnett?) movie about an egotistical stage psychic who loses everything, finds love, and regains it all... plus that little bit more?

Is it a young adult novel about a girl who can predict the relationships of everyone in her high school before they happen? Tagline, the only love she didn't see coming... Was her own ?

Is it a satirical documentary about the stupid luck of the millionaire stock traders who shape Wall Street?

Damned if I know.

An update on Adventricle: I'm considering repurposing the title for a short animation depicting every possible form of romantic relationship. The visual metaphor involves sticky, throbbing hearts bursting out of chests and latching on to each other. That'd be a cool fourth year project, right?

O Wise Sensai

2010-07-24T10:19:00.000-07:00

I can't decide whether I'm Dumbledore or Yoda.

Today I get to teach two people how to do the most stressful job at Laser Quest. They will learn how fish for tips and how to steal breaks. Also, I will instill in them a deep fear of the number 45.

Sorry if this seems a bit like a "what I had for breakfast" entry. I'm just excited to be able to exercise power. I love training without manuals.

Atheist Heaven

2010-07-22T20:31:00.000-07:00

Where everyone eats vegetarian meatloaf and women have orgasms.

Get it? Cuz they're contradictions, right?

I think the most satisfying afterlife for an atheist is an eternity of acquired omniscience. When you die, you roam the universe as a ghost. You can float to distant planets, walk inside a star, get huge to look down on all the matter in the universe and watch its glowing boundaries expand, shrink down to the level where you can see what the tiniest particles are made of and slow down time to watch them interact, watch a planet form, watch an embryo develop, and see literally every alien organism in the universe.

In this scenario, the meaning of life is to be frustrated for decades. You don't get to know for sure any of the universal laws or constants when you're a human, but god DAMN do you want to find out. Earth serves as a giant incubator. Then, when you die, your soul just can't wait to start exploring.

I've been trying to balance my agnosticism with my love of narrative. I loves me a great story! When I date somebody seriously, I try to figure out a way for my entire life to have been a set up for meeting them. And I mean, that's just to get laid. If I believed life and the universe served no purpose and told no story, I'd off myself tomorrow.

The story I propose is that there is an entity, and this entity places extreme value on complexity springing from simplicity. With one simple physical law, this entity coded the entire universe. Including material beings, both part of and acutely aware of this universe. Taunted for years with unfulfilled curiousity and a physical inability to stray far from their insignificant planet, by the time death freed them they couldn't wait to unravel this code and praise its designer for its simplicity.

Ironically, here it is the atheists who eventually get to find the origins of space and time and congratulate their architect. Other peoples' souls, religious peoples' souls, would no doubt stay on earth and explore and socialize. Still a heaven-but to each their own.

If an atheist hell exists, it involves Bill O'Reilly yelling "I told you so, you pinhead!"

Porno In Disguise

2010-07-21T13:19:00.000-07:00

You mean like crossdressing?

Know what would be excellent? If a new sitcom were produced about a happy, wholesome family. They'd have a laugh track, and reaction shots of pets and babies. The wife would be hot and the 18 year old daughter would be trampy and they'd have wacky neighbours that always drop in. Bear with me.

So this sitcom gets produced, and it gets aired, and people watch it because they don't have anything meaningful to do with their lives after dinner. They get to know the characters and the stories and the setting.

What they don't know is that all of the performers were cast by a porn studio.

At the end of the first season, a bonus episode is produced. Web only, with a special DVD release. It's the entire original cast, with the entire original set, fucking.

And I mean some hardcore shit, too. Hot mom/trampy daughter pairing. Leather. Whips. Magic markers. Watersports.

Come on--if there existed a Friends porno spoof with the entire original cast, you'd watch it. Or How I Met Your Mother, or even--to a much lesser extent--The Office. You'd have to. It'd be impossible not to look, even if you'd only caught glimpses of the original show.

The online porno episode instantly goes viral. Everybody watches it. And then everybody--everybody--tunes in to the Season 2 premiere. With those ratings, the show can hire better writers and directors! It can gradually morph into a legitimately good show.

Sex sells. This, you cannot deny. The Onion News Network's highest viewed video is still the one about a pornstar losing her career for saying the N word in an interracial shoot.

Spike/FX: This has never been done before, but eventually it has to happen. I'm looking at you.

Did I just predict the apex of mass-media depravity?

Infinity Zone Crossover Quarter Life CRISIS

2010-07-21T11:22:00.000-07:00

Are y'all ready for some ANGST?

Scenario: high school, winter, snowy. Morning. You wake up but you're still half asleep. You make coffee (because in this scenario you drank coffee in high school) and just when you feel it kick in you find out it's a snow day. Back to bed!

But your heart is racing. The coffee makes you want to GET UP and PUNCH THE WORLD and SUCCEED, but the rest of you is all "fuck you, coffee, it's only 7am, and why can't you work like this on other days?" So you stay in bed because you want to and you can. You're uncomfortable and sweaty--but what is there to do outside of bed this early on a snow day?

Lately I've been feeling like that all the time. I think now's as good a time as any to self-actualize!

Here are the possible futures that I can see happening. Some of them are purely hypotheticals in which I would be happy, some of them are nightmare scenario fallback traps which are obtainable but would suck.

1. Copywriter. I have a pretty good understanding of advertising concepts, and can write better ads than most I see on TV. Also, I've rocked Commercial Writing, Advertising, Television Marketing and Public Relations in school. Drawback: I'd have to admit that Ryerson was useful.

2. Street Performer. It would be awesome to get together a troupe, some puppets and a video camera. We'd pick up donations on the street, contribute to culture and make a sick YouTube channel. Drawback: after I'm 30, this will be very depressing.

3. Indie Entertainment Mogul. I have way too many ideas for comics. Here, I'd make a business out of getting artists together to work on all of them. I'd manage, cross-promote and merchandise dozens of websites. Drawback: technically, I'd be a pimp.

4. Teacher. I actually really like explaining things to people. And drawing cartoons for slideshows. Drawback: I really, really don't want to go back to school.

5. DJ of some kind. Every Laser Quest mom ever has said I have an awesome radio voice. Also, you know, the Radio and Television Arts degree. Drawback: I can't name five bands.

6. Graphic Novelist. I guess at some point I could take an art course, actually learn to draw, and produce a few dozen epic comic books. Drawback: Right now I can only draw my characters, and I can only draw them facing right.

7. Laser Quest Until I Die: I have advancement potential, and full time managers make a smooooooth 30 grand per year. Drawback: obvious.

I need to pick one of these and just go for it--but I'm not even out of school yet. It's too early. It's only 7am. Back to sleep...

Straddlin' Fences: Intelligent v. Immature

2010-07-20T10:59:00.000-07:00

2:1 says you'll pick immature.

Welcome to Jon Ashton Presents: Straddlin' Fences, where you get to choose whether a thought is one thing or another. Today: intelligent or immature? Observe!

-Dude, wipe the seat! Do you know nothing of peeontology?

-Peeontology?

-Yeah, you know. Doody ethics.

Cast ya votes!

Hey Jon! Low Battery, Jon

2010-07-20T04:14:00.000-07:00

Low Battery. The battery's low. Jon? The battery's low.

You cannot trust an iPod touch to be an alarm clock, because LOW BATTERY JON it does not vibrate and the sound assumes it will be coming out through headphones. Which would still be useless.

And our house has had tiny power outages HEY JON, LOW BATTERY three times in the last week, which means that my normal designed-to-be-an-alarm-clock alarm clock keeps getting its alarm reset to midnight and is therefore untrustworthy.

But I can't use my JUST WANTED YOU TO KNOW THE BATTERY'S LOW OKAY JON cell phone, because there is no way to disable the stupid audible low battery alerts. So with an hour before wake up time, I'm lying in bed listening to this stupid chime every five minutes. It's annoying, thought-disruptive and according to the samsung website HEY JON damn it! It can't be disabled.

Normally I'd suggest a solution but it's too damn early to think. I just want somebody to FIX ALL THE THINGS.

Mother Fucking Hair Cuts

2010-07-19T16:34:00.000-07:00

Fuck.

I got another hair cut today, just in time to make sure I don't get any more ladies this summer. Past hair cuts have had me looking like second year Harry Potter, Glenn Beck, and Dilbert. This one makes me look like I'm a member of a boarding school's AV club, and the rest of the AV club members decided to attack my hair with rusty safety scissors and Elmers glue.

I find a different way to describe the 'do every time, but the truth is it's always the same cut. Which kind of sucks, considering I've been going to different barbers every time and asking for different things. Maybe I have a code tattooed on the back of my scalp that tells them to always cut it the same way:

Best case scenario, I want to look like this.

But I always wind up looking like an even uglier this.

I know I'm not a fashionable dude, but hair cuts--it's not like picking clothes. Everybody has to have somebody else cut their hair. So what's the secret? What am I doing wrong? Am I not sitting in the chair correctly? Work with me, universe.

Next time somebody points out I'm growing a mullet, I'm posting a Before photo on Craigslist and surrendering my head to the first person who responds. It really couldn't be worse.

These Countries Are These Letters

2010-07-19T11:11:00.000-07:00

You might want to get a little groovy before reading this.

Weird as fuck mental exercise: Imagine you had to assign each letter of the alphabet to the one country it best represented. Here's my list.

A, in Courier font specifically: America
B- Holland
C- The UK
D- Norway
E- Switzerland
f, lower case- France
G- Belgium
H- Germany
i, lower case- Japan
j, lower case- developing African nations
K- South Africa
L- Argentina
M- CANADA
N- Rainforest civilizations untouched by technology
O- Cold War-era USSR
P-New Zealand
Q- Saudi Arabia
R- Spain
S-Egypt
T- Mexico
U-Some Eastern European country that farms potatos
V- Brazil
W- Native American tribes
X-North Korea
Y- South Korea
Z- Australia

Anybody agree or disagree with any of these partnerships? Also: Israel would be the number 5.

Sports Should Not Exist Outside TV

2010-07-19T10:33:00.000-07:00

And also should not exist on TV.

Professional sports can't exist without television. That's a fact. You need the advertising dollars and the publicity. Without Hockey Night in Canada/TSN/ESPN/The Steam Room, even big league teams would be as obscure as LQ NAC teams.

So why aren't any sports designed for broadcast?

The way it is now, games have set play times. But there are constant fouls and referee fuck ups that keep stopping the damn clock. And then they have to interrupt it AGAIN for commercial breaks. The flow just doesn't seem right, people get frustrated--it's like getting a handjob from a girl who keeps stopping to sneeze. And then the game always runs just long enough to cancel my Simpsons rerun.

My proposal: games go for five minutes at a time. No interruptions unless somebody is physically paralyzed. We just watch people play for an extended, satisfying period of time. Then, commercial break.

During the break, the action replay camera dudes find every single foul that happened. When we return, we get to see an awesome montage of players cheating, which is YouTube gold. Each foul has a corresponding time penalty. The next five minute chunk starts, and players are allowed back on the field/rink/whatever as soon as their penalties are up. If you didn't have any fouls at all you play right away... And if everybody cheated, it's just a puck alone at centre ice while gritted teeth players count down the seconds until they can rush at it.

Repeat as necessary until the time runs out EXACTLY when it was scheduled to.

10 minutes will be added to the estimated broadcast time to allow the clock to stop for fights, at the players' disgression.

So how obvious is it that I haven't watched an entire game of anything since seventh grade?

The Mineotaur Won't Share His Toys

2010-07-18T16:21:00.000-07:00

Kids know what minotaurs are, right?

I drew this, and I love it.

The Mineotaur won't share his toys. If any of you know anybody from Treehouse, hook 'em up!

How To Play Texas-Style "Hold Them" Poker

2010-07-17T16:05:00.000-07:00

Step by step instructions for the radically uninitiated.

Laser Quest inadvertently paid me $36 to write this today. I like it! I figured I might as well share it with the two people reading this who don't work there. Enjoy!

How To Play Texas-Style "Hold Them" Poker, in 18 Easy Steps

1. Somebody will give you two cards. Look at them--are they both aces? Good. These are called "Pocket Rockets." Boast loudly about them.

2. The most annoying person at the table will tell you to put some money on the table. DO AS THEY SAY OR YOU WILL BE OSTRACIZED.

3. Somebody will put THREE cards face-up on the table.

4. You still have those TWO cards in your hand, right?

5. 3 + 2 = 5. Try to make a 5-card "hand". For a list of hands, consult Jon Ashton's List of Poker Hands and How They Can Reveal The Meaning of Your Dreams (not included in this post).

6. That jackass wants you to put money in again. DO IT.

7. Another card is placed face-up on the table.

8. Now there are four cards on the table.

9. Oh god, what should you do?! What does that mean?!

10. Try throwing more money in the pile. Maybe that will do something.

11. That... worked, somehow. Okay. We've got it.

12. There's a fifth card on the table now. You hear the word "river." You're lost again.

13. The jackass wants more of your money. Fuck it, whatever. Push all your money into the middle of the table.

14. Everybody drops their cards and stops playing. You will be shocked to realize you could have done this at any point so far.

15. One guy stays in, and pushes in a bunch of his own money.

16. He will show you his cards. He will have a moderately good hand.

17. You will show your cards. You will have a significantly higher hand. This is called BEGINNER'S LUCK, and it is scientifically proven.

18. For all subsequent rounds, shove your money pile into the middle as soon as the jackass will let you. Nobody can match you. You will win every round. (This is called "Being a Dick.")

Congratulations, you just won at your first game of poker! Please mail 10% of your winnings to the address at the back of this book.

Avatar Got Cut In Half!

2010-07-16T23:22:00.000-07:00

Now it's only as long as a normal movie!

Because I am a nerd:Instead of going to a party or sleeping for my early shift tomorrow, I spent the better chunk of my night writing an epic masterpost on procrastination. I realized I didn't have a procrastination tag, so I started one, and then rampaged through the archives looking for entries to retroactively pin it on. I think this blog is the only thing I keep even slightly organized.

This April post wasn't about procrastination. It was about how the phrase "like in Avatar" had more Google hits than "like in Star Trek", presumably because newspapers were comparing goddamn every human rights/environmental issue story to the trials of James Cameron's blue space cats. The score was 71,200 to 69,900, and I lamented Star Trek's dethroning as the #1 cultural sci/fi comparison.

I was curious: I had to check for an update. As of press time, Star Trek has KEPT its hits--while Avatar has been cut in HALF!

Like, exactly in HALF!

Like, now it has 35,600 hits!

Improbably round numbers not changing over time notwithstanding, this is fishy. Guys, I think ol' Rich Jimmy cheated. I think he was bribing Google to double his hit count to make his film seem more popular, and now that the DVDs have been sold he's stopped paying them off.

James Cameron? More like Jame Scameron.

And live long and prosper, Star Trek!

Procrastination Is Necessary For The Survival Of Capitalism

2010-07-16T21:14:00.001-07:00

That's right! It's the Big Banks' fault you haven't finished your screenplay yet!

Puppet vaudeville and dirty jokes are fun and all, but let's face it: you're here for boring, unresearched political/economic theories. So here's a new one: procrastination might be necessary for the survival of Capitalism. Keep that in mind, because I'm about to distract you with some complaining. I'll remind you halfway though.

A brief list of things I absolutely have to do, but won't even consider putting on my schedule because I'm not being physically forced to:

-Call a family friend about a possible writing gig
-Actually learn how professionals draw comics (I've been guessing with sharpies, cardstock and a Canon scanner)
-Figure out how to code iPhone apps (I haven't touched the business since I wrote this)
Procrastination is necessary for the survival of Capitalism.
-Pay my summer tuition fees (overdue by two months)
-Officially cancel my Fido plan
-Process some insurance forms to get paid back for my new glasses
-Get a haircut
-Buy sexy new boxers

Not to mention various chores and assignments.

And what's stopping all that? Procrastination. I wake up at about 10 on days when I'm not working, but deliberately go back to sleep because I can. I could do about half that list tonight, but instead I'll be playing Risk on my iPod touch until I fall asleep. Ask me again in a month and I'll MAYBE have had a hair cut.

But I was thinking: well, what if nobody procrastinated? What if everybody was a proactive powerhouse, gettin' er dun every day from sunup to sundown, building those sheds, helping at those homeless centres, reading that book, taking all their vitamins and drinking all their glasses of water?

The answer is that society would collapse.

Procrastination is the best method of civilian control there is. And I don't mean that people are too lazy to figure out how to overthrow the government and fairly redistribute wealth. (They are, or at least I am; I'm sure a few Google searches on anarchy would be able to tell me a plausible way to take down Stephen Harper--but I'm too lazy to even look that up.) No, I mean that procrastination hits self-confidence pretty damn hard.

From here on out I'm generalizing, but I'd guess that everybody who knows they procrastinate knows, somewhere in their subconscious, that they don't deserve excellence. We all knew the geniuses and golden students in high school who did everything and knew everything; we know we're not them.

The way I understand the capitalism lie: if you work hard enough, you WILL rise in society. That's its selling point. You work hard, and you get to advance. There are people poorer than you, and they're there because they were lazier than you and didn't go to school or didn't show up to work on time. In communism, those bums would be eating part of your paycheck! And that's not right!

But the middle class also understands that they are not honor students. They're not working hard enough. They know they're not working hard enough, because they're procrastinating. Every time they watch TV instead of, I don't know, writing a novel or something they know they've failed. All that guilt builds up, and they come to accept their average place in society. Every time they pass up an opportunity for self-improvement, they're admitting that they don't deserve any actual money or power.

If nobody procrastinated--if everybody always wrote A+ essays--that giant, collective sense of general failure and acceptance of mediocrity would disappear. And then people would start to wonder why they still weren't captains of industry. And then people would start to get angry.

Dare I go one step further? Dare I suggest that the population is actually being controlled through false responsibilities that cannot be fulfilled? Dare I say this guilt is being generated? Again, human food does not exist. There's virtually no way to get 100% of your daily required everything. There IS a way, but it's hard as fuck, it involves expensive supplements, and nothing will ever taste good again for the rest of your life. But since that possibility is there, and you are not going for it, you have failed to even take care of your body. You're a failure. You don't work hard enough to earn riches. You deserve your apartment and your debt.

That above description applies to you. It applies to everyone. If you can name one person who isn't guilty about the crap they eat in the slightest, I'll buy you a Big Mac. But fighting diets is hard, so people say "fuck it," and then that attitude spills over to everywhere else in their lives.

I'd like to succeed in life. I'd like to become a famous cartoonist, and I'd like a bunch of teenagers to have shelves full of my work. I'd like to meet a cute, creative girl--possibly a publishing executive between one and three years younger than me--and marry her, and buy her a house which, while not a mansion, will still have a pool and an expensive-looking kitchen. I'd like to make her a delicious gourmet dinner, and then pleasure her gently for hours with my white but oh so tanned Will Smith body. After, as she rests her flushed cheek against my chiseled man-chest, I will do that thing where ripped guys flex just one of their pecs. It will be the pec she is lying on, and she will giggle. (I've thought about this.)

But, I:
-Haven't learned how to make cartoons properly
-Haven't tried to submit anything to any publishing executive
-Haven't learned to cook anything more complicated than scrambled eggs
-Haven't established a healthy workout routine
-Hell, I still haven't bought those sexy boxers!

All of this is doable, but procrastination is holding me back. I want that life, but I'm not demanding it, because I know I don't deserve it, because I'm not working for it.

So I guess you win for now, capitalism. I'll escape the working class yet!

A Short Story Involving Semen

2010-07-16T12:03:00.000-07:00

Swallow, come!

A man has a job interview on the 50th story of a giant office building. He gets into the elevator, and three woman join him: a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead.

They pick their floors (all very high up) and the doors close. The man notices that there's a distinct blob of goo on the inside of the doors. He frowns. "Is that... is that cum?"

The redhead looks at it. "Looks like cum," she says.

The brunette leans in and sniffs it. "Smells like cum."

The blonde gets on her knees, scoops some up with her fingers, and pops it in her mouth. Everyone else stares at her as she swishes it around. She looks puzzled.

After she's had it in her mouth for more than a few uncomfortable seconds, the man has to ask her. "Well? Is it cum?"

She nods slowly. "Yeah, it's cum..."

"...Just not from anybody who works in this building!"

I'm not sure what's funnier about this: that the blonde has apparently sucked off everybody in the company, or that I HEARD THIS STORY FROM A CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY, and he had to use the word "semen," and that he had to whisper it every time.

:D

Norland and Sprott Go Hunting

2010-07-14T12:32:00.001-07:00

Nobody Google any of these jokes.

As you may not have been forced to know, I own two puppets. I've named them Norland and Sprott, and today I wrote a hack script for them instead of studying for tomorrow's Bioethics midterm.

Two of the jokes are original: try to guess which!

NORLAND AND SPROTT GO HUNTING

A Hack Puppet Show Script (which is the BEST KIND OF SCRIPT) by Jon Ashton

NORLAND walks through a forest.

NORLAND
Good morning, flowers! Want to play
some poker? We could make all our
wagers in SCENTS… (no laughter)

Enter SPROTT with a rifle.

SPROTT
He-ey-ey, Norland!

Pause for applause.

NORLAND
Sprott! What are you doing
out here—are you HUNTING?

SPROTT
Yeah! I got my sawed-off
shotgun and everything!

NORLAND
Where’s the handle and trigger?

SPROTT
I guess I sawed off the wrong end! (laughter)

NORLAND
Well at least I don’t have to
worry about you actually hitting anything.

Sprott hits Norland.

SPROTT
Ahahahahahaaha!

NORLAND
Sprott!

SPROTT
I’m just playing. Here, I’ll go
shoot a zebra for you.

NORLAND
A zebra?

SPROTT
Yeah! Your mom’s in prison,
so you can use the skin to make
her a fur coat! (laughter)

NORLAND
You shouldn’t shoot animals.
It’s harmful and unproductive!

SPROTT
You can make piano keys from
elephant tusks!

NORLAND
It takes over 50 elephants to
make one piano!

SPROTT
Wow! How do you think they train
them for that kind of delicate
work? (laughter)

NORLAND
Ahh, hah, hah. I bet you don’t
even have a hunting license.

SPROTT
I do too! Here you go!

NORLAND
This is just a picture of
Emma Watson!

SPROTT
You hunt what you like and
I’ll hunt what I like! (laughter)

NORLAND
Oh, Sprott.

SPROTT
Come on, Norland! What’s your
favorite wild game?

NORLAND
Pictionary.

SPROTT
Awww, that’s not wild game!

NORLAND
It is the way I play it! (no laughter)
Okay, let’s go for a walk.

They walk. Norland starts drinking.

SPROTT
Is that beer? I guess that’s why they call
it a mountain tr-ALE.

NORLAND
Oh, shush. I just brought this
in case somebody caught a chill.
What did you bring?

SPROTT
A chill!

Sprott grabs the bottle and drinks the rest. (Laughter).

A GROWLING is heard from below the stage.

SPROTT
What was that?

NORLAND
Oh no! We must be near the mountain
lion!

SPROTT
We ARE near the mountain. You’re not
lyin’!

NORLAND
No, a mountain lion!

SPROTT
A mountain lying? I didn’t even
know mountains could tell the truth!

NORLAND
Sprott!

The lion growls again.

SPROTT
One of us should trap it. There might
be a reward!

NORLAND
Then I should go.

SPROTT
Why you?

NORLAND
Because your trap won’t shut!

Norland slaps Sprott in the mouth. He looks down into the cave and starts to shake.

SPROTT
That sure is polite of you!

NORLAND
Polite?

SPROTT
Yeah, your knees are knocking
before you enter!

NORLAND
Okay, I’m going in. If that
lion comes out, don’t shoot at
him!

SPROTT
Why not?

NORLAND
I might be in him!

Norland walks in. There is a scream.

SPROTT
Oh, no! My best friend is dead!

A roar.

SPROTT
If only somebody could rescue him!

Another scream. Then, munching.

SPROTT
It’s too late! (aside to audience)
Thank god.

Sprott sits down. Norland walks out of the cave eating popcorn.

SPROTT
Norland! You’re safe! Is that…
popcorn?

NORLAND
Yeah! It turns out the lion was the
MGM studios lion. We watched Jeepers
Creepers, Agent Cody Banks and James
Bond: Quantum of Solace.

Beat.

SPROTT
I’m so sorry.

NORLAND
WHY COULDN’T IT HAVE JUST EATEN ME?!

Beat.

SPROTT
I have one more safari hunting joke.

NORLAND
Sprott, you’ve never been on safari!

SPROTT
Have too! In fact, I’ve been on safari
in Toronto!

NORLAND
You can’t go on safari in Toronto.

SPROTT
What about the sa-FERRY to Centre Island?
AHAAHAHAHAHAHA!

NORLAND
Goodnight everybody.

We Must Destroy All Pets And Babies

2010-07-11T20:05:00.000-07:00

There's no way around it, folks.

I was just rereading that stellar post I did about human food. My sage words inspired me, and I realized why Human Food would never work, and subsequently why all diets are bullshit:

Diets require you to treat yourself like a baby or a pet.

Babies and pets have very controlled meals. You don't want your pet to die early; dogs are expensive. And people also want to keep babies alive for some reason. So we militantly enforce their diets. If people could pretend that they themselves are a baby/pet, they would be able to control their own food intake the same way.

The problem is, babies suck. Nobody wants to be a baby. They're second class citizens. And while the better-trained pets are acceptable in polite company, they still aren't exactly role models. Nobody aspires to be a dog.

If America wants to solve their obesity problem, they're going to have to get rid of all babies and pets. Some brave scapegoat is going to have to seize control of the country and enforce some kind of baby annihilation law. Once all babies and kittens have been exterminated, good leadership may resume. Proceed to step two.

In post-infant America, babies and puppies will be glorified. Worshipped. Everybody will be all remember babies? Weren't they cute? And then, free from the association with creatures that just plain poo on the floor, controlled diets will become popular again.

It's the only way.

Human Food

2010-07-10T22:01:00.000-07:00

I'm about to solve obesity. Loosen your pantaloons!

Know who never gets fat? Dogs. Dogs have a very restricted diet, generally fed the same dry pellets every day (with a few snacks based on what their owners are eating). And dog food, because of Capitalism, is healthy. It's got all the vitamins and minerals and calories they need; it'll clean their teeth; it'll fix their digestive systems; it'll give them firm, regular, coiled poops.

I'd like to imagine that all the animals at the zoo have their own specially crafted foods too. Giraffe food, tiger food, elephant food. That's how they get to be so majestic.

Why has nobody ever tried to make human food?

It'd make a fortune. All some zoologist has to do is look at humans from a biological standpoint and determine the ideal food for our digestive systems, then produce some expensive bags of human-specific kibble. The guarantee is that if you eat only this kibble for three meals a day (while maintaining recommended exercise routines), you will become your healthiest possible self.

There are people who would take you up on that offer. Everybody would try a bowl of the stuff at least once, just to check it out. You'd have an immediate contract with every hospital.

Once the basic formula gets enough popularity, you can start playing with the brand. People want diversity, so make different breakfast, lunch and dinner blends, where you must eat all three in a day to get all the nutrition.

The reason why people are so obese is that nobody trusts the food they buy. There is no right choice! Goddamn everything is made in a chemical factory with tons of additives and preservatives and pesticides. We're told it's all bad for us but then given nothing that is good for us. If you can make an organic, perfectly healthy bag of human food, it will sell, no matter what the cost. You'll have a monopoly in the "actually designed to be good for you" market.

Now that's food for thought!

Guys, I Think I'm Old

2010-07-07T19:41:00.000-07:00

What's that, sonny?

I wrote this post just now, under the title Super Thermos! And then I read it, and got more depressed than I've ever been. It's about glassware, a general preference for heavier objects, and thermos capacity.

I realized about a week ago that it will soon be possible to optimize my life. I'll be moving out in September, with my own place, with my own appliances and furniture and utensils and everything.

For example: I like heavy, thick glassware. I love those tall clear-green glass cups that look like they've melted a little bit and already feel full when you haven't even poured anything into them. My house doesn't have any of those--the last time we bought glasses I was too young to have input. But my new glasses are gonna be awesome! I will have really excellent glassware.

My pillows, blankets, towels, forks and plates will also be slightly thicker and heavier than average. I like things to be thick and heavy, I guess. Apple is going the wrong direction with its iPhones.

Know who else is going the wrong direction? Thermos. I love the idea of a thermos! You carry it around, it keeps your beverage at its best temperature as long as possible. But to my knowledge, no thermos has any decent capacity. All the ones I've seen, even at stores, look huge--but when you open them up, it's all insulation. They carry the equivalent of a medium-size bowl of soup; that's it. I'd love to get a giant thermos, and fill it halfway, then freeze that--and top it up in the morning, for cold water all day. But that just isn't possible yet, even though, dramatic pause, we have the technology.

Guys, I think I'm old.

Awesome Future Internet

2010-07-06T10:23:00.000-07:00

Nerdiness! Nerdiness! Oh god!

Know what annoys me? When amazing science fiction technology is possible but doesn't exist. Where are the flying cars? Where are the jet packs? Why are sexbots so damn expensive?!

The biggest gap I'm seeing between present technology and science fiction awesomeness is the way we access the Internet. Observe: I'm typing this into a rectangle. Behind this rectangle is a flat desktop. I don't care how many gradients and shiny buttons I see. I don't care how rounded the corners of this rectangle are. 1995 called; they want their operating system back.

But in movies! Christ! You just put on your virtual reality helmet, and a digital avatar of you gets to walk around in this awesome 3D glowy-green-grid on black. Sometimes that grid is purple, and that's even cooler.And there are all these windows floating around, and you literally float into the air and fly into them to access different websites.

So what exactly is impossible about this, again?

You know virtual reality helmets are doable. We've had those glasses that play movies since what, 2005? And now that James Cameron showed everybody where the money pile is, 3D glasses--and by extension VR glasses--might actually wind up being a big part of people's home entertainment systems.

You know glowy green grids on black backgrounds are possible. We even have the technology to move digital characters around in this virtual space. That's what the N64 was.

What I propose is a new web browser, available on the Xbox 360 or PS3, running on the same engine as a 3D action-adventure RPG.

You put on your glasses. There's a whooshing sound, and then you're standing in an endless 3D green-lines-on-black grid. Hovering immediately around you are floating windows representing the most popular web pages of the day. You're hit with the news, the weather outside, major sports updates, all kinds of shit. If these windows annoy you you can ignore them or delete them. If you want to see the full websites, you'd jump into these windows just like a painting in Super Mario 64.

If that website has learned to program in Web 3.0, you can explore a new 3D version of their site. Maybe The New York Times has set up a fake version of Times Square, with giant signs all over the place containing their articles. You just walk around and look at each article. The Apple site would be a virtual Apple Store, with the option to whistle for an employee to help you out.

Social networking: Facebook would turn into this weird gallery of pictures of people, with all of your online friends milling around. Instead of poking them, you can just walk right up to their Internet character and say hello.

Advertising: in 3.0-enabled sites, advertisers can create simple characters who would just stand around. You might be looking up at one of my blog entries when you see some weird yellow CGI dude in the corner. He's just standing there until you talk to him. Maybe he's holding a sign. When you talk to him, he says he's there to tell you about his new movie Despicable Me, and would you like to check out the trailer?

At all times you can fly, and you are free to bring virtual weapons to blow things up. (Each site will automatically refresh when you leave, allowing you to revisit it clean and new the next time.)

Yes, this is impractical. But so is any car that costs more than a 2006 Honda Civic. And in a time where everybody is A) pessimistic about future technology and B)looking for the next big Internet sensation, I can't see why this wouldn't at least convince the dumber investors.

I demand an RPG web browser. I require no royalties. Somebody get on this, now.

Rappers Should Be Politicians

2010-07-04T18:30:00.000-07:00

Quit wiretappin my tapings/my rapping's been raping/I'm just tryin'a say things/why you gotta be hatin'?

Rappers are great at staying on message. Here are their seven most important talking points; I defy you to find any dropped track that isn't about at least two of these.

1. I'm good at rapping.

2. I used to be poor, but now I am rich.

3. My friends and I sure are tough.

4. Hellooo, Nurse!

5. People are copying my rapping style and I don't appreciate that.

6. I would like very much to hurt a specific person who has angered me.

7. Fuck tha police.

FUN ACTIVITY: Can you guess which three points will get your single banned from Virgin Radio?

EVEN MORE FUN ACTIVITY: Next time you hear a song about how hot a girl is, just imagine the artist saying "Hellooo, Nurse!" instead.

Have You Heard The One About The Art Gallery?

2010-07-04T18:14:00.000-07:00

Damn right you haven't! I just wrote it!

There's an art gallery in Germany--don't fall asleep! This is interesting! There's an art gallery in Germany where you have to carry a bee around with you.

You walk inside, and there's an old man with a buzzing jar of live bees. You cup your hands; he takes a pair of tweezers, picks a bee, and drops it onto your palm. Then you just kind of close your hands over the bee and trap it. They're pretty slow and dumb, probably because they're almost dead from being in that jar for so long.

Yeah, some people get stung, but they have all kinds of creams and salves you can use. They even have epipens in case one of their patrons is allergic. The guards are all trained in first aid in case anybody's face starts puffing up. Nobody gets hurt, but everybody goes home remembering the important things: the paintings were fantastic. The sculptures were gorgeous.

Because beauty is in the eye of the bee holder.

Racism Insurance

2010-07-03T11:51:00.000-07:00

"I voted for Barack Obama."

I have an idea for a character. I have nothing for him to do, and no supporting role for him, but he's going to exist somewhere in something I do. For now he is but a sperm of an idea; allow me to briefly jizz him onto your face.

He's a black guy who makes a living just introducing himself to the children and pets of wealthy white people.

"There are so many rich white families who just don't wind up interacting with black people," he'll say at a bar somewhere. "Their kids are gonna meet maybe one black kid at their high school. Their pets never will. And the thing is, these white families aren't racist. They're terrified of being racist. Their segregation is just an accident: they got rich; black people didn't. And they're scared that one day they will meet a black teacher or employer or business partner, and their kids will be scowling or their dogs will bark. So they want to get some exposure in early. That's where I come in. I'll hang around them, let them see me, let them smell me, then they grow up okay with me. I sell racism insurance."

A side note to this post: you should probably stop reading this blog. It's absolutely covered in idea jizz.

Social Learning Experiment

2010-07-01T13:22:00.000-07:00

I'm studying the effects of cash on willingness to participate in studies.

Here's a fun activity concept: put 200 people in a gymnasium with wickets and decks of cards. By the end of the day, everybody in that gymnasium must know how to play both cricket and bridge.

There are supervisors, but they cannot help. The assumption here is that of these 200 people at least one of them will know how to play cricket, and at least one of them will know how to play bridge. These people must then teach the others. Once you've grasped how to play, you must then help everyone else. Eventually, everyone will know how to play both. You walk away either satisfied that you've benefitted others (and the pride of having a leadership role) or with an understanding of two new games.

What if nobody there knows how to play either? Somebody will have a smartphone, smartass.

Modern society is very... individual. And organized. There aren't many opportunities, except for during disasters, for a large group of people to get together and work towards a community goal without authoritative leadership. And with central news outlets, Facebook, Wikipedia, and Twitter we've lost our need to pass on knowledge orally. But we've only been acting like this for a few hundred years... certainly there's a part of us that wants to work as a tribe again?

I chose cricket and bridge because fucking nobody knows how to play either of those. Feel free to change, add, or subtract games as you see fit. Board games, cooking a specific dish, learning stories, whatever. As long as the concept involves teaching people something.

The applications for this activity are, if not endless, far-horizoned. It could be a great fundraiser for a school-- $5 to participate, or free with a paid snack bar. It could be a teambuilding activity for large corporations. (Or even small ones--get a group of four people and tell them they have one hour to learn to play Euchre. After that, they'll work great together.) It could be a sponsored promotional stunt for a new Hasbro board game. It could even be used as a cultural assimilation tactic, teaching new immigrants how to play popular Canadian sports.

Would you participate in something like this?

A New Dirty Joke!

2010-07-01T13:06:00.000-07:00

[Choir of angels going AHHHHHH]

We all know how lonely it gets out on farms, especially when the Internet is out. And so it came to pass that one night, while his parents were out, a teenage farm boy decided that he should try to make love to a hard boiled egg.

He boiled the egg, worked a hole into it, put it on the edge of their wooden breakfast table, and just went to town. He closed his eyes and thought of cowgirls and Vanessa Hudgens and sock puppets. He was really tearing into that egg.

What he didn't notice, in this fit of passion, was that the egg was crumbling--and that the table was rough. In fact, by the time he finished, the egg was nothing but dirty, bloody clumps, and his penis was covered in blisters and slivers from the intense friction against the table.

It took him weeks to heal, and he was in constant pain. But he learned a valuable lesson, one that he would pass on to his sons for generations:

Never mount your chickens before they've hatched.

I Think I Can Guess The Plot of Twilight

2010-06-29T19:29:00.001-07:00

Here goes...

So The Twilight Saga: Midnight Rainbow or whatever is going to be in theaters soon. I have only the vaguest idea of what it's about. I'm not going to see it. But you know what? It's fun to extrapolate. What follows is an educated but entirely uninformed guess at the plot of the first Twilight book. If anybody out there has actually read 'em, let me know how close I am!

TWILIGHT, MAYBE: A point-form novel by Jon Ashton and Stephanie Meyer.

-Main character high school girl is not popular. Cheerleaders are. She is not a cheerleader.
-Main character girl gets crush on creepy but scrumptious guy.
-It turns out he's a vampire.
-When he finds out she knows, he offers to date her to keep her quiet.
-He can't kiss her, or else he'd lose all control and bite her.
-He can't turn her into a vampire, because he respects her "life force" or some made up, equally meaningless term.
-All his vampire friends want to eat her.
-"No. Don't," Edward whispered menacingly. "This one's different."
-"Do you... love her?" scoffed Vlancibar. The other vampires laughed.
-He turned back to them once more before vanishing into the dark forest mist. "Yes," he growled. "Stay away."
-They don't stay away.
-After a big ol' fight, main character girl is pretty much dead.
-Edward must turn her into a vampire--or else lose her forever.
-He is about to, but he decides to kiss her first, and that somehow wakes her up.
-They kiss again a few times, with great detail.
-"I'll make you a vampire in some forthcoming book," he promised her as he cradled her in his arms. Looking into his golden eyes, she knew he was telling the truth.
-The sun comes up.

The sequels involve her cheating on him with a werewolf, and then some giant war between all vampires and all werewolves. How'd I do?

Tales From The Resistance

2010-06-28T15:53:00.000-07:00

Tell me if you've heard this one...

I present for you a dialogue. Behold, my most triumphant protest moment!

Scenario: a human wall of silent riot officers have detained us in a rainy intersection without food, shelter, warning or cause.

ME: I think I'm gonna go annoy the shit out of these cops.

DAVID: I'm in.

We stand directly in front of the cops.

ME (loudly): David, have you heard the shaggy dog story?

DAVID (loudly): No, Jon! Tell us all!

ME: Well, there was once a boy who had a shaggy dog. As he patted his dog one day, he wondered if perhaps he had the shaggiest dog on his entire street.

DAVID: Did he, Jon?

ME: He did! He walked up and down the street, knocking on every door of every house, demanding the occupants produce a dog shaggier than his. And they didn't!

DAVID: Wow!

ME: Yes! So he thought: maybe I have the shaggiest dog in the entire town! He rushed to Google, and found that the very next week there was a contest--a contest to name the shaggiest dog in town!

DAVID: How coincidental!

ME: Indeed! So he signed up for the contest, and arrived at the contest, and placed his dog on a judging pedestal, and a judge considered his dog with the rest, and after much deliberation determined that YES! His dog was the shaggiest dog in the entire town!

DAVID: Gosh!

ME: At that point, the boy had stars in his eyes. He knew--he KNEW--that his dog was the shaggiest dog in the entire country. And so he ran home to Google! And Twitter! And Facebook! And he found that far away, in British Columbia, there was to be held a contest to decide once and for all whose dog was the shaggiest in all of Canada. And the contest was in three days!

DAVID: Do go on!

ME: The boy immediately grabbed his shaggy dog and threw it in the back seat of his van. He jumped in, revved his engine, and drove madly West. He passed lakes and forests and fields and mountains, and even hotels and restaurants, for he drove without eating or sleeping for three days. Of course, he brought treats for his beloved shaggy dog.

DAVID: Of course.

ME: After days of nonstop driving, he finally arrived at the convention hall in British Columbia. He let his dog out of the car, and together they entered--and what did they see?

DAVID: (silent expectation)

RIOT OFFICERS: (silence, unable to admit they are curious)

ME: He saw row after row of pedestal after pedestal of shaggy dogs! The line stretched down as far as the eye could see, with each dog shaggier than the last! He found an empty pedestal right at the end, and placed his dog on it, and looked down the line. And way back, at the back of the convention centre, there was a man in a suit, with a thin moustache, and a monocle, and pocket timepiece, and perhaps a cane.

I pause for breath, on account of it is raining like a motherfucker and I gave up on our umbrella an hour ago. The guards glance at me, expectant of the conclusion. A crowd of other detainees has formed behind me.

ME (continued): And the man was judging the dogs! He would stop at each one, and consider its shagginess, and pet the dog, and feel its shagginess, and lift a single hair to extend it from the body, and kiss it gently on the nose. At the end of this examination, he would whisper his judgment in the owner's ear, so that no other owner could hear.

DAVID: Go on, Jon!

ME: And the judge did this for every dog in the room, one after another, for what seemed like hours, days, months, years--until he finally reached the boy with his shaggy dog. The judge stopped, and stroked his moustache, and patted the dog. He ran his skeletal hands under the dog's belly. He raised the dog's tail. He took out a thin tape measure, with notches down smaller than millimetres, and took note of the length of the dog's hair. Then he drew himself up to his full height,

I pause for dramatic effect. One of the riot cops seems to lean in.

ME: And he leaned in to the boy,

Another cop is glaring suspiciously at me.

ME: And he says: I'VE SEEN SHAGGIER.

I make a TA-DAA! motion. There is a very long pause.

The following exchange actually happened, word for word.

RIOT OFFICER (slowly): You just wasted five minutes of my life.

ME (yelling at the top of my lungs): YOU JUST WASTED TWO HOURS OF MY LIFE!

RIOT OFFICER: (angriest look ever)

ME (terrified): Thank you for the irony, sir!

Attention Riot Officers!

2010-06-28T10:21:00.001-07:00

A cowardly hindsight speech.

ATTENTION RIOT OFFICERS!

You are all under arrest! Your crime: obeying without question the cruel and irrational commands of a tyrannical organization!

Your punishment: you are to STAND! MOTIONLESS! For HOURS! You may not SPEAK! You may not SMILE! You may not sing, pray, chew gum or cry! From this moment on you are to be dumb, mute, bricks devoid of any shred of HUMANITY!

Your NAMES are now NUMBERS! Your FACES are now MASKS! Not one of you is in any way different from any other! AM I UNDERSTOOD?!

This punishment will CONTINUE until either your commanding officer arbitrarily RELEASES you or you RENOUNCE THE AUTHORITY of said commanding officer!

Until such a time, you have no option but to stand and watch yourself contribute to one of the worst human rights offences in recent Canadian history.

The G20 Broke My Phone

2010-06-27T20:57:00.000-07:00

Queen/Spadina protest survivor 2010!

So as far as I understand it: there are rich people and there are poor people. When rich people want to have a big expensive party in downtown Toronto and not invite poor people, poor people are allowed to walk around in the street and yell stuff. I think that's a fair trade! You get to exploit Africa, we get to jaywalk for a weekend. That's a workable arrangement.

This vague comprehension of "protesting" led me to the G20 earlier today. And now I will sit naked, eat some steak, and write down everything that happened. Nico: you bet your ass I'll be exaggerating. No contradictions, okay?

First, there was packing. If you want to have an adventure like this one, you should bring:

-Cut-up tshirt rags, to cover your mouth in case of tear gas
-Vinegar, with which to soak these rags for maximum protection
-A super angry 8.5x11" protest sign with a sharpened pencil for a stick
-A list of all your rights and tips on how to avoid confrontation/arrest
-Water
-Peanuts

*Note: everything except the water and peanuts will be confiscated by a police officer.

So we got downtown, picked up our pre-protest Iced Hot Chocolates from Second Cup, got our cool shit taken away by an officer who wasn't even wearing riot gear and made our way to a protest. There was a hobo who carried a Michelle Obama tote bag, and Spock's dad dressed up as corn (seriously), and a bunch of people on bikes. Also: a wall of cops, blocking a road to nothing.

I asked one of them what they were protecting. They didn't answer. I asked another. He didn't answer. Some asian kid told me they weren't talking--which was redundant at that point, but refusing the advice of an asian kid brings great dishonor so I thanked him for the information. Then we went around the building, successfully passing the wall of cops. Point: protestors.

It turned out the cops were guarding two buses, which were housing the real cops: RIOT OFFICERS, henceforth referred to as DOUCHEBAGS. Or maybe I'll stick with riot officers for a little while.

A riot officer is to a cop what a Moltres is to a Torchic. Er... or what a Spiny is to a green Koopa Troopa. For the ladies: what a Bill Compton is to an Edward Cullen. They're pretty much pumped up to look like really big cops, then given shields, helmets and sticks. Some of them had orange guns. I assume they shot laser beams.

We saw them get out of the buses. We saw them line up for orders. We saw them bang their shields in unison, then walk in double file DIRECTLY TOWARDS US. We stepped out of the way, THEY TURNED TO FOLLOW US. I stood heroically as long as I could before I ducked and rolled out of the way, in the nick of time.

Eventually we were shooed away, so we followed a bunch of bikers up... Bay street? Was that Bay? Anyway, there was a huge amount of us, so we got ballsy and walked through some red lights. That was pretty sweet. Cops stopped us at Queen, but then they let us go, and then cops on horses (!) stopped us further up Queen, but then they let us go, and then riot officers (!!) stopped us at Queen and Spadina, and didn't let us go. They wanted us to march aimlessly down Spadina, but we wanted to march aimlessly down Queen. So we just stopped at the intersection and fucked up traffic for a while.

When we got there, there was one wall of human pylons stopping us from going down Queen Street, and one wall stopping us going left onto Spadina. We stayed for a while, just hanging out, sitting down, talking about oppression. You know, protestor shit.

Then a third wall blocked off the other direction on Spadina.

Then riot officers started marching up behind us, up Queen, the way we came.

Then more riot officers came from both sides of Spadina, to reinforce the existing human walls.

We were trapped.

Apparently, this is when they told us we could leave. We didn't hear about this option. All we saw was a sea of angry douchebags. Henceforth, riot officers WILL be referred to as douchebags.

At 5:30pm, we were stuck in the intersection. No in or out. No buying food, no going to the bathroom, just stuck in the intersection.

At 6:00 it started raining.

At 7:00 we were completely soaked and grumbling about the douchebags, who weren't moving.

Between 7 and 8 my personal retaliations were pretty lame. I was this shivering, soaked mess, but I still got in some psychological damage. I asked the silent dbags how they would be describing our detainment to their children, and while they were slowly passing their water bottle around I drank greedily from mine in front of dbags who hadn't got their drink yet.

Between 8 and 8:30, I gathered some people around and loudly told them annoying stories directly in front of three douchebags. I got the Shaggy Dog Story in, and the one about the African king, and the one about the man who kayaked across the Yukon, and even the story of the Gingerbread Man. It was still raining. I was still shaking.

Then they shrunk our little circle, and brought in even more officers, and made us huddle in a clump. There was talk that we were to be arrested. That was cool with me. Have you ever stood still in the pouring rain for 3 hours because other thinking human beings forced you to? It kind of sucks. You wind up wanting any out possible.

From there, they started arresting people one at a damn time. Remember: hundreds of us. While we wailed and gnashed our teeth they promised us hypothermia-proof TTC buses; these buses did not come. We stood there for another hour.

At 10:00 we were told we had apparently all been arrested for CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT MISCHIEF and DISTURBING THE PEACE. I'm both a conspirator and a shit disturber! But they had graciously decided to let us go, because finally their common sense kicked in.

Just to recap: hundreds of protestors walked around in the street on Queen. At Spadina they were trapped and detained for four hours in the pouring rain while rows and rows of police stared blankly ahead.

I don't speak for everybody who went through that, but I'd like to think I do. And speaking on their behalf: I hate police now. Congratulations, $900 million security force: you successfully turned hundreds of peaceful protestors into angry fucking activists. I can definitely see the appeal of breaking windows/flipping cop cars now.

Also, the rain broke my damn phone.

That's not the note I want to leave on, though. All things considered, I had a great time. I got to experience tyranny, and dodge a double file marching line of riot officers coming directly at me. So to a certain quivering veal cutlet: I appreciate your voice of reason, but I wouldn't have traded today for all the sensible work hours in the world.

Atrocity or AtrNOTcity?

2010-06-22T23:40:00.000-07:00

Starring Paris Hilton.

Welcome to Atrocity or Atrnotcity? With Jon Ashton, the blog entry dedicated to pondering the actual harm caused by ostensibly horrible acts. Need something justified? You've come to the right place.

Imaginary Audience Fan Person writes,

I know getting high while pregnant will mess up your baby. But what about smoking a joint during labour?

That's an excellent question, IAFP. For an answer, I consulted my vague 3am knowledge of childbirth. It says that the baby comes out attached to an umbilical cord, which is attached to a placenta and other afterbirth shit. Before you hit that joint, I'd suggest you wait for the placenta to dislodge itself from your uterus. Otherwise, the THC might be absorbed by your baby. Have a doctor with X rays at hand to tell you precisely when this happens so you can start toking--without your baby croaking.

Judgment: ATRNOTCITY.

Tune in next time, when we discuss Guantanamo Bay, the G20, Israel/Palestine, and Head from a Shemale: is that gay?

Songburger with Pickles

2010-06-22T21:15:00.000-07:00

Cuz you're my cheeseburger, my tasty cheeseburger...

I may not be a music man, but I know a mood-fitting song when I hear it. Like, just for an example here, when I'm on the bus home from Toronto late at night after another failed date and a sad-ass song about life and failure pops up on my iPod. Tonight's was Captain Jack by Billy Joel, and it had me bowing my head and raising my fist in the air all dramatically. For most of it.

For ~~those of you who aren't familiar with the song~~ all of you, it's about a 21 year old loser. He's got nothing to do, and his life isn't turning out right, and he still lives with his parents. That just about lines up with me. I'll amen that.

His sister's going out, she's on a date, but he just sits at home and masturbates. Well, I don't have a sister, but I can see the pain there. That's me most nights. Sing it, man.

It's a beautiful song, and it's sad, and the moral is that Captain Jack--a drug dealer, according to Wikipedia--can make all your problems go away by selling you drugs. I've got weed going on as a partial life solution right now. I can relate to that.

And then the God damned third verse goes and be's about the character's dad dying in a swimming pool and him dropping out of school.

I mean, what is this, Billy? You rope me in with all this relatability and empathy, and then hit me with a wildly improbable scenario? I mean, I can see my dad dying, but not in our swimming pool. We don't even have a swimming pool. And I have to mention: there's a fourth verse after the third verse, and his dad doesn't factor into it. It's not like the swimming pool death was necessary to the story arc of the song. It just... happens in the middle somewhere.

It just doesn't make sense, Billy. It just doesn't make sense. You've got a delicious cheeseburger of a song. Why would you put pickles on there? Pickles don't belong on songburgers.

Here's the song on YouTube. I don't know why it's seven minutes long.

Topic for class discussion: do you have any songs that were almost perfect for you, except for one ridiculously off-the-mark verse?

Coin Flips Are Not Random

2010-06-20T19:15:00.000-07:00

And probability is an illusion!

Because I am a nerd, I've been spending my Sunday night reading a philosophy book by the guy who draws Dilbert. The main idea is that God blew himself up in the Big Bang, and that we're all little pieces of him as he slowly reconstructs himself. It's kind of cool, except he keeps going on about coin flips and probability. And I just want to scream:

COIN FLIPS ARE NOT RANDOM!

Ever flip a coin? You need to flick it so that it will turn in midair. If you flick it hard, it will go higher and turn more. If you flip it softly, it might just flop over your thumb onto your index finger.

The amount of times the coin turns in midair is directly caused by how much energy you, the flipper, put into the flip. The end result depends on where you catch it OR the surface texture of whatever it winds up landing on.

See? A coin flip is just a chain reaction set in motion by whatever amount of energy you put into it. When you flip a coin, you are NOT creating a hole of uncertainty in the universe.

I just wanted to make that clear. Thumb plus coin does not equal suspension of the laws of causality.

Maximizing Your Caffeine Intake with Jon Ashton

2010-06-17T14:04:00.000-07:00

Warning: you may require additional drugs to sleep.

It's a well-documented fact at this point that the average male student requires 8 1/2 glasses of caffeine per day. But in today's society, who has time to wait in god damn line all the time for the stupid cashier to finally get to him and then probably mess up his coffee order god damn it god damn it you just don't have time gotta move gotta jump gotta run faster than you fastest can!

Anyway, I have some tips on how you can work those last few servings of energy with minimal time or fuss.

1. Try Red Bull. Coffee may be natural, healthy and inexpensive, but Red Bull has just as much caffeine--plus taurine, guarine, ginseng, and other Asian-sounding things that may turn you into a ninja. The obvious advantage to Red Bull is that you can "shotgun" it--that is, use a common car key to puncture a hole in the side of the can so as to create a fast-flowing geyser of easily consumed foam. Up to six cans of Red Bull may be ingested during the time it would take you to force down a single cup of hot coffee.

2. Be creative with sweeteners. Instead of taking sugar in your coffee, why not fountain cola syrup? Many fast food restaurants will be happy to oblige you in this rational request. Cola syrup contains both sugar caffeine, as well as everything else that goes in Coke other than water. You can't lose!

3. You have more than one orifice. The bottles for 5, 6, and 8-hour "energy shots," available at most major convenience stores, are engineered to be broken down within three hours of exposure to your natural anal contractions. Plus, their sleek shape was designed with insertion in mind! Ingesting caffeine both orally and anally allows you to maximize your efficiency of consumption.

My typing speed for this entry was over 200 wpm. Hurray for summer school exam season!

Alvin Greene

2010-06-16T06:59:00.000-07:00

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

So here's a link to a credible source on Alvin Greene, but you don't need to click it. I can summarize. I'd love to summarize.

America is holding primaries for senate elections. In South Carolina, it costs $10400 to run as a Democrat. A dude paid that. And then, apparently, he forgot about it. He didn't campaign, or have any rallies, or go to Democratic conventions, or put up lawn signs, or make a website. He just kind of filed his name for consideration.

And he won. And now everybody's trying to figure out how this unemployed, sleepy looking black guy is their candidate. Some actual hypotheses:

-His name was first on the list; voters are idiots
-All the black people voted for him just because he's black
-Everybody thought he was Al Green, 1970s soul singer

Or maybe he's a Republican plant, designed to fuck up the South Carolina senate election. Because the Democrats have been doing great there for the past 60 years. Sarcasm.

I have no commentary on this. I just think it's hilarious. And now I'll leave you with the most awkward interview ever conducted:

144 Coincidences

2010-06-15T20:46:00.000-07:00

A novel.

Book idea: twelve young men find that their lives are uncannily similar to those of Jesus' twelve disciples. They attempt to avoid each other and their fates, but as coincidences build on coincidences they continually run into each other in highly unexpected and wildly improbable ways.

It's later revealed that the book is being narrated from a prison: later in their lives, a thirteenth man who improbably knew all of them had invited them out to dinner. Convinced he was Jesus and determined not to fall into their second hand life destinies all the "disciples" except the Judas character betrayed him at once. It was a bloody, fork-based, 11-on-1 murder.

You know I'm not gonna wind up actually writing this. But doesn't it sound like a synopsis of the kind of book everybody's Mom would read? Except for the fork part.

Another Comic?!

2010-06-10T12:57:00.001-07:00

And this essay is due really soon, too.

Get it? Because "pain" is French for "bread."

My Future

2010-06-10T11:19:00.001-07:00

Can anybody tell I'm procrastinating?

This is the exact situation I will be in when I graduate, except I probably won't have a purple person to set me up. Clickbig.

I Just Fixed The NHL

2010-06-10T07:31:00.000-07:00

I got sponsorship deals with the NHL, the NFL, and the CIA mofucka!

If you want to make a guy like me watch hockey, you had better let me play Pokemon at the same time. Or at least have some chips out to distract me. Otherwise I start to think about the structures of professional sports organizations and, before you know it, I've hypothesized an alternate way of running them.

According to every single sports movie I've seen, the major problem with pro sports is that there is no team loyalty anymore. People are getting traded, and moving, and even switching teams. So instead of cheering for a franchise, you start cheering for people. And the franchises start losing money.

My remedy: what if every major league team started buying up every playing field/rink/court in their area? This works best with hockey, because there are fewer skating rinks than baseball diamonds or basketball courts.

Imagine with me: the Leafs franchise either invests or straight up purchases every rec centre in the GTA capable of supporting a skating rink. Every child who wants to play hockey in a house league plays in a Toronto Maple Leafs house. The community grows up learning to play like the Leafs, buying Leafs jerseys in gift stores, and trading Leafs hockey cards. Etc.

As a result, everybody interested in hockey from the area develops a fierce loyalty to the home team. That's how they were raised! That's how they were trained! That's where they come from!

Now imagine: every team in the NHL does this. It's a requirement. Kids in Pittsburgh learn to play like Penguins. Kids in Chicago learn to play like black cocks. The next step is to require teams to draft only from their franchise.

This automatically makes everybody who plays hockey a legitimate member of their home team. They may only be ten years old; they may be in their forties just playing for fun after work--but if they play regularly on a Leafs rink, they're an official member of the Toronto Maple Leafs. And they are eligible to be chosen to represent the Toronto Maple Leafs, in the NHL, on TV. They probably won't ever be chosen, but there's a chance. There's that glimmer of a chance.

Trades are still possible, through people moving and playing at new rinks. But now that the audience has taken an ownership and a membership in their home team, they'll recognize impostors when they see them. "You there!" they'll exclaim, pointing at a player on their television screens. "You weren't trained with us! You're from New York. We do not support you!" Franchises will realize that loyalty is now important, and cease all trades.

A fun bonus realization: with team-switching now unpopular, they no longer have to pay their players nearly as much. Where are they going to go?

The final result is that the major leagues will actually represent their geographic area: everybody playing for Toronto comes from in or around Toronto. The winning team's home city will have legitimate bragging rights: our team is better! We defeated you, without having to ship in an army of Russians! Our city has been scientifically proven to be superior to yours in the game of hockey.

You ask any rat-tailed kid wearing a Battalion jacket. You go up to him, and say: "Wouldn't you be happier if every game of hockey you played was actually sponsored training for you to play with the Toronto Maple Leafs?"

He wouldn't understand the question. But if he did, his answer would be yes.

Scraps n' Pieces

2010-06-09T14:48:00.000-07:00

...n' scrips, n' also bits.

Two little things of creative note today:

1. I thought up an actual sitcom-style plot for Bottom of the Ninth! I'll describe it without character names, then defy you not to picture it in play out on Big Bang Theory/Better Off Ted/any sitcom with a nerdy character:

Situation: a nerdy character can't bring himself to ask out a girl. Instead, on Friday nights, he works with SETI@home and learns about SETI culture. SETI stands for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. In his learning, he discovers that while SETI is listening very closely for alien signals, it only ever sent one signal itself, back in the 1970s. In an impassioned speech, this nerdy character tells a crowd of SETI scientists that you don't start relationships by waiting for them to make the first move. You have to put yourself out there and--

...and so he realizes that he has a girl to ask out.

It's a cool metaphor, I think. And it's factual! SETI doesn't broadcast!

2. THIS:

Jon Ashton presents

The first draft script of

DATA MAN

A “modern” tale of heroism.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

MARSHAL JOHNSON/DATA MAN, a hip but awkward teenage boy who develops fantastic powers

JULIA LAKEPOND, a “spunky” girl who is also intelligent

MR PRECEDENT, a fabulously wealthy and generous entrepreneur WHO IS NOT ALL THAT HE APPEARS

SEVERAL ASSISTANTS, one of whom is significantly less lucky than the rest

MAMA JOHNSON, a supportive cookie-baker

DAD LAKEPOND, a failed inventor whose critiques of his daughter’s life can be considered abusive

ORPHANS, dozens and dozens of them, all of them cockney for some reason

And several supporting characters, including CAPTAIN GUIDANCE.

Get excited.

Breast Camp?

2010-06-06T05:50:00.000-07:00

...

Palestine needs a Ghandi/Martin Luther King Jr/Nelson Mandela. Somebody step up!

That's how you end oppression. You find somebody from within your culture who can speak with an eloquence your oppressors respect. You have them write some calm, rational essays. You have them deliver moving speeches. They must never be violent. They must never be insulting.

If the logic and empathy of your speaker doesn't inspire human compassion in your oppressors (it won't), your man will be jailed. Eventually, after an international PR nightmare, he'll be set free, your culture will be set free, and you'll go in the history books as a champion underdog.

There, I just solved the crisis in the Middle East.

Thursdays at 8, Only on Nintendo

2010-06-05T10:39:00.000-07:00

Or more likely, PSN.

In the past decade, the Youth Of Today have been trading hours watching television for hours playing video games. But deep down, I'm sure they have an instinct that thrashes out against doing things whenever they want; that demands a return to simpler time of appointment television. All dogs want to hunt. All kids want to be told when to play.

That's what I'll be banking on, at least, when I convince a major gaming corporation to invest in my new EPISODIC MMO concept!

(I refuse to Google that out of fear that it already exists.)

The coolest example I can think of is a Holocaust simulation, and hear me out because you know this would be cool as hell. When you sign up to play, you will be assigned a random civilian to play through the entire duration of the Holocaust. Your "race"-that's an MMO word, right?- would determine your role. If you're gay, black, or jewish, congratulations! You're being hunted. Everyone else will be given orders to do the hunting, and so forth.

Weapons and objects would not "spawn." Once a bullet is shot, it's shot. If your character dies, you die. But if you paid for the season, you're allowed to sign in and take an omniscient view of everybody else playing.

Important roles like Hitler and other Nazi executives would be played by moderators.

You'd sign up before the game starts, and then, at a specific date, at a specific time, the game will go live. And then would continue to be live every week at the same time. Kind of like episodes of a TV series, right?

It would be very interesting to see how many armed revolts against Hilter would happen, all entirely organized and improvised by players. How many crematoriums would be blown up? How many victims hidden?

That game would be playable every, say, Thursday night, from 8 to midnight. The rest of the week you'd be able to do target practice or exercise or some shit. But at 8pm on Thursdays, you're there, and you're excited.

Maybe on Monday nights smaller Lost-themed games could be set up. 8 players to a game room, every week, trying to figure out what island they're on. A cooperative, episodic Myst.

If these take off, a whole new gaming genre would be born. This company could run seven different games, every night of the week. They'd all go into reruns at the end of the season, so that everybody who missed it the first time can join in. And so that people who loved it can play again.

Do you think it would be an awesome surprise or a horrible mistake to have Hitler, in a terrifying twist, create walking robot things?

Is Our Children Learning?

2010-06-02T18:49:00.000-07:00

Still funny in 2010! At least, I think it is. Shut up.

I know a lot of you are busy "hanging out with friends" and "working full-time jobs, like a responsible adult" this summer, but I'm still in school. And I'm still thinking about school. So you're about to read about school, even though you don't want to think about it.

Don't worry though! You're about to get my entire Ryerson education thus far condensed into a single blog post. What follows is three years of lectures and projects, boiled relentlessly down to the bare bones of creamy white usefulness.

Ready?

1. If something looks like it should be illegal but isn't yet, do it. Like buying a VHS movie at consumer price and renting it out over and over without paying the producers any royalties. (1979-1982! So much money!) Or trading used video games without paying the producers any royalties. (Still legal! My mall has a Gamestop, an EB Games, and a We Got Games!) Or Napster.

2. License the fuck out of everything. Go full-out Krusty the Klown on everything you make, no matter how cheap. If somebody wants to pay you $7.50 a year for the rights to translate your show into Congolese, do it! That's $7.50 you just wouldn't get otherwise. Any rights you're holding onto but not using, license immediately.

3. Never sell anything outright unless the money is huge. Did you make a movie? Awesome. Don't sell it to a distributor. Rent it to the distributor, year after year. All of your projects are like trees! Edible trees. You could eat the whole trunk once, or you could keep eating tiny fruits forever.

4. Be a distributor. The real money isn't in being creative, and it isn't in selling to customers. It's that middle man who buys from the super-happy artists and sells in bulk to the people who can't leave their stores.

5. If it's been done, just do it a little better. The early bird gets the worm for like a minute before it's stolen. If you invent a new entertainment medium, somebody else will figure out a way to get the same result with a different machine, and your monopoly will disappear almost immediately. And they will do it better than you.

6. The 80/20 Rule: 80% of your merchandise sales are going to come from 20% of your fans. And these 20% are going to buy pretty much anything you make available to them. 4/5 of people you meet will say "I love Calvin and Hobbes." The fifth person will own all of the books.

7. Advertise! Advertise! Just having a good product just does not work unless everybody is repeatedly told that it is good. Look at Arrested Development.

Notice that there's nothing in these little lessons about working a camera or a microphone, or animating, or even basic screenwriting. That's because I still haven't learned any of that shit.

Maybe next year?

Oh, and you all owe me $15000.

Pirate School!

2010-05-26T20:34:00.000-07:00

Yarr, you were SUPPOSED to cheat on the final. Y'get an F.

Could 39 hours of lecture be considered a narrative format?

Check it out. I'm sure everybody reading this blog has stumbled across at least one entertaining professor in their academic careers. What if that prof were lecturing you on something which you knew, going into the course, was hilariously untrue?

Like a theory course on how to become an 18th century pirate. Actual historical accuracy would be padded significantly with the teacher's own imagination.

The course would morph into some weird cross between drama television, stand-up comedy, and actual social interaction. Over a standard 13-week "semester," students would attend one "lecture" per week. Each week the prof would entertain them with obvious bullshit, titillate them with a slowly unfolding overall story, and make them break into groups for exercises.

I assume the profs would do some heavy Wikipedia research, and would inadvertently deliver at least some factual information in their class. So there's even some basic education involved as well.

Students would be entertained, immersed, and unstressed. "Study groups" would form as the teacher hands out arbitrary assignments, so they'd even make friends.

Some course examples:

-Practical Piracy
-What If Hitler Won WWII?
-UFO Coverups of the 20th Century
-Time Travel: Theory and History
-The Intellectual Superiority of Women
-Defense Against the Dark Arts

For $100 per course, you'd be guaranteed a solid evening every Thursday night for a few months. You'd meet people and have stories to tell the people you've already met. Upon completion, you'd get a very clearly uncredited certificate. If this already existed, I'd be begging all of you to do it with me!

This could make an interesting side project. All I'd need to do is rent a church basement somewhere a few nights a week, and hire some drama-inclined teacher's college students...

I think I'd teach UFO coverups myself :D

No More Frogs!

2010-05-26T19:29:00.000-07:00

Somebody link this to the good people of Arizona.

Chompy the Gator
Many Many Turtles
and Many Many Frogs in
NO MORE FROGS!
A Fun in the Swamp ~~Cartoon~~ Allegory
Written and illustrated by Jon Ashton

Big ol' Swamps are good for turtles. They make the turtles happy!

Turtles are good for Chompy. He boils them alive to make his soup. This makes Chompy happy!

But are big ol' Swamps good for frogs? Let's find out.

It was a shining, starry day when a whole bunch of frogs hopped into the Swamp.

"The water is clean!" croaked a tall frog.

"The flies are low!" ribbited a fat frog.

All the frogs were happy!

They made fast friends with the turtles, because they shared a common love of stumps.

All the turtles were happy with their new friends!

Then it was noon o'clock. That's lumbering time for Chompy the Gator.

"Who are all you non-shell turtles?" lumbered Chompy. "Shells are the tasty part."

"But we have tasty legs!" surrendered a dumb frog.

Chompy ate the frog...

P-TOOOIE!

"I don't like frogs!" lumbered Chompy exubriously. "No more frogs!"

But the turtles really liked their frog friends.

One of the turtles was writing a whole musical about their friendship!

So Chompy let the frogs stay. "But we have to build a giant fence to keep out other frogs."

The turtles agreed, and were happy. Turtles love building.

The frogs agreed, and were happy. Frogs love chain links!

And EVERYBODY loves excluding people!

The very next day, a whole bunch of extra frogs jumped over the fence.

Chompy wouldn't have noticed, except it was Gaping Maw Time.

P-TOOOIE! Chompy swallowed a frog by mistake!

"That's worse than raisins!" beleaguered Chompy. "No more frogs!"

But the frogs really liked their turtle friends.

A few of them were working on a epic film trilogy to commemorate their friendship!

So Chompy let the frogs stay. "But everybody has to kick them all the time."

The turtles agreed, and were happy. Turtles love kicking!

The frogs agreed, and were happy. Frogs love feet!

And EVERYBODY loves physical hardship!

The very next day, TADPOLES.

Chompy was just finishing his big bath by drinking all the water...

P-TOOOOOOOIE! So many tadpoles!

"One of them tried to grow legs in my throat!" harangued Chompy. "NO MORE FROGS!"

But the turtles really liked--

"NO MORE FROGS!"

The frogs were very sad the day they were cannon-fired out of town.

The turtles were very sad too. They would never get to finish their Friendship Mural.

Chompy was also sad. The turtles didn't taste very good anymore.

"Do you guys stop being delicious when you're sad?" asked Chompy.

"I dunno," said the half-digested but still horribly alive turtle in his belly.

Chompy deliberated long and hard.

"Okay, frogs," he announced.

The frogs cannonballed back! They were happy!

That made the turtles happy!

Chompy tasted one. "There we go," he sighed convivially.

And from that day forward, turtles only kicked frogs on some civic holidays.

THE END

Pornogreligiuxtaposition

2010-05-25T09:10:00.000-07:00

And the X is on a triple letter score!

Today we had another Philosophy Class Pornography Debate. Once again, the class was overwhelmingly female. Once again, the prof was staunchly anti-porn. Once again, I lost.

And again, I did a little bit of personal philosophizing, and check this out.

So the basic theory is that porn renders all women everywhere worthless and therefore reduces society to a smoking crater of rape, darkness and despair. All men who watch porn might as well take a baseball bat and shove it up their own grandmother's asshole in a giant gladiator pit. Or something.

As an admitted grandmother rapist, I immediately began spinning comparisons. Like smokers! If you have a cigarette, the smoke toxins will gain sentience and actively seek innocent lungs other than yours to fly into. More often than not, your secondhand smoke targets children. All people who smoke might as well burn down an elementary school.

These are both leaps. Now here's another leap, similarly outrageous--but with a lot more evidence to support it.

Religion is horribly detrimental to human development. It's responsible for the subjugation of women in the Middle East, the cockblocking of stem cell research in the West, and the condomless AIDS epidemic in Africa. More people have been killed in the name of God than have died from anything even remotely linked to smoking.

And if we didn't have the imaginary idea that virgins are more holy, we wouldn't even think of porn stars as being degraded. Religion is terrible. Religion is worse than porn. If you belong to any organized religion, you're pretty much tainting the world's water supply with high grade cyanide. Metaphorically.

Yet, it's possible for a Christian to be a good person. A lot of my best friends are Christian.

And it's possible for a smoker to be a good person.

So maybe... just maybe... could somebody who is physically attracted to sexy ladies, yet is not currently romantically attached, be a good person as well?

POINT/COUNTERPOINT!

"But porn fulfills your base desires! Religion fulfills your soul."

The entire point of religion is to maybe gain happiness forever. How is satisfaction after you die any more righteous than satisfaction today? Both religion and porn are based on pleasure and rewards. Porn is just better at coming through on its end of the bargain.

"Porn is addictive!"

So is religion! It is, by definition, a lifetime commitment. And unlike porn, religion has withdrawal symptoms. If you quit porn, you'll be twitching for a few days. If you quit religion, for the rest of your life you'll be afraid of eternal hell.

"Religion benefits the poor. Name one porn site that set up a soup kitchen!"

Okay, but still, pornography wins 2-1.

I'm Not Proud Of Any Of This

2010-05-17T19:19:00.000-07:00

Lucas would license it, though.

Eventually there will be another teen sex comedy based on Star Wars. It's inevitable. So I've prepared, in advance, a list of character names they can use. This almost counts as profiteering.

Are you ready?

Luke Skycocker, who is trying to lose his virginity before the Empire kills everyone.
Princess Lay-a, who is probably pretty hot.
Hand Solo, a space adventurer who like, jacks off the time.
Pubacca the Wookkiee, whose hair is much darker and wirier than your standard Wookkiee's.
Obi-Have (pronounced Oh, Behave!) Kenobe, a horny old man.
Darth Spayder, who, with two jokes in one, is voiced by David Spade and frequently disables the uteruses of female dogs.
C-UNT, a droid
R2D2, who behaves exactly the same as the original R2, except is portrayed by a human midget hopping around
Master Yomama, an elderly green dude who constantly makes yo mama jokes.

Now let's pretend this post never happened.

Data Man 2: Attack of the Hyperbrain

2010-05-17T18:17:00.000-07:00

You'll never defeat ME, you byte-sized pipsqueak!

My creativity is like a wild wolf bitch, her frothing vagina spawning ideas--dozens at a time--with great seasonal regularity. Those plots she finds to be fit and healthy are lead to suckle at her bristling teats. The runts, she either abandons to the elements or eats for sustenance.

Last month one quivering, unlikely idea-pup was displayed here for your amusement. Data Man! An 80s movie about a computer geek somehow downloading all of an evil corporation's information onto his brain. I left that movie to die.

And yet, recently, it managed to find its mama again. And it looked at me with such wide, watery eyes, that I had to concoct a sequel concept for it. Even though I'll never write the script for the first one.

Data Man 2: Attack of the Hyperbrain. There's no file more corrupt than the Hyperbrain.

The year is 1987, and Data Man has graduated high school. He's blasting through university now that he's managed to download his computer science class' electronic textbook! (Which is 40 floppy disks.) The girlfriend from the first movie isn't around anymore because the actress is successful now, so he's crushing on somebody else with equally curly 80s hair.

Little does Data Man know: a giant space entity known as the Hyperbrain is roaming the galaxy. Eons ago, a civilization advanced to the point where they could use computers to maximize the thinking potential of their own brains. Then they realized the most powerful computers are intelligent minds, and started incorporating actual brains into their helping-computers. Eventually, the species linked minds to become a giant floating superintelligent Hyperbrain, soaring through the universe in search of other intelligent minds to incorporate.

This Hyperbrain attacks Earth.

And Data Man is the only one who can "hack into its mainframe" (early computer lingo is the best) and save humanity as we know it.

He succeeds, but his destruction of the Hyperbrain requires him to save a copy of himself onto its hard drive. This means that there are now two Data Man: one of them free and successful... and one forever trapped in the shell of a dead machine.

A hero must make sacrifices.

And also must leave a door open for an evil-twin themed threequel.

Canadian History vol. 1

2010-05-13T21:00:00.000-07:00

Because WHY THE HELL NOT?

So uh, here's the official timeline of Canada: A Storied History Of Our People's Great Nation. If you don't know what that is already, don't worry. I'll give up on it soon enough!

1536: French pioneers sail down the St. Lawrence River. Most of them die. Simultaneous: early Americans land in Delaware.

1620s: The invention of the pointed stick wall gives rise to the first New World colonies. Their economies are largely beaverskin based. Mad Hatters are somehow real.

1687: Robert Thorpe founds Upper Canada, which went on to become present-day Ontario. The French colony, thenceforth dubbed Lower Canada, was understandably pissed.
Simultaneously: early Americans host witch trials.

-------------------------

In Focus: Upper Canada v. Lower Canada

Upper Canada
Language: English
Religion: Protestant Christian
Allied Tribe: The Cree
Disease of Choice: Smallpox
Most Common Monster: Werewolves (uncommon)
They Called It: Corn

Lower Canada
Language: French
Religion: Catholic
Allied Tribe: The Iroquois
Disease of Choice: Rabies
Most Common Monster: The Bloodthirsty Dead (common but segregated)
They Called It: Mais

-------------------------

1720: Upper and Lower Canada square off in battle on the historical Plains of Abraham. General Montcalme's army of Quebecois (a French-Iroqouis hybrid) doesn't stand a chance against the sheer strength and agility of British Upper Canada's General Wolfe, for it was a full moon.

Upper Canada forgot to conquer Lower Canada after defeating their army. The two colonies instead entered an uneasy, equal alliance from that point on.

1740: In Britian, Prince Alfred of Edinburgh officially recognizes the four Other Colonies in British North America. Information is collected, but no definitive history is published.

Until now.

-------------------------

In focus: The Colonies Which Became Neither Ontario Nor Quebec

British Columbia
Discovered: 1672
Loyalty: Britain, Columbia
Colonized simultaneously by British and Columbian pioneers. After several years of war, a compromise was struck: both empires would share the colony, and divide equally between them the Chinese slaves which were so plentiful. NOTE: All Columbians were shortly exterminated. Control was ceded to Britain.

Newfoundland
Discovered: 1536
Loyalty: Officially recognized as an independent nation, but must support Vikings in all wars.
Founded accidentally by early British pioneers, thought to have perished in early shipwrecks. The castaways miraculously survived, married, and flourished. Eventually they declared their town to be a sovereign island state.

New Brunswick
Discovered: 1593
Loyalty: Britain
The nation of Newfoundland's first mainland colony. Able to participate in the booming fur, lobster, and camel industries, the colony seceded immediately and joined Britain, naming itself after a popular Old World bowling franchise.

Prince Edward Island
Discovered: 1729
Loyalty: Britain
A lone prince once sailed from Wales to Canada in a sailboat for one, in hopes of finding the meaning of happiness. Along the way he encountered fairies, moon men... and himself. Finally arriving on the tiny green island, the Prince built a mountain, upon which he sat and contemplated life. No other humans were allowed on the island until after his death.

-----------------------

1767: Confederation! Our first Prime Minster, Sir John A. Macdonald, wins a bet against George Washington by being the first politician to unite any North American colonies. Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and British Columbia join forces and officially upgrade their statues to PROVINCES. The resulting CANADA remains steadfastly loyal to the Crown.
9 years later, American colonies unite and declare independence from Britain.

1792: The Prince dies on his island at the age of 82. Canada swoops in and seizes the territory as its fifth province.

1796: Canada quietly buys the vast icy plains of the North West Territories, including all indigenous eskimen. Britain had forgotten it even owned the land.

1799: Both Canada and America fight for Newfoundland's loyalty. The friendship between Sir John A. Macdonald and George Washington dissolves the conflict before it escalates to war. Newfoundland remains proud and free.

-----------------------

In focus: Great Leaders of Early North America

Sir John A. Macdonald

Occupation: Knight
Years in Office: 1767-1803
Wooden body parts?: Left hand
Drunk?: YES.
Slaves?: No
United country first?: HELL YES!

George Washington

Occupation: Wig Powderer
Years in Office: 1776-1804
Wooden body parts?: Teeth
Drunk?: Acceptably
Slaves: YES.
United country first?: United independent country first, if that counts.

---------------------

Damn right, I wrote all that. Stay tuned for the War of 1812, all that Manitoba bullshit, and possibly even railroads!

Acid Cat ft. The Guitar And Drum Band

2010-05-12T13:35:00.000-07:00

Buy- $0.99

4.5/5! Rated App Store's #1 Entertainment/Music Game two out of 3 weeks!

Buy and vote now to make us even MORE #1!

YOU ARE Cat Acidington, a naked red haired man with white shoes. Your mission: pour acid on a cat.

BUT DON'T GET ANY ON THE ICE CREAM!

32 levels of cat-melting fun!

"4.5/5"- IGN Forum User

Bonus: Update: Now featuring the music of GUITAR AND DRUM BAND! Four guys, three different guitars and a drum kit make high school talent shows look like a ROCK ON RAVE CONCERT! With tracks like "LOVE AND HATE PLUS EIGHT" and "WONDERWALL (cover)", you'll have even more fun listening to cats screech in agony.

Also search Guitar and Drum Band on iTunes!

---------

And that is how, through strategic paid band placement, I will be able to afford a programmer to make Acid Cat for me.

Wendy's Is The New Fat Underground

2010-05-11T13:51:00.000-07:00

And other hilarious observations.

Hey, thank you, thank you! How's everybody doing? All right! It's a great night for pretending to be doing stand-up comedy.

I feel like a lot of people are disgusted by things I think are just awesome. The obvious examples are porn, and anime porn, and the KFC Double Down... The bread is more chicken. That's like using little individually wrapped vaginas instead of condoms.

So yeah, I'm a fat person. Here's something fat people know but you don't: Quick! Off the top of your head, what's the greasiest, fattiest, unhealthiest, shit-like-a-shotgun fast food restaurant you can think of?

I bet your instinct was McDonald's. Your gut instinct was McDonald's. Or maybe KFC, because that was the last thing you heard.

You're wrong. Wendy's. Wendy's. That girl is a dirty soulless ginger and she is feeding you fresh-to-order lies.

Have you been in a Wendy's lately? They've upsized all their drinks. The small is a medium, the medium is a large, and the large is this fucking super-sayen maximum evolution cup with plastic reinforced armor and a molded base so it can even fit in your mobility scooter's cup holder.

Everybody that loves McDonald's but hates the stigma goes to Wendy's. Because Wendy's is fresh and doesn't have a documentary! A fat dude at Wendy's like a self-conscious racist joining the Republican party instead of the KKK. And an added bonus is that Wendy's is so much more fatteningly delicious.

Don't believe me? Have you ever seen anyone at a McDonald's fall asleep in their seat?

Have you ever seen anyone at a McDonald's give up trying to discipline her kids and just eat their fries instead?

Have you ever heard anyone in McDonald's quietly, but noticeably, and distinctly,shit their pants at their table for one?

I haven't either. That would be... that would be gross. I'd be put right off my baconator.

Remember the Baconator? I watched that TV ad like the trailer to Ironman 2. It's a double burger with double bacon and FUCK the lettuce! They're not even trying to look healthy!

Lettuce, and tomatoes, man. I think I'm gonna close my act talking about lettuce and tomatoes. That's a pretty strong strategy, right? You skinny people love lettuce and tomatoes. Salads and whatnot. Dressings. Antioxidants. Yoga. Pro-biotic cultures.

Attention, all you ladies who eat pro-biotic cultures: yes, you are sexier than the ladies who don't. Yes! Vindication for the yogurt chicks, you are attractive! A blogmedian told you so. I bet half the shirts I've been looking down tonight belong to yogurt chicks.

It's still fucking weird that yogurt is alive. Isn't that weird? That's weird.

Ladies who eat yogurt: you're hot because you devour living civilizations for breakfast. Congratulations. You have the same beauty strategy as a tentacled Mesopotamian monster god.

Individually wrapped vaginas.

That's my time! Thanks everybody, you've been great!

Duhtilitatianism

2010-05-11T13:08:00.000-07:00

Seriously, philosophers?

I kind of sucked at school these past couple years, so now I'm taking some summer courses. They're pretty great! Today I had many hours of coffee with a couple very attractive classmates. That beats sleeping in until noon, any day.

Anyway, we're learning about utilitarianism (for the sixth time since high school). I think what I hate the most about the idea is how damn close it is to the actual philosophy of everybody who ever existed.

A brief recap: utilitarianism holds that the greatest good is what brings the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest amount of people.

A popular high school exercise is to let your students tear that to shreds. The core flaw with the system is that it allows for suffering, torture, and murder, as long as the resulting happiness is widespread enough. "In this worldview, Hitler was good because--exponentially speaking--he will have slowed down human overpopulation!" And so forth.

I'm going to propose something, and your response will be "well, duh." Because everybody believes this. But there's no name for the theory. No paper defining it in philosophical terms. No book, no Wikipedia entry, no credit.

You've had hundreds of years, philosophers. I'm taking it.

Duhtilitiarianism: a philosophy that holds that the greatest good is what eliminates the greatest amount of suffering for the greatest amount of people.

I Googled the living fuck out of that just now, and the only people who have said anything close were crazy parents-basement-dwelling bloggers like me.

How does this not have a name, other than "common decency?"

Rich Trailer Park Boy, Poor Trailer Park Boy

2010-05-09T14:11:00.000-07:00

A licensing nightmare.

My brother finished his Christian high school victory lap in January. Now that my parents aren't paying for either of us to be brainwashed, they've been very interested in investments and other money shit. Which means I've found a copy of Rich Dad, Poor Dad on my pillow on more than one occasion.

As a rule, I don't like to read books that are advertised on the TTC. But I made a long-car-ride-related exception for this one. I'm about 95 pages in, and so far, holy crap, this book is pretty much the philosophy of Trailer Park Boys.

My two core learnings so far:

1) People get jobs and work like slaves because they're afraid of going broke. Lose your fear of going broke, and your time frees up for more lucrative opportunities.
2) Only buy things that will make money for you. Like apartments to rent out, or intellectual property for royalties.

On that first point: go watch Trailer Park Boys. They all hate getting jobs. They don't want to wear uniforms, they don't want to change their behavior. Workin' fuckin' sucks, and you can't even get high! But at the same time they're not afraid of going broke, since they pretty much already are.

Instead, they'll steal and resell barbecues. Or meat. Or airport luggage. Ricky doesn't buy weed, he grows his own. They'll start their own businesses, time and time again. None of these businesses are legal, but if they were? They'd be Rich Dad's dream.

And can you think of a better example of an asset than Julian's Freedom 35 plan? Season four. The whole plan is to sell a whole field of pot so that they can make enough money... not to waste on cars or booze, but enough money to buy the trailer park. Then they'd own real estate, and have their money work for them.

That's right. Rich trailer park boys don't work for money. Rich trailer park boys have money work for them.

Think of every single Philosophy of The Simpsons book you've seen at Chapters. Or Politics of South Park.

Now imagine the amount of press coverage a juxtaposition of Rich Dad Poor Dad and Trailer Park Boys would get.

It'd be licensing hell to get the rights to make this book. But whoever writes it? Big money.

I don't really have the time or the energy beyond this blog post. But seriously, somebody should do this.

Society is when everybody pools their umbrellas to make a giant roof.

2010-05-06T22:09:00.000-07:00

The title says it all.

Go Fly a Bike!

2010-05-04T12:25:00.000-07:00

So yeah, anybody free on Tuesday afternoons?

I wrote this, and it only killed ten minutes of my six hour break today:

Turtle the Turtle and
Chompy the Gator
with Turtle’s Girlfriend Shelly
Nerdle the Turtle
and Joose the Goose in
GO FLY A BIKE: A Fun in the Swamp cartoon
Written and illustrated by Jon Ashton

Turtle the Turtle and Chompy the Gator were making a big old mess of the house. There was mud on the table and a shoelace in the sink! Turtle’s girlfriend Shelly had had enough.

“Go play outside!” she yelled.

First they tried climbing a tree, but Chompy’s arms were too weird.

Then they tried flying jetpacks, but Turtle’s shell got in the way.

They went back to Shelly and ate all of her pies. “Shelly, we don’t know what to do!” cried Turtle.

Shelly wasn’t a snapping turtle, but she had a short temper! “I don’t care what you do! Go fly a bike!”

So Turtle the Turtle and Chompy the Gator got Turtle’s bike, and a piece of string.

They waited for a big ol’ gust of wind…

And they flew Turtle’s bike!

It flew this way and that, which way and what.

“Now let’s ride a kite!” Turtle idea’d.

They both sat on the kite and pedaled as hard as they could.

It worked!

Before they knew it, they were soaring through the air.

Chompy took off his hat and scooped some sky into it. “I’m gonna take home some of this blue.”

They flew past a sheep that was lost in a cloud. “Little sheep! Your flock is back on the ground!” coaxed Turtle.

“I can see how he got confused,” said Chompy.

“Baa,” said the sheep.

Their kite was fast! They even passed Joose the Goose, the fastest flyer the swamp had ever seen.

“Guys! You’re being impossible!” yelled Joose warningly.

But Chompy just threw a sheep at him.

Nerdle the Turtle was already in the sky, testing his new cherry red airplane. “Hey guys!” he waved. “Did you steal my jetpacks?”

“Yeah!” said Turtle. “They’re broken now!”

“That’s the worst!” said Nerdle.

They traded Nerdle some kite-twine for some cool airplane goggles and flew around some more.

At the end of the day, they challenged the sun to a race to the ground. The sun agreed, and it was the fastest sunset in recorded history.

But Turtle and Chompy still won!

And from that day on, Turtle the Turtle and Chompy were the best of friends. All things considered, they might have had more fun messing up Shelly’s house. But they were still very happy they’d gone outside to play.

Gaga Montana

2010-05-03T19:12:00.000-07:00

Alternate title: Hannah Montanye West.

Next time you close your eyes and try to think of something, anything, to distract you until Virgin Radio goes to commercial, play this game:

Assume that every "artist" whose name is not a real name is actually living a double life, Hannah Montana style. All of their friends and family in this normal life are completely oblivious to their fame.

Speaking of family: I like to imagine them living in a townhouse with Billy Ray Cyrus.

Akon is actually Joseph Brown, a first year photography student. He's living a hectic life involving a girlfriend, a sexy ex-girlfriend, a geeky best friend and Billy Ray Cyrus, who keeps trying to be his wing man at bars. Also, he is secretly an autotune sensation.

Ke$ha is Keisha Tomes, a twelve year old girl who developed early. She invented the Ke$ha personality while experimenting with makeup and "grown up" clothing, and successfully used it to get into a bar on open mic night (where she was discovered by record executives.) She would be grounded if her parents found out about her massive success in the 13 to 17 market. Billy Ray Cyrus rents her family's basement.

Will.i.am is the secret stage name of Christopher Michaels, who married his high school sweetheart at 18 and divorced her at 22. He now lives the single life with Billy Ray Cyrus, who knows about his involvement with the Black Eyed Peas but is sworn to secrecy.

Fergie is a space alien Christopher hides in his attic. Unable to feel human emotions, she cannot return his affections. Billy Ray Cyrus is unaware of her existence.

The rest of the Peas are holographic memories of Fergie's parents.

Fergie, whose real name can be pronounced by a human tongue, but only with great pain.

The original Lady Gaga was played by Kevin Bryan, a cross-dressing graduate of musical theatre school. After the character's meteoric rise to fame, the pressure became too much and he began sharing performance duties with Mark "Max" Crosby, a remarkable lookalike he met at a book signing. They both now live with Billy Ray Cyrus, but due to a string of scheduling coincidences they have never been home at the same time. Cyrus refuses to believe they are two people, refuses to believe they are Lady Gaga, and refuses to believe they are gay. Hilarity ensues.

Ne-Yo is Billy Ray Cyrus, from the future. He poses as a recording artist and lives with his past self until it is appropriate to reveal his true identity... and his mission.

That's all I got for now. But a side note, while we're on the topic of pop musicians with dumb names: Hey, B.o.B! Are you named after the Monsters vs. Aliens character voiced by Seth Rogen, or the slang sexual term "bend over boyfriend," referring to a straight guy whose girlfriend regularly pegs him with a strapon?

Humble Beginnings

2010-05-02T19:09:00.000-07:00

Quit slacking! We gotta finish Rome by 5.

So I finished that thing I was doing with Michael Bay. And now it's time to turn it into an iPhone app, thus erecting the first column of my mighty appcomic empire.

Except: iPhone SDK (the make-app software) wants my computer to be all Snow Leopard. I'm only a normal leopard. And changing my spots would cost what, $300?

Which is why my business, carefully designed to end all businesses, will be run almost entirely from my mother's new Macbook.

Sigh.

100 Million People Can't Be Wrong, Because That Would Be Illegal

2010-04-29T11:53:00.001-07:00

Propagantastic!

Because Jon Stewart is funnier than Rick Mercer, the following political theory will be expressed in American terms.

Sometimes I'll read a bunch of Bush-era political satires, and get kind of pissed off that about 80% of Americans actually thought Saddam Hussein personally blew up the World Trade Centre with red sticks of dynamite. How can that kind of ignorance be so widespread?

Then again, I missed Paul Martin's entire stint as prime minister. I honestly thought we still had Jean Chretien, right up until Stephen Harper. So I guess I can't pass judgment.

Anyway, I got to thinking: what if there was a law that held those with information power (governments, the news media) responsible for the education of the masses?

Let's say you own CNN, or you're the president, or something. And you know something to be true, and telling everybody wouldn't cause any harm to national security. You would then be required by law to broadcast a special IGNORANCE ALERT to tell everybody.

I mean, if 80% of your country believes a lie, and your job is either to lead them or to broadcast the truth, you can't possibly be doing your job right.

The result would be a country that gets made fun of a little less. It would also have the side effect of seriously undermining any sneaky administrations.

An important side note: if any actual political theorists come across this, try to get it in place before Obama leaves office. Because some tea partier somewhere will realize that if he can get a hundred million people to be deliberately ignorant, they can accuse Obama of not doing his job. And that would be the most hilarious impeachment ever.

This Is A Travel Blog

2010-04-28T19:43:00.000-07:00

And also I am blogging from Paris.

For reasons I can describe only as "monetary," I'm currently blogging from Paris, France. About travel! Have you ever traveled to Paris, France? This quaint city has history even thicker than its cheeses.

I've been staying in a bed-and-inn breakfast hostel on the Rue Existante, and the architecture is no less than formidable. Today, I saw no fewer than 300 authentic Parisian clay-bricks, dating as far back as the 1300s.

The food is spectacularly warm. I discussed the making of baguettes (or as the French call them, beurres-pain) with an actual artisan. He told me they used both ingredients and ovens, but wouldn't reveal any other secrets.

I guess I'll have to find out on my next vacation!

Also, I rented a bicyclette to ride up the Eiffel Tower. Here's a picture I took from the third floor:

I'll chat at you some more later--in the mean time, I have some vin to consummé at the L'Ouvre. Remember: if you want to travel like me, you should check out www.asimpletravel.com.

Hey, Discovery Channel!

2010-04-27T12:25:00.000-07:00

I've got a show idea for ya!

I call it Exploiting Your Time Machine, but I'm sure you'll come up with a better title.

If you found yourself thrown back in time to ancient Greece, or Egypt, or Europe in the middle ages, or colonial America, what would be the best thing for you to "invent?" After all, you're from the future. You should be a god. Or at least, a millionaire.

Each episode would teach you how to make a modern, or at least then-undiscovered, technology, thus guaranteeing your enormous financial success in the past.

Inventions would range from lightbulbs to the printing press to steam engines to hey, why not, fire. I'm not ashamed to admit that I couldn't even make fire, should I be time trapped with cavemen. I'm a modern fatass, like everyone else. I'd watch that episode.

Other segments might teach the viewer how to market their magic in each time-specific scenario. Maybe we could also learn how to fit in with the upper class. If you're gonna be in the middle ages, you damn well don't want to be a peasant.

Discovery Channel, if you don't pick up this series I'll be forced to write an educational science fiction book series, and then I'll have Scholastic eating out of my hand. You don't want to feed Scholastic, do you...?

In my mind, the Discovery Channel and Scholastic hate each other.

My Subconscious Is Not Funny

2010-04-27T08:51:00.000-07:00

Get your damn act together, Dreamscape.

I dreamt the following exchange last night. My subconscious thought it was hilarious. I made myself repeat it as soon as I woke up, so that I would remember it.

Now, I'm not sure why.

MOM CHARACTER (offended): I think I'm pretty cool.
TEENAGE SON: You think hand lotion is cool.
MOM: You do too! You keep it all over your room.

Subconscious masturbation joke!

Then there was another weird dream. It was mostly inspired by It's Always Sunny in Philedelphia, but then turned into new characters and had a large and complicated original plot.

There were like, six or seven characters working to solve situations. I can only remember one of the solutions, which for some entirely necessary reason, required a brother and sister to fuck on camera. And, for an even more necessary reason, they had to have a baby watching them from off-camera.

But, as the brother pointed out, it was cool, because the baby didn't know what he was seeing.

Anyway, so the incest porn with a baby voyeur worked somehow. So did everybody else's problems. There was a big happy ending to this dream-movie, and then an epilogue montage of everybody ten years later being happy with how their lives had turned out.

Ten years later, the brother and sister were still fucking on camera. They were really happy about it. They were having a great time. And the baby was still watching them, except now he was 10 and was constantly yelling that he knew what he was seeing.

Psychology majors, go nuts!

A Crazy Person Theory

2010-04-26T00:30:00.000-07:00

It all makes SENSE, man!

So what if light is like, some fucking super high-frequency COMMUNICATION CODE? Like, photons aren't in a steady stream like we think, but instead they're this really fast speed of light Morse Code-y shit?

The universe could be TALKING TO US: every different LEVEL, COLOUR or SOURCE of light we discover could be it's own message, over and god damn over. The SUN is saying all like, "hey crops. Don't be afraid. I will nourish you."

And FIRE says, "I will cook your food, and aid you in smelting. But do not overestimate the power I give you, for it will be your downfall."

But we weren't reading the Sun's message, and so we turned our backs to it. And we did not heed Fire's warning, and now live out of balance.

I swear I'm sober. I'm just crazy tired.

Acid Cat 20X6

2010-04-24T12:55:00.000-07:00

Mraaaaawr!

I thought up a simple video game concept. It's incredible, and it's up for grabs to whoever wants to go and code it. As long as they call it Acid Cat.

Observe this screen shot:

YOU are Cat Acidington, a naked red haired man with white shoes. Your mission is to pour your vat of green acid on THE CAT (visible at the bottom right corner of the screen.)

Here's the catch: you can't keep your acid in your vat for too long. It'll eat its way through. So you have to keep pouring your acid on the platforms, then run around beneath and catch it again in your vat. If acid lands on your head, you die. If you step into the bubbling hole where acid is currently eating its way through the platform, you die.

If acid lands on that ice cream, you die too. Ice cream is delicious.

Levels get increasingly complex, with more ice creams, more cats, and thinner vats.

Can you handle the purr-fect storm that is ACID CAT?

Poker Face

2010-04-24T12:36:00.000-07:00

I'll hit him hard, show him what I've got...

I wonder if the poker pros have any interest in computer poker AI.

Check it out: there exists a computer game subgenre in which the player engages in "virtual poker" against "computer players", in an effort to gain "no actual money." I've actually never played any poker sim more complicated than a cell phone demo, but I would presume that the full games would have a wide variety of computer intelligence sets.

There exists a game where you can play poker against a cowboy, an astronaut, and a giant squid at the same time, right? That has to be a real game. The key here would be that each kind of opponent would have a slightly different strategy, based on their personalities. I'd imagine the squid to be much more conservative with its raising, for example.

Somewhere out there is the code for the strategy of the Cowboy AI: a hard-bluffing, heavy-betting gunslinger from the Wild West. There's probably another code for a James Bond AI: Cool, calm, collected, and wins often, despite not really caring for these sorts of games.

So my question is: would professional poker players ever just get together, learn the exact strategy of a specific AI, dress like that character, and play as it?

"Hey, Ted Forrest! Get over here. We're having a costumed poker night."

"Yeah okay, but I'm totally coming as the Mummy."

Show Yourselves!

2010-04-22T08:16:00.001-07:00

I have no qualms with you!

This conversation has happened way too often recently:

ME: I came up with an awesome movie idea!
YOU: Yeah, I read about it in your blog.
ME: Oh.
[Awkward silence.]

Guys, I'm not a very interesting person. When I have something fresh to say, I write it down over here. And since by my records I only have seven real people reading this, I assume it's okay to use my entries as conversation fuel with everyone else.

That's fair, right? I mean, if you don't care about me enough to read my blog, I'm not going to make up any new things to say to you. That's pretty fair. But I don't want to accidentally lump in the casual, nonfollowing readers with the illiterate bastards.

So all you phantom readers in the crowd: I love you guys! You're awesome. You are in a warm and loving environment. It's okay to come out. It's okay to show yourselves. Follow this blog openly, and we will hug you, and we will listen to your comments.

Oh, and I know making a blogger account is a bitch. It's cool if you want to just comment anonymously with your name. That way you can appreciate the irony!

Faking Senility

2010-04-21T18:53:00.000-07:00

Get off my lawn!

As a fatass, one of the things I've had to accept is that I'll probably die of a heart attack in my sixties. I won't live long enough to enjoy the slow, wrinkling failure of my entire body. I'll never be able to stare into space with my mouth open. I'll never get to shit my pants in public.

One thing I've always been looking for is an elderly, angry cartoonist. Somebody who used to draw dirty cartoons in the 1940s and just wouldn't stop, even though society advanced, even though his hands started to shake all the time, even though he could no longer think in complete sentences.

If I don't find this man or his work by the time I have white hair, I'm going to fake my senility and do it myself. Imagine the entertainment value! What if the Marmaduke guy just lost his mind and had his great dane swear angrily at the jews?

I practiced on the Go train today. I held my pen loosely, and refused to think. I think this one covers the general, unfocused anger:

I think I'll have a character represent my entirely unappreciated nurse:

Some of them will get pretty racist:

It's great. Those took no energy to produce, but I could fill a book with them, and it would sell. As an added bonus it would destroy my credibility, devalue the rest of my work and eliminate any potential inheritance I could leave. I assume I'll hate all of my no-good children.

None of you are allowed to take that last one out of context, okay?

What's Your Favourite Flavour Of Bullshit?

2010-04-21T18:01:00.000-07:00

Chocolate just gets your hopes up.

I have just realized that, in retrospect, I cared more about Obama vs McCain than I did about O'Brien vs Leno. As a non-American who likes comedy TV, you'd think it would be the other way around, no?

Both of the feuds were entirely irrelevant to your life. Which one did you care about more?

What Could Michael Bay Be Up To?

2010-04-19T12:39:00.000-07:00

Teasers!

Some legitimate and existent celebrity stalker magazine recently unearthed these unfinished photographs of Michael Bay. I wonder what he could be up to?

As soon as I get any more information on this exciting new project, I'm sure I'll let you all know. Until then, I think it's reasonable to get extremely excited.

The Ever-Escalating Human/Dolphin War

2010-04-18T22:39:00.001-07:00

As told by the Discovery Channel.

If you ever want to feel absolutely amazing about humanity, check out the Discovery Channel's news site. While the Toronto Star and all them are bitching about overpaid TTC workers, these guys are bringing up space travel, new caveman discoveries, and even stories about dinosaurs. Honestly, it's like being in second grade again. Remember what hope felt like?

I've been checking it regularly for a few weeks now. I like to be able to wander around commenting on SETI developments and newly discovered komodo dragon species. Recently, though, I found a freaking subtext.

They're pretending to be optimistic on humanity, but really, the Discovery Channel News Team is secretly devoted to broadcasting messages regarding the ever-escalating hostilities between humans and dolphins.

This story is about dolphins apparently being the second smartest animals on the planet. Check the date though. It was written in January. And we all knew dolphins were intelligent decades ago. This isn't news.

What IS news--if you read deeper into the article, and between the lines--is how this new January study found this out.

The study was all about harming dolphins. Apparently dolphins feel more psychological pain than any other animal, are able to dwell and obsess about traumatizing events, and are therefore more intelligent.

The story mentions the harming bit as an afterthought, reminding us of the damage we do when we catch them with tuna. But that's just a cover. This is a victory message. We're managing to hurt them.

Why do we want to psychologically scar dolphins?

Because they caused Hurricane Katrina.

The world is just awesome.