Recall Everything

Starbucks is recalling children's mugs that were made in China, further spurring the panic that all products from that country are dangerous.

These nefarious plastic mugs have animal faces glued to them, and "if the cup is dropped, it's possible for the face to break off and leave sharp edges that can choke or cut children."

The recall is because if you drop the cup it might break.

Now I'm pretty sure there are lots of items around my house that if I dropped, might break, and then be dangerous to babies who want to eat pieces of glass. I'm also certain it doesn't make everything that is breakable a dangerous made-in-China defect.

Spageism #7: "With a w-e-d."

I went to the beach with a friend of mine a while ago to take night pictures of the city. After many smoked bowls, when we were cold enough to warrant leaving, I picked up my tripod which was wet from dew that settled while we were talking. I realized that we also got dew on us, which contributed to our coldness so I said, "Dude, we've been dewed...with a w-e-d."

The New Duct Tape

Someone at DiY Life thinks that tennis balls should be as highly revered for their multi-purposeness.

Here are 17 other uses for the tennis ball.

Waiting For The 2008 Summer Tour

I was in Los Angeles for a couple of days to take in the last two shows of the Dave Matthews Band 2007 Summer Tour at the legendary Hollywood Bowl. The shows were phenomenal. More than that. During the N2 set closer, I told Lance that the night was my blue heaven.


We were treated to an incredibly rare song (#34) that Dave dedicated to his wife on her 34th birthday made even more rare by the addition of lyrics (not done since 1993!). We had Danny Barnes join in both nights on the banjo (love the banjo!). There was John Mayer guesting on #41. And yet another rarity, Exodus, made even more rare by the guest vocals of Stephen and Ziggy Marley (and some of their band mates). For the first time ever, the band also invited the entire crew onstage during the encore break. The energy and atmosphere was, to be corny, magical. The music was innovative for both nights, I met great people, and curled up with old friends on the DMB circuit.


Then there was L.A. You know, I really hate L.A. I can't believe how bad the roaming paparazzi has gotten down there. It's noticeably worse than when I was last down. Guys with cameras and video cameras everywhere. Just waiting. Skulking. It's a soulless place, no doubt. It somehow has a complete lack of character - how do they do that?

Wookiee - thought of you on Tuesday. The club next door to my hostel (so trendy it had no name visible and was constantly stalked by paparazzi), hosted the Jericho Season 1 DVD release party.

Anyway, picture upload to follow...eventually.

Did I remember to post about the Guster show in Seattle the other weekend? I gotta get on this shit.

Collection Of Videos

• This one is a mash up of Bert & Ernie / De Niro & Pesci in a not quite seamless version of a scene from Casino.
  
  
• Then you've got an awesome vid of Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" dubbed over an old-phat hippie music video.
  
  
• Of course, who doesn't want to see what has been dubbed "The best five second video on the internet"? See The Dramatic Chipmunk here. It is all in the turn.
  
  
• Something tells me Fatboy Slim would like Walk It Out, Fosse.
  
  
• How is it that I never used this method to close and save a bag of chips...or any other bagged goods? I'm trying it right now.
  
  
• Firefighters are flying a car on jets of water!
  
  
• Japanese ads - gotta love 'em, same as it ever was. This one is from the early 80's for the Honda City car.
  
  
• Tell me men, does this battery hack apply to Canada?
  
  

It's no wonder that a recent survey of 1,011 American adults, conducted by advertising agency JWT showed, among other things;

While slightly more than half (55 per cent) of the respondents said they could go without connecting online "for a few days," only about a fifth (18 per cent) said they could abstain for a week, the survey found.

Similarly 48 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement: "If I cannot access the internet when I want to, I feel like something important is missing."

This is entertaining (I mean, important) shit! My friends don't spontaneously break into dance parody when a bouncing song is on the speakers. You don't want to go a whole week missing this stuff!

7 Amazing Holes

As the poster says, "if you’re expecting filth you’ll be disappointed".

Pictures and blurbs on seven holes found on the planet.

$1 Cdn = $1 US

Woohoo!

Perfect timing; I'm heading to the States this weekend :)

In your face doom and gloomers, in your face.

Flickr Update

I've got a few new sets up on my Flickr site.

Wookiee's Wedding Weekend



1208 Greatest Hits Tour



Gorge 2007

Jack Black Top Ten

Like all Late Night Top Ten Lists, it isn't particularly funny - except this time Jack makes the Number 1 spot hilarious. Check it on YouTube.

Okay, the "Dance...dance...dance.." one is pretty funny too.

Effrontery

This is the side of Shaquille O'Neal's big pimpin' party bus. Yes, he is painted alongside characters from The Godfather, Scarface, and Goodfellas...and then there's the Superman symbol.




For interested parties, some background on where it was photographed.

Google's Lunar X Prize

Awesome.

UN News of the day

I can't say I have any intimate knowledge about what is in the UN declaration on native rights document that Canada, New Zealand, the United States and Australia are dissenting on. But I do know this; there are only five countries in the world who are known for their specialized or unique indigenous, native, aboriginal, etc. issues/situations that are unlike any other place on the planet (Scandinavia being the other). I have a little bit of knowledge on this because I work in a First Nations branch of the Federal Government so there is a lot of sharing between those specific governments but no others.

My point is this; the headline, "Canada to vote against UN declaration on native rights", is meant to make us look bad - and that's what many will think. But the fact is the declaration is just a non-binding political statement, and the people who are signing on happen to be from countries that don't know what the heck they're talking about when it comes to native issues in other countries. So, especially since Australia is on board, I'm going to say that they probably had good reasons to dissent. But I'm still curious as to what exactly they are...

CityRag Style Post #1

• Have you ever seen the very first picture taken from the surface of Mars? Here it is, taken July 20, 1976.

• The World Conservation Union's 2007 Red List of Threatened Species released today informs us that the most common type of gorilla is now "critically endangered" and one step away from global extinction.

• For the first census since 1871, unmarried people over 15 outnumber the marrieds. Plus, there are more couples without children than with.

• Two weekends ago we discussed whether spiders would ever build large webs together instead of individual ones. We stoner concluded that this wasn't in their nature after transporting spiders from their webs onto others' and watching them scurry away as fast as they could. Okay, the exercise was also dubbed as USF: Ultimate Spider Fight. Well, turns out, under the right conditions, spiders do make giant scary webs together.

Boys & Construction

Edit/re-post: Yesterday morning, check it: 6 men, and the requisite uninterested woman.




Originally posted 6/sep/07.12:23
Vancouver has it's own Big Dig doing on right now, which may not exactly rival Boston's, but is nevertheless wreaking havoc on our city.

The Waterfront Station happens to be right outside my office - which means construction in a giant hole has been going on for many months outside my window. It's been one headache after another, especially when they bring out giant rock destroyers or massive vacuums to get the rain water out of the hole.

But I like the plus side, and that is that every morning I get to watch some Big Construction on my walk to the office. I told some girls at work that I'm such a boy because I like to take a pause to watch things like a back hoe dumping loads into a dump truck. They didn't understand that. Of course not.

I kid you not, every single morning, there is at least one male (and no females) taking a look over the edge at the men and machines in the hole.

This morning, there were two:




And it's not just "unprofessional" people either, one morning I saw one of the doctors/executives from my office down there taking a gander too.

Halfer

"More than ever I am coming to appreciate the ambiguity, the looseness. I think it's actually been very helpful for me. It's made me more open about learning things, about other cultures, other religious groups, that I think is reflected in my research."

-Paul Bramadat, mixed race professor at the University of Winnipeg who teaches about multiculturalism and tolerance.

About 50% of the people who know me are aware of the fact that I am mixed race. It's something quite unique to grow up with, something not many others can understand. I grew up not fitting in with the white people because I'm Chinese, and not being accepted by the full Chinese because I'm part European. I've thought about it a lot over the years, it comes up when other what I refer to as "Halfers", pop up in my life - but mostly we do the equivalent of a motorcyclist wave as we pass each other; we are kindred, but aren't sure what else to say about it.

There is a great article on the CBC site today about mixed race Canadians and the strange kind of isolation and scrutiny we face. The feature about The Question (oh, we all get The Question) is completely accurate.

In the 2001 census, there were 328,115 people who self-identified as belonging to more than one racial group. Few enough that to meet another is to feel a significant attachment, like you aren't the only lost mixed race baby in town. Like Kip Fulbeck says in the article, we spend our lives checking the box marked 'Other' on questionnaires about race. Other. No wonder we look for the perfect word to describe ourselves! I'm not Other! I'm Hapa, Halfer, Cablinasian, etc. I even used Caucasian Asian Crustacean for the longest time - but I guess CaucAsian would work!

I enjoy how the article talks about how mixed race people tend to feel that their identities are more fluid - I think that's quite true. And so resistance to any one definition also makes sense. It's as if mixed race might be what it takes to start erasing racism. We tend to refuse to say what we are, we get offended, we repeat over and over that we are Canadian and nothing else. We are not the sum of the colours of or parents' skin or shape of eyes, we do not conform to one set of customs over an other. We respect many cultures and revere our Nationality above all else and feel particularly connected to groups outside of our own...because we already have more than one!

It's always been difficult for me to vocalize all of what makes a mixed race person different. Outcast. Isolated. Separate. All the while feeling more connected to all peoples. They are difficult points to reconcile, I know, I've been dealing with it my whole life.

I struggle with embracing my halves or ignoring they exist. People don't like me saying that I'm Canadian. But they sure like it more than when they ask "What are you?" and I answer with "Human." Somehow, that's just not acceptable.

Anyway, if you want to read the article, it's here.