Thursday, May 29, 2014

Real men have the letter "r" in their name

When did this:

Liam     Jayden     Aiden     Mason

Become more attractive than this:

Elmer     Willard     Fred     Harold



When did this:

Ava     Isabella     Lily     Sophia

Become more beautiful than this:

Gertrude     Mildred     Opal     Beulah

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

An exhaustive list of things that bother me about a news article covering Canadian content requirements for pornographic television stations

Here's a bunch of things I hate about this story:
  1. The image the National Post chose to accompany the story is vaguely sexual but beyond that has no real relationship to the subject matter of the article. In fact, I'm pretty sure that it is a premature ejaculation stock photo.
    The CRTC may want to check this couple's passports.
    If I had to guess what the National Post is going for with this image I would say that the unimpressed woman symbolizes the ever-watchful nanny state that wants to control what your every-man on the right there does in the privacy of his own bed?
  2. The caption that the National Post wrote to go with the photo makes no sense either. "The CRTC may want to check this couple's passports." What?!? That makes no sense. I can't even begin to guess what the author was going for there. Why passports? Why would the CRTC investigate individuals and not regulate telecommunications? What could this couple stand accused of doing? Is lying in bed not at least 35% Canadian?
  3. The Canadian government acts like there is an abstract concept called "Canadian culture" that somehow matters to humanity and must be nurtured.
  4. The Canadian government thinks it has any active role to play in defining its citizens' culture(s). We can take care of that on our own, thanks. No need to muck up an organic process.
  5. The Canadian government's belief that pornography can be distinctly Canadian, let alone needs to be.
  6. Canada forces its channels to air Canadian content 35% of the time at the expense of viewers and mostly for the benefit of major Canadian production companies, a.k.a. corporations. Because it's not how good a show is that matters, it's that it's not American.
  7. CanCon rules still exist in the internet era when borders matter so incredibly little to how media is produced and consumed.
  8. The Canadian government expends any resources at all on "problems" like where video and audio content comes from and what counts as sufficiently "Canadian" while its responsibilities for things like the poor, health care, and the judicial system could use some extra cash and attention.
  9. The Canadian government thinks forcing Canadian viewers and Canadian channels to buy and consume more content produced in Canada than would otherwise make the grade is a good way of building a robust pornography production industry. I guess the government's reasoning is, "Sure, it's not good enough for the rest of the world's economy (approximate GDP $75 trillion) but we'll make up for that by giving the Canadian economy (approximate GDP $1.8 trillion) no choice but to subsidize it." That makes no sense. Any good Canadian pornography can make large profits internationally. Any bad Canadian pornography will show up exclusively on Northern Peaks.
  10. The CRTC is very diligent when it comes to enforcing CanCon rules against obscure pornography channels. They track things right down to the minute. Meanwhile, plenty of Canadians are cheating on their taxes and drivers can stop on busy roads with impunity as long as they turn their emergency flashers on because the CRA and the police can't enforce fundamental standards of fairness that actually affect the quality of Canadian lives. How much you are allowed to exceed the posted speed limit before you get pulled over is a matter of police officer discretion but the CanCon rules for Skinemax are so sacrosanct that they must be enforced according to the precise letter of the law. Speeding vs Canadian Erotica: One of them kills, the other one matters.
  11. The CRTC also strives to enforce the spirit of the law as well. It chastised one channel for dumping its "Canadian" programming outside of prime viewing hours.
  12. NAFTA doesn't prohibit CanCon even though it is blatant trade protectionism. 
  13. Online porn is not subject to CanCon rules but porn you watch on television is even though the CRTC has some jurisdiction over online video. Why regulate one but not the other? What good does it do to require Canadian channels to buy Canadian pornography when most of pornography's value is derived from the internet that you are ignoring?
  14. Everyone agrees that violence against women is terrible and you can argue that pornography contributes to the problem (or is a form or prostitution which is still illegal) but the government requires that it be produced in Canada.
  15. The CRTC is also reprimanding porn for not being close-captioned. Think about that for a second. Porn. Close-captioned. Because there haven't been enough jokes about how superfluous pornography's plots are and how people don't read Playboy for the articles.
  16. The bizarre claim by an interviewee that making video games and making pornography are similar processes. Here's the quote:

    Porn production is flourishing in Quebec, with Montreal headquarters to such industry heavyweight as Brazzers and Mile High Media. Industry boosters claim the city’s production of X-rated videos is rivaled only by Los Angeles and Amsterdam.

    "We have the big game companies here. We have a lot of well-known computer-graphics generators here. It just stands to reason that some of that would derive into the adult expansions,” Michael Plant, a Quebec City-based adult-entertainment entrepreneur, told The Canadian Press in 2008.



    I think this man is vastly overstating the degree to which computer graphics (or more precisely, "computer-graphics generators," by which I assume he means computers) are a necessary part of pornography. Besides, the skill sets used to make video games and porn are very different. If you randomly chose a sample of video game programmers and 3-D artists then put them next to a randomly chosen group of porn stars, I'm pretty sure you'd be able to tell the difference.
  17. The article's author chose that quote despite it being 6 years old. He must have been desperate for filler when he threw it in there, which raises the question: why not leave it out?
  18. Actually, now that I've read that quote more closely a few times, I think the problem is that the interviewee is being quoted out of context. I'm guessing that he was talking about making pornographic video games and not pornography simpliciter but the preceding paragraph combined with the ambiguity of the term "adult expansions" makes him look like an idiot. Good job, National Post.
Things that I like about the story:
  1. This one line: 
Channel Zero replied, “We currently do not air any programming that would require Audio Description.”

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Way Off Webster

Who was the genius that decided "sleeping like a baby" should mean "sleeping soundly" and not "waking every 2 hours to yell until someone feeds you"? The bullshit artist that came up with that definition should be terminated with cause immediately and never allowed near Dictionary HQ again. I mean, has that person ever even seen a baby? You don't need extraordinary powers of perception to notice babies have some messed up sleep patterns.

FYI: If you sleep like a baby then you should seek medical attention immediately because people who need to sleep 12 irregular hours per day and can't get out of bed to stop from pissing and shitting themselves are almost always tremendously ill.

"I've been feeding my baby so much Coca-Cola and still he won't sleep! What more can I do?" Hahaha the fifties. No wonder baby boomers are such a blight on humanity.

Monday, May 12, 2014

Do Not Blockhead

In the video below Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leader and Mr. Bean impersonator Tim Hudak manages to creepily photobomb video of his own campaign's spectacular failure. They were trying to stage a photo-op on the Toronto subway but no one with the campaign realized blundering onto the subway to film without permission might cause some problems for them and for the hundreds of people held up by their idiocy.


Here is a screenshot of Hudak's abortive attempt to blend in on public transit in case you don't care to watch the two-minute video:

"Just smile for the camera, Tim. Keep your eyes focused on the camera. They don't collect sound. Act happy and no one will realize this is a terrible embarrassment."

He looks like he's seeing a video camera for the first time and is absolutely transfixed by it. He looks like he was taught by a stock footage company to smile blandly and his training kicked in when a situation arose that would have greatly benefited from a modicum of leadership on his part. He looks like he has no idea that running a province with 14 million people in it would be more difficult than staring straight ahead while your lackeys try to paper over another boondoggle. At least he's got the part where you act like nothing is wrong while everything falls apart around you down pat already.


He looks like the idiot janitor from the original UK version of The Office.


P.S. - Big shout-out to the policemen who are so dedicated to shutting down the public menace that is people filming on the subway without first jumping through some bureaucratic hoops to get a permit. I especially like that the police are sticking it to the cameramen whilst oblivious to the fact that multiple people on the subway are recording the police themselves at that very moment on the subway. The whole thing is like a satire on the problem of useless red tape making things more difficult without actually regulating any dangers and missing 90% of the violators.

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Fuck Brooklyn!

Being a Raptors fan is such a poor value proposition. Nineteen years as a franchise and they still haven't won a best-of-seven series yet they have managed to lose two game sevens at the buzzer.

And it's going to get even more expensive to be a fan of this depressing team thanks to their success this year. It's great that Toronto supports the Raptors the way they do but usually if your team is perenially inept you at least get the salve of cheap tickets. Not in the GTA where there is a huge population with lots of bills to spend on a sharply limited commodity.

Some bullet points from today's heartbreaker:

  • Jason Kidd finally realized what the Raptors knew two years ago: Alan Anderson is not an NBA starter. He belongs in the Anthony Parker/Jamario Moon dustbin for Raptors swingmen whose glaring flaws disqualified them from being NBA regulars out of college but hung around professional basketball until Toronto took a flyer on them.
  • Kidd gave more time to Marcus Thornton and he paid off, hitting 4 of his 6 three-point attempts. The rookie must have found a cure for the playof jitters that plagued him earlier in the series.
  • Terrence Ross, on the other hand, was as shaky as ever. He finished a few times at the hoop but it never unlocked his outside shooting. Whenever he put a three up your instinct was to see if we had anybody with a good chance at the offensive rebound you knew was coming. He could have easily been the difference in the game and in the series. I'm sure he knows it. Now we'll see if he has the kind of personality where that drives him to work hard on his game over the summer.
Remember regular-season Terrence Ross? That guy was great.
  • You are not going to win a game 7 in which Patrick Patterson is your best player. Although we should note that the game would have been over in the first quarter if Amir Johnson hadn't used all his power-ups.
  • The only thing with less energy than John Salmons's play is his facial expression. He looked completely apathetic whenever he was onscreen like he had no interest in the NBA playoffs, let alone any desire to play in them. I'm sure there are plenty of NBA players who prefer to head home on vacation once the regular season is over rather than prepare for grueling playoff games even if it means they miss out on their playoff pay. I'm guessing John Salmons is one such player.
  • Referees still matter too much in the NBA and if one more 50/50 block/charge call had gone the Raptors way then this post would have a very different tone.
  • Fuck Brooklyn! It's not like the Raptors were going to win against Miami in the next round anyway (let alone win the championship) but it would have been so delicious to close the casket on Kevin Garnett's career and send so much salary packing. Letting that slimy team squeak through is a huge missed opportunity from a karma standpoint.