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.

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.

Documenting History

Guys, I just read something real important on imdb that you should know about the 2009 film Year One:

When Oh is hanging upside down in chains and begins peeing on himself, you can see a hand appear on the bottom right side of screen in the shot where pee runs down his face. Oh's hands are chained behind him so this mysterious hand cannot be his own.

Le Selfie

The French translation of the word "selfie" is "égo-portrait" which is just about perfect. It's like finding out that the French word for "facebook" is "kid-photos" or that Peter Mansbridge translates to "vapid-cueball".

ZOMG TMZ FTW! WTF?

Kudos to TMZ for shining more light on contemporary racism with one youtube clip than the 103 clubs devoted to identity politics at my university. TMZ could be the new Larry Flynt when it comes to exposing the hypocrisy of the rich and powerful.

By the way, amidst all the recognition Donald Sterling is getting for being a terrible person because he is racist, we should add he is also a terrible person for thinking he's entitled to tell his girlfriend who she can and cannot hang out with in public.

Boycotting the Clippers is basically a moral imperative now. The market must demonstrate that the team is significantly less valuable in Sterling's hands than it would be in someone else's. That's easy for me to say since I don't have any standing as a season-ticket holder that I'm giving up or any playoff games that I'll be missing but ending racism isn't all voting for Obama and watching The Wire, Clippers fans.

And every basketball fan can join the boycott. Sterling benefits from revenue-sharing like every NBA owner so you are lining his thick racist pockets anytime you consume an NBA product until he sells. If he won't sell voluntarily then we need to convince the other 29 owners to force him out. Good thing the Stanley Cup playoffs are on right now.

Lyrics for Thomas D'Arcy's "Credit!"

LYRICS:

They were lying when told you, told you

You can be anything you want

Getting all your hopes up so high

Gonna fall down, fall down hard

These kids, they got another thing coming

Can’t all be, all be best

Gonna hit the ground, hit the ground running

Gonna fall down, fall down fast

If you want less headaches

You better sell your soul

If you want more credits

You better play some roles

If you wanna be a big shot

You better set more goals

If you just don’t get it

You’re gonna end up broke

Everyone can’t have their dream job

There’s only so much food

It’s a small world that we live in

And we take up so much room

All these kids with their sense of entitlement

Gonna grow up pissed

Keep thinking they deserve what they got

When it goes to shit

If you want less headaches

You better sell your soul

If you want more credits

You better play some roles

If you wanna be a big shot

You better set more goals

If you just don’t get it, get it

You’re gonna end up broke

Take em up higher

To make em fall further

You take em up higher

To make em fall further

If you want less headaches

You better sell your soul

If you want more credits

You better play some roles

If you wanna be a big shot

You better set more goals

If you just don’t get it

You’re gonna end up broke

Timing is Everything

I’m starting to think I missed my Nalgene stock sell-window.