What Happens in Vegas …

We’ve all heard the marketing line about Vegas that only grows through the years. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. And I say of course it does. Because the casinos there ply you with free alcohol.

Maybe I can’t attest to the effects of alcohol on you. But for a number of years I would drink with my one friend while watching a movie. The starts of all those movies are still fixed in my mind. But I couldn’t tell you what happened at the endings. I did not stop watching any of the movies. I didn’t drink so much that I ended up ‘partying till I puked’. Enough alcohol to just feel fine deeply affects my memory.

I’ve even used this knowledge over the past couple years. If I want time to proceed faster I simply have a six pack. Oh, it’s not blacking out if you were wondering, I just easily forget more ordinary things. I forget say 3 out of 4 things, so when I look back it’s like a quarter of the time has passed. But 4/4ths of time has actually passed.

It’s almost a time travel thing – an ignorant time travel. Or a fast forward button. But one must use caution. You’re not banking that 3/4 of time. You are out and out losing it. So I suggest you don’t do this frequently.

We’ve all heard that alcohol affects every person differently. But a large percentage of drinkers become alcoholics. And I have thought before that if everyone went through a large enough period of binging on alcohol, they might all become alcoholics. So although the memory losses I talk about may be larger than your memory losses, I would not be surprised if everyone is affected this way. Indeed I’m assuming for the rest of this piece that it does.

Back to Vegas. Of course the casinos ply you with alcohol because they’ve done studies that have concluded they make more money from gambling when their patrons are drinking. Indeed they make so much more money that they can ply every single person in their establishment with alcohol and still end up gaining more money than they lose in alcohol costs.

There is another reason to give out free alcohol. If you forget 3/4 of the stuff that happened to you that day and the rest contains the more interesting highlights, Vegas is going to seem like a land of all highlights. That will never hurt tourism.

But now that Vegas has their iconic slogan they have one more reason to give away alcohol. 3/4 of everything that happens will not leave Vegas. And the alcoholics and those on a bender will have almost 100% memory problems.

So a lot of things will never leave Vegas primarily because alcohol is the enforcer that helps you to forget. Just take my advice if you see a show – don’t get drunk off the free alcohol in the casinos first. See that show and gain a memory first. Then and only then, go to the casinos to get looped to hopefully forget that this place is in a horrible, horrible desert.

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Predator Versus …

predatorversusA predator sitting up in bed and sweating with fear says “I couldn’t see anything! I just felt that breath on my skin and I’d run again! Then it let out that blood curdling ‘Oink, oink!'”

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Garbage Out

While the news agencies are actually behaving themselves the rest of the year by doing actual reporting, this blog (which adds twists to that news much of the time) is productive. But during boxing week when the news consists of end of the year lists this site holds its own end of the year list which we are proud to do again.

Remember Garbage In leads to Garbage Out. And that’s the only excuse I need.

In January we investigated the ‘science’ behind blue bloods and inbreeding.

In March I suggested a cursive code that could be used by adults if children stop learning how to write in cursive. I didn’t come to this suggestion blindly. More than one academic setting has suggested dropping cursive so the children can learn other things.

In May we discovered that cats are conservative and it was also self evident that dogs were socialist. Who knew our pets had these hidden agendas?

July is a month that is so warm it is suggested people wear white. But you can’t wear white all the time or you might create a bridezilla.

September saw the post ) @ ^^ ^, I’m Good utilize symbols to spell swear words.

And finally November saw me suggest that with inflation and getting rid of currency that is too small will eventually lead to it being impossible to pay $666 for something. Or being paid $666. ) @ ^^ ^! Now I want to hire a fundamentalist Christian and pay them that exact amount. While I still can.

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Eleventh Hour Evidence – and Santa

The five high Arctic nations are currently trying to divvy up the Arctic Ocean amongst themselves. These countries are Canada, Russia, the USA, Denmark (they own Greenland) and Norway.

Here is an article showing Denmark’s latest gambit to claim seabed beyond the North Pole. Some of the countries are making outrageous claims simply because the UN (or other empowering organization that will make the final decision) might side with their bid. So the greediness marches on.

But I bet that Canada’s attempt to annex the sea up to the North Pole or even further will get backed up by unorthodox methods. Canada will say that it has always laid claim to the North Pole. This truth will be presented at the eleventh hour of any meeting and will be ushered in by a crown corporation.

That’s right, Canada Post will bring in mailbag after mailbag of mail addressed to a certain Santa Claus based in the North Pole in Canada.

Denmark and Norway might try this gambit, too, but with fewer children in those less populated countries, the weight of the evidence will tip in Canada’s favour.

The more populated United States might try to dramatically produce more mailbags than Canada addressed to Santa Claus at the North Pole in Alaska.

Under cross examination by the Canadian lawyers it will come out that there are two North Poles. One at the top of the earth and the other which has a couple thousand people as a suburbof Fairbanks, Alaska. Canada will magnanimously allow the United States continuing ownership of the Fairbanks North Pole.

Russia will try a different gambit. They will say that Father Frost(who is thin!) is said to live at the North Pole, too. He gives out presents to good kids in the new year. Shoudn’t the belief in him by way more children in Russia grant that country title to the North Pole?

But Canada’s star lawyer will note that other Russian folklore says that Father Frost simply lives in the northern town of Veliky Ustyug.

So the die will be struck. Canada will have the best claim on the actual North Pole. If Canada wins this part of the world, generations of Santa Claus letters will have done some unintended magic for Canada.

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Parkway

parkway1st Panel: What politicians probably mean by calling expressways parkways…  Shown: lone car driving quickly through nature.

2nd Panel: What regular users think parkway means… Shown: backed up expressway with lots of honking and one thought balloon going to one car that says, “Miles and miles and miles of free parking! The only trouble is getting in or out!”

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Parody of The Trees

Rush has written some great songs over the years. The Trees starts out with good musical parts. Indeed the music stays good right to the end. And the cutesy idea of using the forest for its lessons is quite enamouring. It’s too bad that I just simply hate the message espoused by this song.

My two points are that I don’t like the anti union stance of the song nor the anti equality position. So I’ve taken the liberty of rewriting the lyrics of this song, set to the same music. They are as follows:

Lightning Rods

There is unrest in the forest,
There is trouble with the trees,
For the oaks don’t want to be
Fragile lightning rods.

The trouble with the oaks,
(And they’re quite convinced they’re right).
They say that they are just too lofty
And get the lightning strikes.
But the maples can’t help their feelings
If they like the way they’re made
And they wonder why the oaks
Can’t be happy at their height.

There is trouble in the forest,
And the creatures all have fled,
As the oaks scream “Oppression!”
And the maples shake their heads.

So the oaks formed a country club
And demanded equal heights,
The maples are just too cautious
We will make them become our height,
Now there’s no more tree oppression
For they passed a noble law,
And the oaks are all kept smaller
By hatchet, axe and saw.

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Cash – The Form of Currency for the Christian Pure

If there is any doubt that Canada’s Conservative Party has an implied pact with the conservative Christian movement, remove that doubt. Due to the actions of the Conservative Party it is now impossible to have the sum of $6.66 in cash.

Conservative Party ideology does not stop there. They are pro inflation and pro getting rid of onerous currency. Eventually the $5 coin will be the smallest unit of cash. As such having $666 will eventually be impossible to have as well.

As far as today goes people can have $666 in cash. But those who drag around such a large sum in their wallets are generally considered to be well off and in some religious circles that might mean being of questionable morals.

But wait, every electronic instance of our currency still carries along the penny and that makes having $6.66 possible in your bank account, on a credit or debit card or on a company gift card.

But just how many people have claimed the bank has questionable morals? Some might even find that establishment evil.

And the immorality of credit card debt is plainly obvious. The rewards offered for using the card are plainly temptations offered by the devil. They wouldn’t offer rewards if it didn’t mean more profits for them off of the public’s back.

As for those company gift cards, not only does the company get the gift paid for by some customer, those in charge of such programs also know that the public can’t stand to have a balance left on the card. Thus the company gets the extra that the gift receiver spends. Company gift cards are obviously sinful.

There you have it, conservative Christians, you now know the one true form of currency is cash. And you will never spend $6.66 again while using it. But you may still have to be nimble, mathematically, not to end up with $666 or spending that amount.

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Canada Stats: A New Ratio

Most Canadians have heard the following fact about living in Canada. 90 % of Canada’s Population lies within 200 miles of the American border. When your country stretches for thousands of miles further north, this is a significant statistic.

I wish to go further than that today. I would like to say the larger the southern border with the US of each region, the more population is in that region.

There is one obvious disagreement with this rule and it is in the prairie provinces. Alberta has the smallest southern border with the US of all the prairie provinces. This despite the fact that is about 3 times more populous than both Saskatchewan and Manitoba. I think that the difference is largely due to oil wealth in Alberta that allows this province not to have a sales tax. (They may claim it’s because they have no rats but they’re forgetting the right honourable kind.) I’ve avoided this problem by considering the prairie provinces to be 1 region.

I have also made the Atlantic provinces into 1 region. You see it is true that only New Brunswick of these provinces shares a border with the US. So I’ve united these four provinces into one as well.

Then we get, from most populous area to least populous area, the population usually agrees with the southern border with the US. So I’ll list the province first, the population second, the length of border in miles third, and then the population over the length of border (our new ratio). We get:

Ontario, 13 472 400, 1 715, 7856
Quebec, 8 028 400, 505, 15 898
Prairies, 6 180 700, 887, 6968
British Columbia, 4 606 500, 561, 8211
Atlantic Canada, 2 355 800, 318, 7408

Shown like this, Quebec is the only outlier in the statistics. We get about 7500 Canadians per mile of southern US border in all the other Canadian areas.

So why is Quebec such an outlier? Well it may just be that they were settled before any other part of Canada and kept that head start. It might also be that the 1st colony in Quebec began in 1608. The first Thirteen Colonies (which became the US) settlement occurred in 1609. So Quebec or New France was there before there was even an American border to huddle up against.

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Peekaboo

A year or two ago I tried playing peekaboo with my cat to some success.

Sometimes she comes up to my bed while I’m lying down and I can see the tips of her ears over the line of the bed. So a few times I pushed my head up to lock eyes and said “Peekaboo,”. Then I pulled my head down so I couldn’t even see the tips of her ears. And then I repeated those actions as the game demanded.

My cat just looked at me but seemed sort of entertained. In my mind back then I had been successful at teaching my cat to play peekaboo. What was my cat going to do to prove she understood the game? Was she going to say “Peekaboo,” back to me?

So the other day the cat came up to my bed so the tips of her ears were showing. I started the game again. I pushed my head up, locked eyes with her, and said “Peekaboo.” Then I pulled my head down for a moment. Then I repeated. The third time I put my head up, I couldn’t lock eyes with her. Doubting her cat’s brain I pushed my head even further up. I saw her butt and tail over the line of the bed.

She hadn’t run away. She had lowered her head so I couldn’t see it to do the “Peekaboo.” So I asked “Where’s my kitty?” I lowered my head and shut up. Then I raised it again and asked, “Where’s my kitty?” as she was still lowered to the ground. I did this a few more times. She wouldn’t raise her head again.

I think that cat brain of hers thinks she has improved the game. “See,” she’s saying, “when I hide I stay hidden. Unlike you foolish human.”

Still I think I can eventually get her to see things my way. And maybe I can even pull off that ultimate success. That’s when she says “Meow,” at just the right time while she’s doing it.

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The Golden Age of Moths

“Like a moth to a flame” is a common phrase. But what does it refer too? It references the dance of death where a moth will see a flame and be attracted to it. It doesn’t stop there. The moth flits closer and closer to the erratic flame until it either is singed or burns completely.

Thank Mothra for the electric light! Modern humans light things up with electric light. If this were not the case we would likely have rows of tiki torches instead of electric moon rays. How many moths are saved by the electric light? It is such a large number that it is practically incalculable. In this way, modern civilization is good to the moth.

But wait, nature produced fire long before humans. It comes in the form of forest fires and grass fires generally ignited by lightning strikes. Man has things of his own to protect from such fires, now. So he fights these fires, be they in the northern forests of Canada or the more open fires near the California coast. This produces fewer fires or at least smaller ones for the moth to die in.

This truly is the age of the moth. Except maybe for moth balls. But those seem to be used less frequently.

What will moths do with their better lives? Perhaps they will teach their young about the horrors of the past. And the legend of Mothra. Maybe they will grow a powerful civilization. Only time will tell for sure.

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