Bitch slap to the Conservatives? (Updated)

Update: Parliament Prorogued. The Governor General has allowed a stay of political execution for the Conservatives by recessing Parliament until January. Fun times.

Simpsons references for Moms #3

"Me fail English? That's unpossible."

Usage: 1) Following being called on a grammatical, pronounciation, or similar verbal or written error. 2) Ironically, as a self-effacing comical statement conveying recognition of the English error and a foreknowledge of it's incorrectness.

Variations that make the quote indecipherable to people who don't get it: replace "English" with any other subject.

Reference to: Season 6 Episode 8 ("Lisa On Ice"). In the beginning of the episode an assembly is held in order to give out "academic alerts" to children with poor grades. Ralph is called up and he says "I won! I won!". Skinner replies "No, Ralph you're failing English." And Ralph says, "Me fail English? That's unpossible."

Other common quotes:
"Don't make me run, I'm full of chocolate!"
"He tripped my boy! I demand vengeance! I want vengeance!"
"Rip off!" "We paid for blood!" "Let's tear this place apart!"
"They're going to take my thumbs!"
"Hack the bone!"
"It's a lucky coincidence you happen to be your sister's brother."
"Maybe I will, Milhouse. Maybe I will."
"All right, pie, I'm just going to do this.[chomps air] And if you get eaten, it's your own fault!"

That's a spicy meatball!

Police dash cam of Meteor over Edmonton (Nov.20):

Did you know?
Meteors often burn up in the atmosphere, but if they survive the frictional heating and strike the Earth, they are called meteorites. The general feeling is that this meteor, since it was so big (like 10 tons) and relatively slow moving, could have been surviving meteorite fragments scattered across an 8x3km area in the Manitou Lake RM. A bounty of up to $10 a gram has been issued (but since much of the target area is cultivated fields those meteorite fragments will probably be the property of some lucky farmer).

But I'm le tired!

The end of ze world. For LP :)

p.s. Ahhhh Motherland!

Simpsons references for Moms #2

"All pancakes aside"

Usage: to change the subject from a digression (esp. from distractions, something enjoyable, etc.) back to a pressing issue or concern.

Reference to: Season 16 Episode 21, "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Guest Star", in which Bart is expelled from Springfield Elementary and must be enrolled in St. Jerome's Catholic School. Marge becomes concerned when Bart, inspired by Father Sean (played by Liam Neesen), becomes interested in Catholocism. Marge sends Homer to confront Father Sean who then lures Homer to the religion over pancake dinner and bingo.

Other good quotes from this episode:
Father Sean: [recalling what St. Peter said to him] "Sean, you wanker, repent of your sins or sod off!" (And then he gobbed in my eye and turned back into a lamp post).

Trivia: The initial plotline (Bart gets expelled/sent to another school) has been used more than once. In season 4 episode 20, "Whacking Day", he gets enrolled in a fundamentalist christian school and then must be home schooled. In season 8 episode 25, "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson", he gets sent to military school.

p.s. You may remember this reference from this post.

Why actors would make good spies...

Maybe Team America wasn't so far off the mark?

The far reaching effects of copyright law

Then: Monsanto patents genetically modified canola, engages in legal battle with a Saskatchewan farmer.

Now: Monsanto has been ordered to take full repsonsibility for recent contamination of same Saskatchewan farmer's fields by same patented genetically modified canola.


And now a completely untrue reenactment of the events:

Farmer to Monsanto: I don't know where those seeds came from, they must have blown in from somewhere! Like seeds do!
Monsanto to Farmer: You lie! See you in court!
Farmer to court: It was an accident! Also, you can't patent a plant! It's a higher life form! Jerks!
Courts to Monsanto: He's right you can't patent a plant, but it's cool because you can patent a gene and a process to insert said gene.
Courts to Farmer: Pay up Thiefy McGee!
Farmer to Courts/Monsanto: Oh no you di'in't!
Supreme Courts to Farmer: OK you don't have to pay legal costs but you can't keep the seeds or the crops.
Farmer: Fine! Whatever!
Some years pass...
Farmer to Monsanto: Hey! Get your seeds off my lawn!
Monsanto to Farmer: Shove it!
Farmer to Monsanto: You shove it!
Court to Monsanto: Shove it!
Monsanto: Fine! Whatever!
Regular canola to Monsanto: "You're not the boss of me! Jerks!".

In other partly true news (see if you can guess which one is mostly true):

Egypt to copyright pyramids.
Take that British Museum!

God to take action on illegal bible distribution by Gideons.
God to smite Gideons: "They will face prosecution, court orders to pulp any versions breaching copyright law, and their lands shall be ravaged by locusts and famine for seven years."

Poland to copyright Copernicus' visage as determined from newly discovered remains.
Says representative "We're thinking of using him in advertising. He'll be bigger than Orville Redenbacher". Poland's claims are challenged by the Flat Earth Society who wish to use his image to make a posthumous retraction of his "Earth is not the centre of the universe thing".

Simpsons to copyright use of the word "Meh" in casual conversation.
I said "Meh".

Simpsons references for Moms #1

And now, by popular demand, a new series called: common Simpsons references that you probably have heard but don't know the context of for Moms! In our first installment:

"Turn it up!"

Usage:
1) as a direct reference, when you see the THX sound check;

2) generally, when something (esp. TV, movie, etc.) is too quiet

3) more specifically, when something should be loud enough but one's hearing is impaired;

4) ironically, when something (esp. TV, movie, etc.) is too loud.

Reference to:
Season 5 Episode 18 ("Burns' Heir"). The family is at the movies and the THX ad plays, which cracks Moleman's glasses, shatters a guy's teeth, EXIT sign blows up, ceiling splits, a second man's head explodes, and everyone cheers. Grampa says, "Turn it up! Turn it up!!!"

p.s. You may remember this reference from this post.

Simpsons Movie and Spiderpig

You may remember the Simpsons movie from such posts as this one and this one. Well, turns out I liked it enough to actually purchase the DVD! The main menu is sweet, if you watch for a bit spider-pig swings across the screen. There are a few Easter Eggs as well (lingo for Moms: Easter Egg = hidden extra on a DVD):

1. Colin:
Main>>Special Features>>Deleted Scenes>>highlight "Deleted Scenes" (press UP arrow then ENTER)
2. Russ Cargill:
Main>>Special Features>>Special Stuff>>highlight "Special Stuff" (press UP arrow then ENTER)
3. Mutant Squirrel:
Main>>Special Features>>A Lot of Trailers>>highlight "A Lot of Trailers"( press UP arrow then ENTER)
4.Turn it up!
Main>>Language Selection>>highlight "Audio" (press UP and LEFT then ENTER)

p.s. Spiderpig a rip-off of Spider-Ham? You decide...










p.p.s. other super pigs include:

Redd Blood Cells

In 2002, Steven McDonald laid down bass music to the White Stripes' "White Blood Cells" album, called it "Redd Blood Cells", and released it for free download. Steven is a founding member of the group Redd Kross, which explains the CD name and why he released it through their website (here is the myspace for the group). You can still download "Dead Leaves and Dirty Ground" from there but, unfortunately, the archived mp3's are no longer available on the site so you have to get it through file sharing (or from me when I get it). Of course there were copyright issues but it so happened that Steven ran into Jack White, asked him for permission and got the go ahead to keep it up. So there ya go. I learned this in a presentation about copyright laws yesterday. Fun times, we also saw this video, which explained the Redd Blood Cells project and "Creative Commons" licensing. I also learned this about GoogleEarth which is good because I have some images from it in my thesis.
p.s. You may remember the White Stripes from previous concert posts or from Updog&Indy.
p.p.s. Let's all learn about red blood cells from the neat website HowStuffWorks...learning is fun!

"Iraq War Ends" - New York Times

Sweet prank carried out by The Yes Men (The Yes Men website here). A fake edition of the New York Times announcing, among other things, the end of the Iraq War. Called a "special edition", they made up a whole 14-page paper and they even created an imitation New York Times webpage for it (note the real NYT website is here. Amazing resemblance!). They handed out 1000's of copies on Wednesday (although they postdated it July 4, 2009) in honour of the new President elect and burgeoning hope.

p.s. In other fake news: Stephen Colbert wins U.S. federal election...Only to have it snatched away...

For little cp who is sicky

and cute too (comic from Strange Brew).

Also, here is the walk off scene from Zoolander in Spanish just for you:

Chickens! Concert Series #26: Kingdon of Sorrow and GWAR

Yes, I finally broke down and went to see GWAR out of curiosity. Their current tour is known as "electile dysfunction" 2008 (which explains the majority of the stage show), and had openers Toxic Holocaust (their music was blah but their hair was pretty big) and Kingdom of Sorrow.

Kingdom of Sorrow includes the lead singer from Hatebreed (Jamie Jasta) and Kirk Windstein from Crowbar. The band was formed in 2005 and completed their first album, Kingdom of Sorrow which was released this year. Jasta is always high energy (you may remember him from this post), and I think K of S was definitely the highlight of the show.

Now, I am glad I went because I think you should try anything once and I was curious to see what GWAR was all about. The music was kind of incidental, I wasn't really paying attention to it and most of the songs sound pretty much the same anyway (at least they do when you aren't familiar with them). The stage show was interesting, kind of like a bloody, sadistic version of Power Rangers (think about!).

Apparently, the band says that "Gwar" doesn't actually stand for anything and is actually an abbreviated version of "GWAARGGGH!!!", which was their former name. So there ya go. The GWAR mythos is basically that they are immortal space warriors that were exiled to earth by a ceator called the Master. The gave rise to the human race, mayhem ensued, when the Master found out they ended up being frozen in Antarctica. They were subsequently awoken by a combination of pollution related ozone holes and their manager Sleazy P. Martini's shiny suit (he had been on the run from drug dealing charges at the time).

Everyone in the band performs under costumed aliases, which makes it a lot easier for them to switch characters/members without anyone really noticing, in fact the lead singer "Oderus Urungus" aka Dave Brockie has been the only constant since the band started in 1985. The current drummer character "Jizmak Da Gusha" who started in 1989 is the only other main GWAR musician character to be played by only one person (Brad Roberts). The previous drummer character was called Nippleus Erectus (he had been played by two different drummers), but he bathed in a pool of hydrochloric acid and dissolved. The other main characters include "Balsac the Jaws of Death" (guitar, currently played by Mike Derks), "Flattus Maximus" (guitar, currently played by Cory Smoot), and "Beefcake the Mighty" (bass, currently played by Casey Orr). Extra points if you can figure out who is who in the picture. Other than Oderus the other band members don't participate in the on stage action very much. The non-musical stage show was mostly played out by the auxiliary characters: Bone Snapper, Bozo Destructo (also Sleazy P. Martini aka Don Drakulich) and Sawborg Destructo (also Mattron/MX2 the Slave aka Matt Maguire), and a second slave that I don't know about.

The show started with a count down to death on a projector screen and then a video of Sleazy P. Martini's (top of the poster to the left) bid for president. During the show the death toll was 10 (plus a disembodied head that they beat McCain with and a dead dog thing that they sprayed the crowd with). They started by killing an annoying talk show personality (Steve Wilkos) and after that Oderus ate a baby and they shot the crowd with a big blood gun. Then the premise of the stage show began, which was an Intergalactic Wrestling Federation match. The first bout was "Bone Crusher" (green guy on the poster) vs. John McCain, the second was Oderus and Bone Crusher vs. Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama. Then Oderus and Bone Crusher had to fight some other monsters (Bozo and Sawborg, the middle 2 on the poster) who had stolen the wrestling belts they had won in the first two fights. Then Martini came out and sang Slaughterama where they killed a hippy, an artsy guy, and a Nazi skinhead.

And that's what happened. They played music throughout and between the sections of the stage show, they didn't move around very much (in their defence they are wearing a lot of costume) and, like I say, the music is incidental. Also, as D pointed out, the political schtick that they did would have been a lot more appropriate a few weeks/months ago, a pop culture reference or something would have been better. I don't know, I'm left with the feeling that it should have been more disturbing than it was. There did seem to be a lot of people who were pretty happy to have water and red food colouring sprayed on them. Probably because the violence and characters are so cartoonish and silly, and since it's so obvious that no one is actually being hurt, it's like Punch and Judy or comedic satirical theatre (like Italian commedia dell'arte), but really, really loud. It's funny because it's cheesy satire, but not everyone likes stuff like Grindhouse either.

Chickens! Concert Series #25: Trans Siberian Orchestra

What a spectacular concert and amazing stage show! The concert started a little late due to some technical difficulties, it apparently takes something crazy like 15hours to set up the stage. Also, they had to fog up the area so the lasers would show up. The stage was set up with large screens on either side that showed light displays and a large mobile rigging above with spot lights and lasers, and behind the performers area of the stage were the fireworks and fire shooters. And it was only $20! What's not to like?

For those of you who aren't familiar, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra is a New York based operation that was formed in 1996 by Paul O'Neill and his long time friends Robert Kinkel and Jon Oliva who are the groups core composers. They named it after the Trans-Siberian Railroad, because they say it draws people and countries together, which is what they wanted to do with their music. The band draws heavily from classical music and incorporates elements of progressive rock, symphonic and heavy metal. The orchestral format allows them the freedom to create music without the restrictions of having few band members with specific ranges. Here's their official webpage, here's their myspace, and here's their wiki.

As is TSO tradition (apparently) the show was broken into two halves. The first half was basically their concept album "Christmas eve and other stories" (which my Mom has on CD). Lovely Christmas-y fare. Among this they played one of their two most famous songs "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24", which is an instrumental medley of Carol of the Bells and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. During the first song people were lowered down on platforms on either side of the stage and then they ran around playing their guitars/violins. And when the played "First Snow" the released snow from the ceiling, which sparkled nicely under the lasers. I also really like the metal inspired version of Nutcracker (Mad Russian's Christmas).

These are the songs for the first half, interspersed with rambling narration:
NED/March of the Kings
An Angel Came Down
Oh Come Holy Night
Prince of Peace
First Snow
A Mad Russian's Christmas
Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)
Good King Joy
Ornament
Old City Bar
Promises to keep
This Christmas Day
An Angel Returned

Then there were introductions and the second half of the show, which included a grab bag of goodies and favorites like O Fortuna from Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" and Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee". Then the keyboardists were highlighted in a piano duel that included some jazzy improv stuff, Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" and Vince Guaraldi's "Christmas Time Is Here" and "Linus and Lucy" and then everyone played Franz Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody". They also played "Queen of the Winter Night", a take on Mozart's opera The Magic Flute (specifically, the "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen" aria). The vocalist sang it mostly while standing out in the centre of the area floor where they had a second little mini-stage. The little stage was also used when a violinist and guitarist went out there and were elevated up to the ceiling while sprays of vapour shot down underneath. That area also shot fire sometimes. In the second half they also played what is probably their most famous song "Wizards in Winter". You may remember it from that viral video of the house with the Christmas lights display set to it (or the Miller Light commercial).

Here's the set list for the second half after introductions:
Wizards in Winter
Queen of the Winter Night
Prelude to Madness
Believe
Last Illusion/9th
Siberian Sleigh Ride
Tracers>Mozart
Christmas Canon
Orff's Carmina Burana (O fortuna)
Keyboard Dual-Wish Liszt
Requiem/12-24 Encore

The Trans-Siberian Orchestra has split up to run two concurrent tours allowing them to hit 90 cities in 2 months (and like 140 shows!). Though they introduced everyone I don't remember who everyone was and it's not easy to figure who was who so we'll just have to go with the ones I remember and have been able to gather were there. Al Pitrelli played guitar, he had recently mangled himself and had to sit down throughut the concert. Tommy Farese did vocals and introduced everyone (who's old buddies with Al). D totally called him being Italian. Tommy's wife Jane Mangini and Derek Wieland (I think?) and played keyboards. Jane Mangini and Al Pitrelli also have a band called O'2L (a mix of various eclectic styles, kind of jazzy stuff). Andrew Ross sings the Angel songs at the beginning and end of the Christmas half (they made fun of him for looking like Fabio, he and one of the vocalists did a pose, I laughed). They had some local strings playing with them too, which was nice. Bart Shatto came out dressed as a transient and sang "Old City Bar". That's all I know about that, I'm going to have to start writing things down when I go to stuff like this.

p.s. Cameras were restricted at the show so I haven't been able to find footage of our show but there some for the Winnipeg (the opening song and some other clips) and PA shows and a clip from O fortuna. Well you get the idea. Here's the advertisement for ours:

p.p.s. Here's a review of the sister show happening on the same day in Pennsylvannia (where I got the set list from). The set list and structure of our show was the same but with different people, which will have an effect on the show of course, but the gist is the same. There's also some more reviews on there now.

p.p.p.s. Oh! And to cap it off we found out that Obama won after the concert! Good times!

Indecision 2008

The Indecision 2008 website features "articles" and the Indecision TV special with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. The videos are available here in Canada at ComedyCentral's Indecision2008 website (its got similar stuff but is less shiny).

For interest and amusement's sake here is a Indecision clip from the past:

p.s.Because it's hilarious and the above clip reminded me of it:

US election results

The world watches with baited breath. Sad that many Canadians would have sacrificed their vote in our election for a chance to vote in the US election. Maybe if our voting system was more representative instead of first past the post...but I digress (Support electoral reform! Check out Fair Vote Canada!). At least no one in our election was really worried about it being rigged or that their vote would be randomly rejected. The fact that this is a serious concern (serious enough to be spoofed on Simpsons!) in a place like the US and that they haven't managed to think up a way to deal with it is horrible!

Politics is better with the Simpsons:


p.s.MSNBC has widgets like this one that you can automatically get imported to your blog in a post. Neat.

Post-election Update: WooHoo!

Treehouse of Horror Facts

The first Halloween Simpsons special was in the second season (1990) and was called "Treehouse of Horror" and featured Bart and Lisa (and Maggie) telling stories in Bart's treehouse.
The first story parodies the Amityville Horror, the second parodies the famous Twilight zone episode "To Serve Man" and features the very first appearance of Kang and Kodos, and lastly is the ever popular James Earl Jones reading "The Raven" (omitting stanzas 5 and 8 through 16). Good times.

So this yearly custom became an annual tradition and every Halloween special since has been named after the first Treehouse of Horror. The first 5 featured warnings in the opening segment as well as a fly through cemetery with amusing tombstones (TofH V had a tombstone that said "amusing tombstones"), which was subsequently ditched for other forms of opening clips.

The Halloween episodes usually have special "scary names" credits (inspired by EC Comics, which would do this sometimes). These were dropped in XII and XIII because they were too hard, but everyone complained so they brought them back. Also, TofH II through X had Halloween-y couch gags, in season 11 they broke that run by doing a Munsters opening parody.

All the Halloween episodes have 3 separate stories. The first four also had overarching settings: treehouse stories, candy induced nightmares, Halloween party stories, and scary paintings (a spoof of Night Gallery, which aired in the early 70s, by the same guy who did Twilight Zone). But these were dropped because they ate up too much time. Most of the stories are parodies (of scary movies, TV shows, books, etc.) and, besides movies in general (everything from The Shining to Harry Potter), the single most commonly parodied source is "Twilight Zone" with at least 8 parody segments to date ("To Serve Man", "A Small Talent for War","Living Doll", "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet","Little Girl Lost", and "The Little People", "It's a Good Life", and "A Kind of a Stopwatch"). FYI: They parody Twilight Zone in regular episodes too ("Bart's Comet" is a parody of "The Shelter", "Strong Arms of the Ma" spoofs "Time Enough at Last", etc.) .


p.s. The new Halloween episode, Treehouse of Horror XIX, airs tomorrow (continuing FOX's schedule of airing Halloween episodes in November because of their contract with the World Series). A segment of the episode (with Spanish subtitles) has been leaked, which features Homer running afoul of a rigged voting machine. Mayhem ensues.